Garage sale 12155 Kalispell St…

Garage sale 12155 Kalispell St, Brighton CO 80603, off the hook, three houses in on it, check it out! Goes till 4pm today and tomorrow!

South Arapaho Peak – Southeast Ridge

Date: August 8th, 2009
Elevation: 13,397′
Route: Southeast Ridge, Grade II, Class 2, 8.0 miles 3250ft vert.
GPS: N 40° 01.602′ W 105° 38.940′
Team: Matt Esser (Toid), Kelby Young

Pre-climb: Kelby wanted a nice hike and I wanted to get back to the Indian Peaks Wilderness. I decided on South Arapaho Peak because I wanted to see the glacier that was below it and actually wanted to the view from the top, as it had a good central location for the Front Range peaks.

Climb: We met at the church at 6am, and were on the road by 6:20. I had a couple doubts about my Toyota Yaris reaching the trailhead but it didn’t really have too many problems if driven carefully. It was a pretty cool morning (for August), which Kelby estimated in the 40′s, so we geared up and took off.

The flowers were everywhere on this hike! Colleen and I had once taken this trailhead to go to Diamond Lake (Trip Report: right here). There was much less snow this time.

Kelby and I made good time to the mine, which is 2 miles up the trail, we covered it in 1 hour, which is right on schedule, then I don’t know if I wasn’t prepared for the next 1.5 miles to the saddle or what, but it kicked my butt. It took me another 2 hours to get to the saddle, which is roughly 1,500ft elevation gain in 1.5 miles. Not too steep, but I didn’t get a good nights sleep and had junk to eat in my backpack.

From the saddle the views open up and the glacier looks awesome. The remaining route looks difficult although it’s pretty easy with solid footing the entire way. It’s only 700ft above us and 0.5 mile away. Not too bad either, but slightly steeper. Enough that a father and his son turned around just from the look of it, but they could have easily made it if they had wanted to try.

Upon reaching the summit our idea of going over to North Arapaho diminished as we now had to start heading back down if we wanted to get home before it was dark. The weather was great and we were in good shape. Signed the summit log and looked at all the surrounding peaks for 30 minutes, then headed back down.

It amazes me how much distance one covers in the early part of the day on the way up the mountain, because on the way down you certainly start to feel like the route somehow got longer than it was in the morning. Kelby was a mini Chuck Norris and was all over this hike since he walks around for his job and just spent a week hiking up in Yellowstone.

Drive: 1.5h
Ascent: 4h
On Summit: 30min
Descent: 3.5h
Drive: 1.75h