Shipler Mountain 11317' 5/26/12
Not exactly high on any mountaineer's list when visiting Rocky Mountain National Park is the little bump of Shipler Mountain, mostly because it doesn't stand out as a prominent peak. In reality, Shipler isn't much more than the terminus of a sorta alpine ridge that helps form the south edge of The Crater. To add to this, Shipler lies in one of RMNP's 'sacred' areas no visitor dare even look upon...in fact the summit and route lie in the most sacred of these areas(and thus is the one the park administration is the most butt hurt about), Specimen Mountain Natural Research Area. Not only is the name stupid, but so is the premise. To protect the (not recognized as threatened/endangered/critical) Bighorn Sheep who use the area as their spring lambing grounds...which is actually a load since all of the Park's sheep are on Bighorn Mountain 10 miles to the east. So people stay away from Shipler since cross country travel is frowned upon, and don't even think about climbing the Specimens unless you have 5K dollars lying around and 90 days off at work.
You could climb Shipler in a number of ways, along the ridgelines via The Crater as the Park sometimes allows, from Milner Pass, Lake Irene or even from Colorado River TH in the winter. I chose Lake Irene for two reasons, I'd never actually seen the little lake and also because it would put us close to Bighorn Lake, which I was interested in visiting while I was up there anyways. Having opened Trail Ridge Road a few weeks earlier due to lack of snow pack, I assumed our route would require snowshoes in places but mostly avoidable drifts. This was true, heading WNW from the parking lot and up to the shelf that held Bighorn Lake, Squeak Creek and some little depressions was mostly snow free. The snowshoes were great walking to the lake, it could have been done by postholing but would have taken forever. If you wish to find the lake, the best thing to do is make out the obvious point and head towards it and intersect the creek and walk along until you hit the seldom visited, small lake.
From there, you can head up the hillside of the point until you hit treeline. There isn't any reason to climb to the summit of the point, in fact most of the route is just following the ridge down to the saddle formed with Shipler. The trees are intermittent to the meadow-like saddle, and from there just follow the slope up to the inconspicuous summit of Shipler Mountain marked by a cairn and register dating back to 2006. To save time on your way back, traverse the side of the point from the saddle back to the shelf; it saves unnecessary elevation gain and holds less snow.
You could climb Shipler in a number of ways, along the ridgelines via The Crater as the Park sometimes allows, from Milner Pass, Lake Irene or even from Colorado River TH in the winter. I chose Lake Irene for two reasons, I'd never actually seen the little lake and also because it would put us close to Bighorn Lake, which I was interested in visiting while I was up there anyways. Having opened Trail Ridge Road a few weeks earlier due to lack of snow pack, I assumed our route would require snowshoes in places but mostly avoidable drifts. This was true, heading WNW from the parking lot and up to the shelf that held Bighorn Lake, Squeak Creek and some little depressions was mostly snow free. The snowshoes were great walking to the lake, it could have been done by postholing but would have taken forever. If you wish to find the lake, the best thing to do is make out the obvious point and head towards it and intersect the creek and walk along until you hit the seldom visited, small lake.
From there, you can head up the hillside of the point until you hit treeline. There isn't any reason to climb to the summit of the point, in fact most of the route is just following the ridge down to the saddle formed with Shipler. The trees are intermittent to the meadow-like saddle, and from there just follow the slope up to the inconspicuous summit of Shipler Mountain marked by a cairn and register dating back to 2006. To save time on your way back, traverse the side of the point from the saddle back to the shelf; it saves unnecessary elevation gain and holds less snow.
Trail Ridge 12355' 5/26/12
After driving past this highpoint a hundred times, I decided it was finally time to cross it off the list. We parked at the Lava Cliffs pullout and skirted the snowdrifts on to the windswept tundra. You can walk along the edge of the cliffs or pick up the old Ute Trail that runs along this route(look carefully, it's not much more than an animal trail at this point. Just another trail left to die while the Park buys picnic tables with your entrance fees). The summit is a less than spectacular array of stacked rock piles, not exactly cairns or windbreaks, just piles. It's windy.
