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Peak(s):  Horseshoe Mountain  -  13,918 feet
Date Posted:  07/25/2014
Date Climbed:   07/19/2014
Author:  huffy13
 Another Day, Another Mosquito 13er   

After a pretty great week-long trip to the Breck area back in June and getting to bag Mt. Sheridan and enjoying that area, it was time to plan a trip to take my son and some of his cross country teammates on our 4th annual team camping and hiking trip. I knew we were going to have at least 4 people in our group that had never done a summit hike before, so I wanted to find something fairly straightforward and relatively easy. My first thought was LaPlata's standard route...but the possibility of having a closed trailhead, plus the fact that it is 9 miles roundtrip with plenty of elevation gain made me change my plans however....I decided that Horseshoe Mountain would be a good hike to take the team on. It's fairly easy and has what amounts to a 4WD road almost to the top. I thought we might just bag it and if we felt good we would continue on to Peerless and then keep heading over Sheridan and Sherman if everyone was still feeling good.


The weekend of July 18th-20th worked best with my schedule, so we all met at my house at 8 am on Friday and left for Eleven Mile State Park, I reserved a couple of tent sites there for the weekend.
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About to hit the road.


We arrived at the park at about 3 pm mountain time. It took a little longer than I had anticipated due to us taking the scenic route through Westcliffe an Texas Creek rather than just going up the interstate and cutting west on Highway 24. We set up camp, cooked out some hot dogs and goofed off around the lake until about 9:30, then we all turned in for what I hoped would be a great day. We woke up at about 4:45 am, loaded up in the vehicles and were on the road to Fourmile Gulch at 5:30, arriving at the Leavick mine site parking area right around 6:30 am. We all ate some food, took our pre-hike pics and hit the trail at 6:40.
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Our hiking group for the day. Mt. Sheridan is directly behind us.

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It's go time!

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The view towards the Sheridan/Sherman saddle from the turnoff to head towards Horseshoe.

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Looking back at the turnoff to head towards Horseshoe and Peerless.


The trail is just as the site describes it...pretty much a well-defined 4WD road that goes within a quarter mile of the summit and ends just at the final ridge. It is a relatively easy hike and it's not hard to get to the TH. The snow had melted quite a bit since my brother and I were here in early June, but there was still some significant snow in many places...most notably the cornices along the ridge between Horseshoe and Peerless was still pretty thick. The hike is pretty straightforward and the 4WD road was in good shape through the entire hike. We only encountered snow across the road in one place, it was still too solid in the morning to traverse without microspikes, so most of us just elected to go up and around it...no problems.
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The only snow we had to cross on the hike was about a mile in.

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This road was in pretty great shape throughout the hike.

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Looking back east towards the Leavick mine site and the parking area.

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Typical "trail" conditions.

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More views from the trail


Horseshoe Mountain comes by it's name honestly and you can really see why as you approach treeline.
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I can see why Horseshoe is called that.


The trail is never too terribly steep, it's a little rocky in a few spots. But we were making decent time and after just a couple hours in we were among a lot of old mine ruins...pretty cool to see some old Colorado history along the trail...the kids really thought the ruins added a cool touch to the hike.
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Some of the group getting close to the old mine ruins.

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This is one of the coolest old mine remnants I have ever seen on a hike.

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I wonder how far back it goes???

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Wow, someone actually brought this fuel trailer to 13,000 ft.? Crazy!

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Not sure what this is.....

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Another old mine shaft just below the slope of Peerless


It was just before the mines that our faster hikers started leading and eventually just left us adults and slower hikers behind...that was fine since the trail was in good shape and was well defined the entire way...
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Another look at trail conditions and the view to the east.

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The first several of our group made the summit safely and were easy to watch from the trail.


The first ones from our group to make the summit made it at about 10 am, not a bad pace, I thought. But they were way ahead of us slowpokes and scenery admirers!
Most of us made the saddle right about the time our fast ones were summitting.
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On the Horseshoe/Peerless saddle (Sheridan in the back)

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This little section was the last place that the trail resembled a road.

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Looking down on an alpine lake

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Looking over Peerless to Mt. Sherman and White Ridge.


Once we were on the ridge, some of us took a short break, took some pictures and our first hiker decided he was done and would wait at the saddle for us on our descent. We ended up with three more hanging back near the ridge because the mild exposure was enough to make them uncomfortable...that's fine, everyone has their limits and there is no need to force yourself out of your comfort zone and unnecessarily risking yours or anyone else's safety doing so.
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The view of the reamining trail from the saddle

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Almost there!!!!

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So close!

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Looking at a few from our group that decided the summit was going to have to wait for another day. Still made it to about 13



The rest of us proceeded and finally made the summit somewhere around 10:30...I almost always forget to look at the time when I first make the summit, so I end up guessing most of the time. The skies were pretty hazy, so the summit views were not quite as good as I had hoped...Pikes Peak was not easy to see, which is unusual, but the Sawatch big dogs were obvious. The views down into the gulch where we started were good though. Plus, we got to watch a couple of Chinooks doing some training maneuvers, which was pretty neat to see...they started over at Sheep Mountain and ended up flying (or should I say buzzing) the saddle of Sheridan and Sherman...I wish we had been on that saddle at that time, it looked pretty impressive how close to the ridge they got.
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Looking down into the gulch from Horseshoe's summit

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Some Chinooks doing some impressive training moves

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SE view from the summit.

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It's a little hazy but I could still make out Massive and Elbert.


Once we were all on the summit we took lots of pictures, especially for those that this was their first time to hike to a summit, we admired the views and some of the group even took naps after eating some snacks and rehydrating. This was when we noticed a structure at the far south end of Horseshoe's summit ridge...we went to check out what turned out to be an old mining cabin that sat just a couple hundred yards south and about 30 ft shy of the true summit.
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Another father/son summit pic

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Our group that made the summit

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An old mining building that sits at the south end of the summit ridge.

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Checking out the old mine house on the summit.


We stayed on the summit for close to 45 minutes before we started noticing that the clouds over the Sawatch were starting to get darker and appeared more menacing, so we started heading down close to 11:30.
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You always have to go back down eventually

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Looking at Sheridan and Sherman again.


We heard thunder just a couple times during the descent, but we only got a little bit of rain once we were all well below treeline. It actually got slightly chilly due to the cold rain, but it wasn't anything we couldn't handle.
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Clouds started getting darker and thicker on the descent...I thought Horseshoe looked pretty cool from this angle.



We all made it back to the trailhead close to 1:30 pm...about 7 hours for the 8 mile roundtrip hike, not bad for a bunch of flatlanders! Once we were all loaded up we went and had an early dinner/late lunch at the Pizza Hut in Fairplay. That hit the spot for sure...we then headed back to our camp sites at Eleven Mile State Park for a night of campfires, fellowship and, best of all, Smores!! Another successful trip for my son and his cross country friends on what has become an annual thing for us. I am already looking forward to doing this again next year even though my son has graduated and is beginning college this Fall.

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Campfire relaxing after a great day of hiking! Loving life.

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Eleven Mile State Park was a great place to spend a couple nights.


Thoughts about the hike: This is seriously one of the easiest hikes I have been on as far as how gentle the slope grade is, the trail conditions, the lack of exposure and size of the summit...the only issue we had was something getting rattled loose on my van on the way back to Fairplay from the trailhead...probably a broken strut or shock. Getting that fixed this next week. Other than that I would recommend the hike to anyone of any skill level. Just go slow on the road to save your vehicle some beating on the washboarded roads...they are rough!!! We stayed at Eleven Mile State Park about a 20 minute drive from Lake George. Not a bad place, but I actually prefer Mueller State Park over it just because most of the tent sites at Eleven Mile are exposed and right next to the lake and are also overrun with mosquitoes and ants. Plus, if you camp on the west side of the lake it is close to a 20 minute drive back to the camper facilities building and the ranger's offices on the opposite side of the lake. Still, not a bad trip overall...the kids loved it and I am looking forward to trying get one more hike in before I call it good for another season.



Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
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