August 22, 2025

By Tim Briese

"The Pulverizer", Pulver Mountain: 3.5 miles, 1800’ elevation gain, 4:45 roundtrip time

From US 24 just east of Wilkerson Pass Brian and I turned south onto CR 90 then took an immediate right onto FR 706 and followed it to its end and parked in a large grassy area.

we parked here to begin the hike. pulver lies beyond in the far background.

We hiked west up into the woods and contoured across a slope to avoid private property below and were greeted by copious deadfall which made for slow going. The deadfall did not relent until we reached some open slopes on the south face of the Pulverizer.

brian pausing on the slope up to the pulverizer to look over at pulver mountain

We reached the summit of the Pulverizer and took a welcome break while enjoying nice views.

a view of pulver mountain, at the left, from the summit of the pulverizer

eleven mile reservoir could be seen from the pulverizer

Then we hiked down the ridge to the south and made a steep descent to the Pulverizer/Pulver saddle and then hiked up the slope to Pulver, weaving our way through more deadfall.

brian on the summit of pulver

From the summit of Pulver we made a direct descent down toward our vehicles. On the lower slopes we came upon an area where forest thinning was taking place and took advantage of a faint trail the rest of the way down.

a sample of the deadfall we dealt with today.  this was in the area of the forest thinning.

These two peaks look pretty easy from the highway, but all the deadfall makes them a bit more challenging than they look.

UN 9384: 1.2 miles, 300’ elevation gain, 40 minutes roundtrip time

Thunderstorms were starting to build but there was time for this quick little add-on peak that was nearby. We got back on US 24 and went east a short distance and parked along an old forest road on the north side of the highway. We walked across the highway and headed southeast toward UN 9384 and in short order found its summit, located toward the south end of the summit ridge, and then hiked back.

brian on the summit of un 9384

As an aside, we stayed in Cripple Creek that night at the Hospitality House, an interesting old historical hospital, opened in 1901, that has been converted to a boutique lodging facility.