June 28, 2019

By Tim Briese

6.2 miles, 1200’ elevation gain, 4:30 roundtrip time

I drove up CR 5 toward Weston Pass on a beautiful sunny morning. A prodigious snowpack still buried the high peaks but I thought I could probably climb South Peak without too much difficulty. The road was blocked by a bank of snow a couple of hundred yards east of the pass so I parked there and took off on foot up to the pass at about 8 am.

a nice view of buffalo peaks from the weston pass road

snow blocking the road.  weston pass is at the upper right

From the pass I headed southwest up an easy tundra slope up toward Pt. 12505 on an old double track.

pt 12505 is to the left, south peak is to the right

I met a guy coming down, a photographer, who told me there were a lot of elk ahead over the ridge which he had come up to photograph, saying, "they are always up there!" There was a lot of steep snow lying on the east side of South Peak’s south ridge which dissuaded me from attempting a short direct ascent. So I hiked on up to Pt 12505 and headed southwest to skirt way around most of the snow, aiming for an area to the left where the remaining snow, if any, would be much less steep to cross. I saw the massive herd of elk, at least a hundred in number, off to the west the photographer had told me about, and they headed up the snow slope when they saw me approaching.

lots of snow on the east side of south peak.  i headed around it to the far left, the summit is to the right.

some of the elk heading up the snow slope

From 12505 I descended about 100 feet to a minor saddle and continued up the tundra, sloshing through some boggy areas where snow had recently melted. Then I turned to the right and crossed a couple hundred yards of gently sloping snow and walked up South Peak’s easy south ridge to the summit.

south peak's easy south ridge.  the summit is toward the left.

the elk moved to safer territory on the west side of the ridge

I arrived on top about 10 am and sat and enjoyed the nice views for a while.

mt. elbert and mt. massive to the northwest across the arkansas river valley

twin lakes

view to the south, of the south ridge i hiked up, and the buffalo peaks to the left

I departed and retraced my steps back down the ridge and swung back toward 12505, contouring to the left below its summit. I considered heading on south a few miles to climb another ranked 12er but opted instead to call it a day partly in order to beat the Friday afternoon rush hour traffic going home. I got back to the trailhead about 1230 and found a guy pulling a jeep out of the snowbank on the road that its driver had attempted to drive through. The occupants of the jeep were novice four wheelers from New Orleans who had rented the jeep to go fourwheeling in Colorado. After being pulled out of the snow they talked enthusiastically about trying to four wheel up a dangerous side slope to the left up and around the snow, but I saw a disaster in the making and gently talked them out of it before I headed home.