DYER MOUNTAIN
13,855 feet
September 16, 2003
By Tim Briese
Dyer is one of the easiest Centennial 13ers I have climbed. I didn’t even leave home on the day of the climb until 10:30 in the morning, which is the latest start I’ve ever made for a day-climb of a high peak. I drove to Fairplay and headed up Park County Road 14 to the Sacramento Creek Trailhead. There was a fine view of the peak up the valley from the trailhead. A recent stormy period had left a coat of snow that glistened on the mountain’s north-facing slopes.
At 1 p.m. I left the trailhead with my labs Allie and Jorie and began bushwhacking up the valley along Sacramento Creek. I chose to hike along the south side of the creek but quickly found myself engaged in boggy terrain in a broad, swampy meadow and found it necessary to seek out slightly higher terrain near the edge of the trees that fringed the meadow. After hiking a mile or so up the pleasant valley I ascended up through a rockier area into a broad upper valley above timberline. A stiff southwest wind blew briskly into my face. As I hiked along I was startled by a vicious barking noise behind me and turned to glimpse a large coyote a few hundred yards behind. I studied the furry gray animal with my binoculars while he walked slowly across the route where my dogs and I had been a few minutes before. He looked intently in our direction as he wildly barked. Perhaps he was irritated because we were intruding upon his range.
The mountain loomed closer and I previewed my route up its slopes. Roach’s directions suggest an ascent to the Gemini/Dyer saddle followed by a climb up Dyer’s east ridge, but that route appeared to harbor too much snow to suit me. I chose instead to bushwhack directly up Dyer’s northeast slopes almost directly to the summit, picking a line that avoided most of the snow. I climbed up talus beneath a large powerline that ran across the slopes. The wind whistled noisily through its wires. This manmade structure seemed very much out of place in this otherwise pristine alpine environment. I’m glad that such intrusions are rare in the Colorado mountains.
I rapidly climbed up the slope and reached Dyer’s east ridge at about 13,700 feet, just a short distance below the summit. The wind was really whipping across the crest of the ridge, but I had endured worse on other climbs. I quickly climbed up the last few feet to the summit and stepped on top at 3:35.
I was greeted by fine views all around, with Leadville and the Sawatch Range to the west, the Mosquito Range to the north, and Gemini Peak and Mt. Sherman to the southeast. It was about 40 degrees on top but the wind made it seem much chillier. Allie lay down and curled into a ball to protect herself from the wind. Surprisingly, my friend Brian was the last to sign the register, on August 21st, but footprints in the snow told me that other visitors had been here more recently.
After a splendid half hour on the summit I left and began my descent. Going down was fast and easy, and I was soon back down in the upper end of the gentle Sacramento Creek Valley. It was great fun bushwhacking down this pleasant high valley. I elected to return along the north side of the drainage for a change of scenery, and found the going generally a little easier than what I had encountered on the way up. I found game trails to assist my passage through broad stands of willows, and descended easy grassy slopes in many places where they were available. Down in the lower valley I found a faint trail to follow along the edge of the woods at the north side of the meadow.
I tramped back to the trailhead at 5:35, completing the climb in about four and a half hours. I estimated that I hiked a little over six miles and climbed 2600 feet of gain on this route. It was a pleasant and enjoyable bushwhack up a scenic high valley to a nice summit.
