MT. TWETO
(13,672')MT. ARKANSAS
(13,795')MOSQUITO PEAK
(13,781')July 29, 2007
By Tim Briese
I met Brian at 5:30 a.m. in Fairplay and we headed up the Mosquito Pass road in my truck. We left the main road at the point where it turns sharply to the left and begins to climb out of the valley, and we continued straight ahead on an old jeep road for about half a mile. When the road became uncomfortably rough at about 11,600 feet we parked and began the climb there.
It was good to be climbing with Brian again, for this was this was the first outing we had done together since last summer. We bushwhacked up the gentle valley, skirting around a few willows at first, then continuing northwestward on pleasant grassy slopes. We climbed to Tweto=s southwest ridge just to the right of a 13,200 foot saddle, then climbed a quarter of a mile up the ridge on talus to the summit. We arrived just after 8 a.m. It is always a wonderful experience to be on a high summit so early in the morning, when the early rays of the sun cast their golden light on the surrounding alpine grandeur.
Mt. Arkansas lay about a mile away to the northwest, and we studied the rough ridge and false summits that lay ahead before embarking. We dropped down Tweto=s sharp north ridge to a 13,200 foot saddle and proceeded to climb Arkansas= curving south ridge, skirting around one false summit and going directly over a second. As we were climbing the last few feet to Arkansas= summit over blocks of talus I dislodged a big boulder that was roughly four feet in diameter. Brian just managed to jump out of the way as it thundered past him on its way down the mountain. That scary incident reminded us how quickly unexpected dangers can arise in mountain climbing.
We sat on the summit of Arkansas for quite a while enjoying the fine views on this beautiful sunny morning. The Arkansas River Valley northeast of Leadville lay directly below to the west. Tweto and Arkansas were our only climbing objectives today, but as we sat on Arkansas gazing at Mosquito Peak two and a half miles away to the south, and noting the fine weather holding, we thought it would be fun to go after it, too, and promptly decided to do so.
We retraced our steps back to the Arkansas/Tweto saddle and traversed across Tweto=s west face on somewhat loose talus at about 13,300 feet rather than climbing back over its summit. Then we followed the very gentle ridge a mile southwest to the summit of unranked Treasurevault Mountain (13,701'). We stopped there briefly and inspected our approach to Mosquito Peak before descending to the Treasurevault/Mosquito saddle. The north slopes of Mosquito looked rather loose and uninviting so we climbed around to the west side of the peak and found a faint trail up through the talus that we took to the summit. It was quite a thrill to climb our third new Bicentennial peak today!
After lounging on the summit for a while we returned north to the saddle and then descended to the east into a pleasant grassy basin below the ridge. We bushwhacked crosscountry through the rolling tundra to the east in the general direction of the truck. Bushwhacking across this kind of terrain is a part of mountain climbing that I particularly enjoy. We were above 13,000 feet for well over six hours today, and above timberline virtually all day.
As we approached Cooney Lake we heard gunfire and saw some people who had four-wheeled there target shooting near the shore of the lake. We veered around to the right to give them a wide berth so as to avoid any stray bullets. Soon we reached the edge of the gentle tundra and then made a steep 500 foot descent into the Mosquito Creek Valley to the truck We got back at 3:15, completing this fine eight and a half mile loop hike in a little under nine hours.
