July 19, 2025

By Tim Briese

Dead Benchmark: 1.2 miles, 200’ elevation gain, 45 minutes roundtrip time

Brian and I had hopes of climbing 3 or 4 peaks today but sometime things just don’t work out as you hope. We drove north of Cotopaxi on CR 12 and followed a series of reasonable forest roads to a saddle just to the west of Dead Benchmark.

we parked here; dead benchmark is the hill at the left

We hiked east up into the trees to the very broad and flat summit area and wandered around for a while looking for the highest point. We found a rock pile under a log and were satisfied that that must be it and returned to our trucks.

the apparent highpoint

Brian later informed me that the true highpoint lay a little further to the east. Oh well, it was a nice little adventure anyway.

UN 10231: 1.1 miles, 400’ elevation gain, 50 minutes roundtrip time

We returned to CR 12 and continued north to the vicinity of UN 10231. This peak is on a piece of public land that is surrounded by private land with no public access to the peak. After driving up and down the road for a bit and seeing some no trespassing signs we decided to just stop at a ranch house and ask the owner for permission to cross his land to the peak and the friendly fellow immediately agreed. We drove up a hill and parked on a private road on his property and headed up the slope to the east through some aspens. 

we headed in this direction toward the hill at the top

In short order we found the summit.

another flat summit but there was no mistaking the highpoint on this one

After returning to our trucks we continued north on CR 12 with the intent of climbing Jack Hall Mountain, which is on BLM land, but were disappointed to find the access road across private land gated and marked no trespassing. We also took a look at climbing nearby Stoney Face Mountain but I was deterred by its steep and rough appearance, especially given that the afternoon was considerably spent. So much for climbing a bunch of peaks today. We called it a day and headed to Salida for ice cream instead.