QUARTER PEAK
(13,674’)September 27, 2010
By Tim Briese
3.4 miles, 3100’ elevation gain, 5:50 roundtrip time
I left home at 4:30 a.m. and drove to Lake City and met Brian at the city park at 9:45. Beautiful and stable weather allowed for a late start on this short climb today. We headed southwest of town on the Cinnamon Pass Road and took a left fork up the Cottonwood Creek Valley. After we passed the Cataract Gulch Trailhead the road deteriorated to 4WD but it wasn’t too bad. We continued 2.7 miles up the road through intermittent stands of golden aspens until we reached a bullet-riddled old truck on the left side of the road that marked the start of our climb. We parked here at 10,600 feet and looked up at the steep route that awaited us up to the headwall at the top of Square Gulch.
At 11 a.m. we left the truck, made an easy crossing of low-running Cottonwood Creek on rocks and headed up through the woods along the right side of the tiny creek that flowed down Square Gulch. After a hundred yards or so we crossed over to the left side of the creek, pushed through some willows and found a faint but steep climbers trail that we followed sharply upward to the headwall at 11,600 feet. At this point we entered a broad and gentle upper valley. We passed through a few more willows and continued up the grassy valley to 11,900 feet. We could now see Quarter Peak high above to the left. Half Peak loomed impressively to the south at the head of the valley.
We left the valley and climbed steeply up toward Quarter, staying on grass up to an intermittent ridge at 12,400 feet, then on more grass up to 13,000 feet, then on scree and talus above that. We followed a line up around the left end of the gnarly-looking summit ridge, which worked very well. After a steep climb on talus we reached the peak’s northeast ridge at 13,550 feet. We turned right and followed the Class 2 ridge a surprisingly short distance, perhaps only 50 yards or so, to the rocky summit. We stepped on top at 2:15, after climbing 3100 vertical feet from the truck in only 1.7 miles!
We lounged around on the summit for 45 minutes enjoying the perfectly clear, calm, and warm conditions. The temperature was probably 65 or 70 degrees, and I could never remember such balmy conditions on a peak in late September! We soaked up the fine views of Half Peak, Handies, and other peaks in the remarkably clear air. We were only the 7th and 8th climbers to sign the register this year.
At 3 p.m. we left the top and began our descent. We could see the road where we were parked far below from the summit. The descent was fast and easy, on talus, scree, and grass. We found a little better trail in some places on the steep descent down Square Gulch, and arrived back at the truck at 4:50. The late afternoon sun afforded fine photo opportunities as we drove back down the road through the golden aspens. We drove into Lake City and stayed at the Silver Spur in anticipation of more climbing the next day.
