July 19, 2021

By Tim Briese

8.0 miles, 2100’ elevation gain, 7:00 roundtrip time  (From Hagerman Pass to Lyle Lake Trailhead)

Brian and I planned to drive over 11,925’ Hagerman Pass and truck camp at the Lyle Lake Trailhead below the west side of the pass, and leave a vehicle there in the morning for a shuttle and drive the other one back up to Hagerman Pass to begin a loop hike to climb these 12ers. That plan went awry though when we found the road up to the pass too rough for his Highlander so we camped instead at a spacious pull-off at the Colorado Midland Trailhead a ways below the east side of the pass. In the morning we drove my Tacoma up the rough 4WD road to the pass, covering the three miles in about 30 minutes.

sunrise from the hagerman pass road

a nice early morning view of mt. massive in the distance from the hagerman pass road

at the pass; divide benchmark is beyond at the right

We parked a short distance west of the pass and about 630 am took off across the tundra for the easy jaunt up to Divide Benchmark, which took a little less than half an hour.

we parked here and hiked to divide benchmark, at the right

brian on divide benchmark, with mt. massive in the distance behind him

From there we followed an easy ridge to the northwest about two miles to Lyle Benchmark, which took about an hour and a half.

lyle benchmark, in the center, from divide benchmark; we followed the ridge around to the left

a view of turquoise reservoir below to the east on our hike to lyle benchmark

It was sunny and calm today, a great day to be sauntering around above timberline, although skies were fairly hazy from wildfire smoke. From Lyle BM it was an easy hike down to a saddle and up to UN 12453, less than a mile away. We were sitting on its summit by 10 am.

view of un 12453 from lyle benchmark

Our final 12er, UN 12367, wasn’t far away either but was guarded by cliff bands which made it slightly more challenging to climb.

we eyed a route to un 12367, at the left, as we hiked over to un 12453, which is to the right off the photo

We found a steep gully up to the ridge of UN 12367 without much trouble and soon sat on our fourth 12er of the day.

brian on un 12367; lyle benchmark and mt. massive are beyond in the distance

view from un 12367 of homestake reservoir, at the left, and upper homestake lake, at the right

While sitting on the summit we were startled by a loud roar and looked over and saw a rockslide on a rocky slope not too far away.

dust from the rockslide is in the center of the photo

Rather than hike all the way back across the rocky tundra to hagerman pass we decided to drop down to the west to the Lyle Lake Trail and follow it back to the road. We hiked past the pretty lake and strolled through flowery meadows on our way down to the trailhead, meeting several other hikers going up to the lake.

lyle lake

flowers along the trail

It was nice to be back on the road but our truck up on Hagerman Pass was a long three and a half miles away and 1000 feet higher. But no problem, Brian flagged down some side-by-side ATV’s that were roaring up the hill toward us and the two friendly couples from Ohio riding in them kindly agreed to give us a ride up to the pass. As they dropped us off I offered to give Joe and Ann something for their trouble but they declined and said to just pass along a favor to somebody else, which Joe remarked would make the world a better place if everybody did that. How true. We arrived back at the truck about 2 pm, four-wheeled back down to Brian’s vehicle, and headed for Gunnison.