The weekend on the front range had been cold and wet with forecasted sun and higher temps never arriving. Not knowing what to expect in the Lost Creek Wilderness, I had way too much in my pack as we left the Twin Eagles Trailhead.
The curving Brookside-McCurdy trail led us around private property and through aspen stands freshly denuded. We pondered how beautiful this spot would have been a couple weeks ago. At least the natural arch never fades.
About 5 miles in we reached a saddle and junction with the McCurdy Park trail. I queried Pete to see if he wanted to take a short detour to ranked peak 11762. In a role reversal, Pete decided he’d rather nap and watch our climbing gear while I made the trek. Plus, Pete had climbed 11762 previously.
I left much of my gear and fast hiked off on the McCurdy Park trail to a saddle and a view of the treeless slopes on 11762.
Turning left I headed up hill and soon scrambled onto the summit boulders.
The wind threatened to push me off the summit, so I left and once I hit the trail I began a slow jog back. Speeding up as I descended I reached Pete after 45 minutes (and a thousand feet up and back down).
Pete debated whether he was more tired than if he hadn’t taken that short nap as we countoured around the rock towers to the east, aiming for the ranked peak 11460.
The rock formations were amazing and I was thinking about coming back with a full rack and rope some day in the future.
A little scouting and a little trusting of the GPS brought us to the final obstacle to 11460’s summit. The short (40 foot) climb was technically easy, rated about 5.4, and I climbed on only a tiny half rope and placed just two cams before reaching the slung rappel boulder. Pete quickly followed and kidded around for the camera.
The rock formations in view from the top were phenomenal and we could even see into Goose Creek where we’d been just a couple weeks before.
Pete surfed the summit and we signed the register (again, we pretty much knew everyone who had signed it since the late 90’s).
We rappelled the short climb to return to our packs.
Descending towards the south we hit an open marsh with some intriguing rock spires.
A compass bearing of due east took us fairly efficiently towards our next goal – peak 11328.
We found some fun scrambling to reach the summit, including the large 4th class summit boulder itself.
In a case of not wanting to downclimb what we’d come up, we hunted around for the best way off the summit that didn’t involve a short section of overhanging rock. Finally, we pieced together the best route which included a little cave to crawl through.
The spires near the marsh made a perfect landmark for our return trip.
Then we continued the bushwhack west and then southwest eventually hitting the Brookside-McCurdy trail again. A few back-lit aspens provided some company on the return hike.
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