Round Mountain, UN 8092 and UN 8310 4/5
8.7mi RT, 4700' EVG
Thanks to Joe's friend Scott who owns land that extends from the bottom of Waltonia Road up to a ridge that extends from UN 8310, the three of us were able to do a shuttle hike to climb these three peaks. Starting at Round Mountain TH, we climbed the standard summit trail to the top of Round(Sheep) Mountain. I'd climbed Round Mountain at least twice before and a likely a few more times before I began recording my summits, but the last time I'd been up the trail was in 2011 when I climbed nearby Stone Mountain. The trail is long and has a lot of elevation gain from the bottom of the canyon, but we made it to the top quickly. Midway up the trail a blue grouse flew to a nearby tree, but he left too quickly for me to take a picture. The summit had a little snow in patches, but was mostly avoidable.
After signing the register we continued over the other side of the broad mountain to the saddle with UN 8092. Along the way I began noticing large black tourmalines in nearly every rock and collected a few since they had the biggest diameter I've ever seen. The final slope to the summit was mostly open forest, which gave us excellent views from the grassy summit. Someone had climbed the peak the day before, but according to the register the last entry was in 2012 and few before that even. This is just another one of the many unnamed summits in Larimer County that deserves more visitors, especially given its proximity to the very popular Round Mountain.
Dropping down the side of 8092 was steep and rocky with round cacti mixed in with the tall grass. UN 8310 had a good amount of snow on the northeast face that we'd later climb up. We crossed a narrow gulch downstream of the main saddle, crossed a fence and began the tough push up towards the summit ridge. Halfway to the ridge we encountered more continuous snow cover with drifts up to 18" in places, prior to that point all snow had been avaoidable. At the ridge the snow had disappeared, and we continued up the gradual ridge to the summit of 8310. The summit area had a few little bumps and an outcropping that had great views down Quillian Gulch and across to the higher peaks that were being shrouded in clouds and snow.
Following down the northwest ridge we passed over a few little outcroppings and continued to a point where Scott said you could see down to the road from above. From there we could see the highway, Sullivan's Gulch and UN 7778, but everything else had pretty much disappeared in the snow. We then dropped down a gully that had been washed out by the flood rains and drove back to Round Mountain TH to complete the shuttle.
More photos can be found at Joe's site.
Thanks to Joe's friend Scott who owns land that extends from the bottom of Waltonia Road up to a ridge that extends from UN 8310, the three of us were able to do a shuttle hike to climb these three peaks. Starting at Round Mountain TH, we climbed the standard summit trail to the top of Round(Sheep) Mountain. I'd climbed Round Mountain at least twice before and a likely a few more times before I began recording my summits, but the last time I'd been up the trail was in 2011 when I climbed nearby Stone Mountain. The trail is long and has a lot of elevation gain from the bottom of the canyon, but we made it to the top quickly. Midway up the trail a blue grouse flew to a nearby tree, but he left too quickly for me to take a picture. The summit had a little snow in patches, but was mostly avoidable.
After signing the register we continued over the other side of the broad mountain to the saddle with UN 8092. Along the way I began noticing large black tourmalines in nearly every rock and collected a few since they had the biggest diameter I've ever seen. The final slope to the summit was mostly open forest, which gave us excellent views from the grassy summit. Someone had climbed the peak the day before, but according to the register the last entry was in 2012 and few before that even. This is just another one of the many unnamed summits in Larimer County that deserves more visitors, especially given its proximity to the very popular Round Mountain.
Dropping down the side of 8092 was steep and rocky with round cacti mixed in with the tall grass. UN 8310 had a good amount of snow on the northeast face that we'd later climb up. We crossed a narrow gulch downstream of the main saddle, crossed a fence and began the tough push up towards the summit ridge. Halfway to the ridge we encountered more continuous snow cover with drifts up to 18" in places, prior to that point all snow had been avaoidable. At the ridge the snow had disappeared, and we continued up the gradual ridge to the summit of 8310. The summit area had a few little bumps and an outcropping that had great views down Quillian Gulch and across to the higher peaks that were being shrouded in clouds and snow.
Following down the northwest ridge we passed over a few little outcroppings and continued to a point where Scott said you could see down to the road from above. From there we could see the highway, Sullivan's Gulch and UN 7778, but everything else had pretty much disappeared in the snow. We then dropped down a gully that had been washed out by the flood rains and drove back to Round Mountain TH to complete the shuttle.
More photos can be found at Joe's site.
