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| Horseshoe Mountain |
With school ramping up in a couple of weeks I wanted to get
out on a last camping trip for the summer.
I have long wanted to hike Horseshoe Mountain. This mountain has an easy class 1 trail that
is within a couple hours of Denver.
Craig found us a nice camp site at the Four Mile CG which is just down
the road from the Horseshoe TH. We met
up with Craig around 7am, set up our tent and were on our way to the TH.
The TH for this hike can have many different meanings. It all depends on how far you are willing to
drive your vehicle. We saw a few
vehicles that drove to the saddle separating Horseshoe and Peerless Mountains
(13,200ft), but that kind of defeats the purpose of what we are all doing out
here. I chose to start at the 4WD TH
described on the 13ers.com description.
Basic directions are to head to Fairplay along HWY 285. Drive south through town making a turn right
onto CR18. There is a sign directing you
towards Four Mile Creek Rd. Follow this
for 8 miles to Four Mile CG. About two
miles up the road from the CG is the Leavick site. There is plenty of parking just past the old mining
structure for low clearance vehicles.
Those with capable vehicles can drive an additional .75 miles up the
road turning left onto a more rocky road.
Drive about .5 mile up this road to the TH used in this trip
report. As I mentioned 4WD vehicles can
make it much further up the road and there are plenty of spots to park, it just
depends on how much hiking you want to do.
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| Nick and Craig on the Ridge |
We arrived at the TH around 8am and were soon started hiking
up the road. The road is easy walking
and soon I found out that we could have driven up further than we did. That was o.k. with me because I was up for a
good hike today. A mixture of old mining
roads weave all around the side of the mountain, so basically just pick the
road that has the right grade for you.
This could have been done in a more direct fashion as well, but I think
our group was happy with adding some extra miles to ease the hike up.
Alongside the road there are remnants of past mining. Some of it was interesting, but most of it
looked like trash that wasn’t too incredibly old. Checking out the old equipment does help
take your mind off the exhaustion though.
The switchbacks weren’t that bad; about an hour and a half from the
start of our adventure put us on the saddle between Horseshoe and Peerless
Mountains.
By the time we got to the saddle the mostly blue sky was
starting to cloud up a bit. We decided
to head over to Horseshoe first then do the short hike up Peerless on our way
back down. There is a faint trail that
leads to the main ridge of Horseshoe that can easily be followed. After getting off the main saddle area the
trail will start gaining again, but nothing to steep. There is just over 600ft of elevation to gain
from the saddle to the summit.
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| Craig, Kristi and Nick on the summit of Horseshoe |
Some puffy clouds were getting close to the mountain but
they kept heading to the south, so the weather was working for us. I had to keep a close eye on them tough because
they were pretty close at times.
About two and a half hours into our hike we made it to the
summit of Horseshoe Mountain. The view
down to the Leavick Tarn was quite impressive.
I could only imagine the crowds of people over on Sherman today, so I
felt pretty lucky that just the three of us were on this summit.
We had a quick snack and took the usual pictures before
heading down. I wanted to get down
before any rain or thunder storms came along to ruin our fun day. I was feeling pretty good on the way down so
I tried to sling-shot my way up Peerless as quick as I could. From the saddle area it doesn’t take more
than 10 minutes to summit. The view of
Sheridan is very enticing from Peerless.
I have already climbed that mountain so I said hello and goodbye as I
headed back down to the saddle where Kristi was.
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| Nick and Craig Ascending Peerless Mountain |
At the saddle Kristi had found a couple of our friends that
climbed the wrong mountain today. We
caught up with them for a few minutes then started making our way down. I was more in the mood for the direct line
down the mountain rather than the road, but not everyone else was in agreement
with that. I decided I would head down
and grab the Jeep so I could drive up to pick the rest of our group up. It was a fun run/skip/trying not to eat it
adventure cross country to the TH. It
didn’t seem like too much time went by and I had made it back to the Jeep. A quick 5 minute drive and I met them on the
road.
I think we all had a great time on the mountain today. Kristi got her first 13er in and I think this
was Craig’s first mountain of the year.
I would recommend this for any beginner wanting to get out on an easy
peak. I would rate this hike exactly
like the neighboring 14er Mount Sherman.
So if you can do one, you should have no problem doing the other. Someday I’d like to come back and do a Tour
de Sherman starting with Sheep Mountain looping all the way to Sherman. But that is a long ways off, since I don’t
have the endurance for a hike like that right now. Now it’s time to relax a bit before classes
start in a few weeks. Cheers!
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| GPS Track |
Date: 8/2/2014
TH Elevation: 11,840 feet
Horseshoe Mountain: 13,894 feet
Peerless Mountain: 13,337 feet
Total Gained Elevation: 2,200 feet
Class: 1
Distance: 6.67 miles
Time: 3:43 moving, 1:47 stopped
Climbing Partner: Kristi, Craig
Picture Link: Horseshoe and Peerless Mountain
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