BEAR PEAK (8461’)

SOUTH BOULDER PEAK (8549’)

By Tim Briese

March 17, 2018

9.4 miles, 3300’ elevation gain, 7:40 roundtrip time

south boulder peak, left center, and bear peak, right center, are prominent peaks on the front range south of boulder

My daughter Emily and I started this hike at the South Mesa Trailhead along the Eldorado Springs Road south of Boulder on a nice sunny March day.

emily at the trailhead

We took off at 950 am and started hiking up the easy Homestead Trail in the Boulder Mountain Park. There is a wonderful array of trails in the Boulder area to accommodate the extensive outdoor interests of the local citizenry. We saw numerous other hikers and climbers today, mostly younger, some of them runners, a great many with dogs, and generally incredibly fit. Such is the typical profile of many a Boulder county resident, I suppose. Emily had her Boston Terrier mix, Maggie, along today, a companion on many a hike we have done over the years. In spite of her advancing age Maggie held up very well today. After a while we negotiated a couple of tricky areas of sloping ice in shady spots on the trail and then began a stiff hike up the Shadow Canyon Trail. This steep and rocky trail gains about 1700 feet in 1.4 miles with a bit of minor scrambling along the way.

on the trail up shadow canyon

Part way up this trail we hiked past the impressive Devils Thumb.

devils thumb

We eventually reached the 8200 foot saddle between Bear and South Boulder Peaks and turned right on the trail to Bear. The area around the saddle has a forest of dead ghost trees from a forest fire many years ago.

on the trail just before we reached the saddle

on the trail up to bear

We hiked up the rocky trail to a spot just northeast of Bear’s summit. There was a trail junction here where the Fern Canyon Trail came up from the northeast, another approach to Bear that is reportedly shorter but steeper than the way we came up. There were a lot of other climbers on the sharp Class 3 ridge the last 75 feet up to the summit, and we had to wait our turn briefly.

the ridge up to the summit

We stepped on top about 130 pm. The views from the top were quite impressive, with Boulder 3000 feet below and the Indian Peaks off to the west.

looking back down the summit ridge, with boulder below in the distance

the indian peaks off to the west

Then we hiked back down to the saddle and followed the trail up to South Boulder Peak.

going back down the trail from bear, with south boulder ahead

at the saddle with south boulder above

emily on the trail up to south boulder

There were far fewer climbers doing this peak. The summit of South Boulder consists of a large array of, well, boulders, as one might expect I suppose. It took a fun Class 3 scramble to climb to the highest point.

the scramble to the summit of south boulder

We arrived there at 230. The views of the wilderness off to the west were inspiring.

another fellow on the summit enjoying the view, with a tired traveler on his back

the view back to bear peak from south boulder

a view to the south down the front range

We returned to the saddle and headed back down the Shadow Canyon Trail, which was a little challenging given our tiredness at this point.

going back down shadow canyon

It seemed like a long haul back to the trailhead but we eventually got there at 530. This was a great climb and a wonderful time together with Emily.