6/5/05 – Mount Silverheels & Little Baldy Mountain – East Ridge, West Slopes

12.1 miles, 4845'


Erin and I had an adventure of sorts a few weeks ago, and it had nothing to do with the peaks we summitted that day. We decided to get a monkey off our back and climb Mount Silverheels, the only peak left that we'd failed on. We made an attempt on Silverheels in April of 2004, but we were stymied by a misprint in the Roach 13er book and by not being able to find the correct place to cross a meadow in Silverheels Creek. We returned to the Tarryall Creek Trailhead this beautiful Saturday in late spring, stubbornly insisting on taking one of the least popular routes up this centennial 13er in order to include a climb of Little Baldy Mountain, a low 12er that nevertheless has more than 1000' of prominence and catches my eye every time we drive through South Park on 285.

As we drove in, we noticed that while all the peaks north of Silverheels were snowy, the storm had skipped our two peaks. The trailhead is at the intersection of the road and the Gold Dust Trail, and we didn't have the trouble locating it like we did last year. Also unlike last year, we found the bridges crossing Tarryall Creek, which are a couple hundred yards east of the trailhead. Everything, even the bridges, were covered with the slightest layer of frost; just a perfectly beautiful morning! We started hiking southeast on the Gold Dust Trail, and this time we were prepared for Roach's error. He tells you to stay on the Gold Dust Trail all the way to Silverheels' east ridge, but if you stay on this trail like you're told, you'll just contour around Little Baldy, ultimately arriving in the town of Como. Instead, you need to leave the Gold Dust Trail maybe a half-mile after you start. The key is identifying Silverheels Creek and making sure you turn right on the road that heads up that drainage. This is the trail that takes you all the way to the East Ridge. It's important to note that the map in Roach's book is correct, so just be sure to watch for this turnoff.

We soon entered the meadows where we lost the trail in 2004. Last year we followed the meadows too far. We realized our error, but we were unable to find the appropriate spot to cross the meadow. Now with a melted snowpack, following the trail across the meadow was no problem. If you want to try this route during the snow season, use this picture to identify the crossing point, which is at the rear (west end) of the first meadow you encounter in Silverheels Creek. If you get to a second meadow, you've gone too far! Anyway, we were cruising, and it didn't take long to reach treeline and the ridge crest. From here we had a gentle 2.5 miles and 2500' to reach Silverheels' summit. While our ridge was almost completely dry, we were treated to some beautiful views of the surrounding peaks dusted with fresh snow, like Boreas Mountain and Bald Mountain, while views southeast over South Park showed the highland plain in full spring glory. We crossed a small saddle northeast of Point 11,784 before resuming the gentle climb toward our goal.

It was late in coming, but this climb finally felt like summer to us. The air was warm, the winds were calm, it was gorgeous. We ate some Nick & Willy's on the summit while enjoying the views of the Tenmile Range, before we began the long traverse to Little Baldy. Back at the saddle, we entered the forest to start an easy bushwhack across the wide saddle between Silverheels and Little Baldy. Our fat 12er was steeper than we had anticipated; these west slopes were quite the grunt! Fortunately my orienteering was spot on, and we managed to use the part of these slopes where trees cling the highest, avoiding what looks to be unpleasant talus just to the north. We also kept cooler this way because the day was turning into a steamer! We spent a few minutes on Little Baldy's summit admiring the view into South Park, before following our ascent route back down. Rather than heading all the way back to the saddle, we turned northwest and continued the bushwhack, choosing a more direct line back to the trailhead. We easily crossed South Tarryall Creek before we ascended briefly to pick up the trail again. From there it was just a quick stroll to get back to the trailhead with an eight-hour round trip time.

But then we got greedy... It was just a little after 2:00, still plenty of time for something extra! We pulled away from Silverheels and Little Baldy and drove back out to 285 and after the few miles to the town of Jefferson we turned east on the Tarryall Road to make our way toward the Puma Hills. We knew from John Kirk that Puma Peak was a twenty-minute hike from the top of the Packer Gulch Road, and since it's also the 63rd most prominent peak in the state, this sounded like the perfect quickie hike after our success on Silverheels. We passed by a bunch of familiar, beautiful sights driving the 17 miles down the Tarryall Road, but one thing that wasn't familiar was seeing Tarryall Reservoir full of water. There was even a lot of overflow cascading down rocks to the right of the dam. We recognized the Turner Gulch Road from our hike up Eagle Rock a couple of years ago, but soon we turned left to start the drive up the Packer Gulch Road. We passed by a bunch of cattle as we traveled to the rear of the valley, and then we entered the forest. From the map I could see there were 12 switchbacks before we would reach the saddle between "Little Puma" and Puma Peak. The road isn't very rough, and we were happily bumping along and chatting about what a nice evening we'd spend together once we got home. The ninth switchback was pretty tight, and it required that Erin back up before continuing on. Just as we thought we'd be nearing the tenth switchback, we came upon a fallen tree blocking the road.

I got out of the car to look at the tree and noticed that people had built up a ramp on either side of this log. I had Erin step out to see what she thought, and we agreed to try for it. I stayed out of the car, and watched nervously from the far side of the tree as she gave it a go. My nervousness switched to horror as Erin's car went up but not over the log. My eyes became saucers while I covered my gaping mouth with my hands. Shit, shit, shit, shit! What are we gonna do?! Thankfully Erin is more cool-headed than I, and she set me upon gathering rocks and logs, anything we can use to build up a ramp. We spent four hours trying to work ourselves out of this jam. Lifting the 4Runner with our jack, one by one building under a tire with rocks and wood, then moving onto the next. We made progress – the front axle was no longer as stuck on the log as it was at first – but every time Erin tried to back up over the log, the tires would kick out some of the rocks we had built up. It was approaching 8:00 by now, and after one more honest shot at backing out, it was time to make a decision. We knew Erin's mom would start worrying about us shortly, so that became our primary concern, overriding any thoughts of spending the night on the slopes of the Puma Hills. We packed up some gear, put our boots back on, and started the long hike out. We ripped down the forested mountainside – our kind of terrain, right? – and cut off most of the switchbacks. Before long, we were in the gulch and starting the march back to Tarryall Road.

In Packer Gulch, I wasn't able to appreciate a gorgeous sunset as much as usual because the cows we had smiled at along the way in were now a dangerous obstacle. Cows don't have the greatest eyesight, so they don't seem to take too well to hikers at dusk. The first two groups of cows we encountered were mostly out of the way, off to one side of the road or the other. But then we became cowboys. The cattle ahead of us had no desire to move off the road, and they just started walking, trotting, and running down the road away from us. We effectively herded together every last cow in the gulch, and despite how fast we were hiking, we weren't making any relative progress. They'd just increase speed with us! They were getting really agitated at this point, voicing their displeasure with noises that I didn't even know cows could make. Even worse, there were calves all over the place hanging close to their protective mothers! Please, don't let us encounter the bull, we were thinking, while we continued a chorus of "Hey, cow!" to keep them aware of our presence. About halfway down the gulch, we decided to cross to the other side of the creek to see if we can pass them this way. We pushed really hard for about a mile, and thank heavens, we finally did work our way ahead of them. At last! After that adventure, it didn't take much longer to pass the cattle guard and reach the Turner Gulch Road.

Night was upon us now, and we wended our way back toward Tarryall Road. Our road began a climb out of Packer Gulch and reached an overlook point above the reservoir. The view was discouraging. We knew that Tarryall Road was our best shot at finding someone on the road, but there were no headlights in sight. I was dreading the rest of the night hiking 17 miles to the highway on top of the 20 miles we had already put on our aching feet that day. At least we wouldn't have to worry about waking some shotgun-toting resident to try to make a phone call because we weren't going to make it to Jefferson until dawn at best. I was attacking the latest in a series of short rises in the road with gusto, and I pulled ahead of Erin briefly. She shouted from behind a corner that a car was coming! My first thought was "What kind of a sick joke?..." Then I thought she must be talking about a car down on the Tarryall Road, that she wanted us to start sprinting the last mile to the junction. But no, it was a truck coming from the south on our road! We both tore through our packs to find our headlamps, and we flagged him down. The driver's name was Brent, and he was going home after a day of fishing on Spinney Reservoir. He said he'd give us a lift to the pub halfway to Jefferson, and we happily climbed into his truck. Brent explained that his isn't the typical route to Denver from Spinney, but that he likes to travel the backroads to save on mileage. Adding to this amazing turn of events, just think: if the cows hadn't inspired us to haul so much ass, we never would have made it to the Tucker Gulch Road in time to flag Brent down!

We got to the pub, which would have been closed by the time Erin and I could have walked there, and Erin called her mom to let her know we were okay. Her mom had just gotten off the phone with the State Patrol, so she was able to call back immediately to tell them we were fine. We asked Brent if he could take us further, and we found out that he lives in Broomfield, can you imagine the odds?! He agreed to take us all the way home to our apartment. We never did see another car on Tarryall Road, a sobering indication of Erin's and my fate if we hadn't found Brent. We were exhausted but back home at about midnight. Bright and early Monday morning, we set off for the Puma Hills with Erin's dad. Gordon was leaving for vacation the next day, but he never thought twice about helping us out. When we arrived nine switchbacks up the mountain, Gordon said, "You two are even dumber than I thought you were!" You couldn't help but laugh. It took about an hour for Gordon to chainsaw through the fresh log, while Erin and I helped clear out some of the cuttings. We built up the ramp a little more and ran tow cables between the 4Runner and Gordon's Explorer. Then I watched Erin's car lurch while it was pulled up and over the log. Her car had suffered no damage, and we got back to Denver without any further incident.

In retrospect, I have no idea what Erin and I were thinking. Clearly the ramp had been built up by ATVers, not morons with a standard-issue 4Runner. This was a big log! Lesson learned, I guess. Despite our negative balance in the karma account after our miraculous hitchhike from the Middle of Nowhere, we tempted fate the next week after hiking Bald and Boreas Mountains with John Kirk. Erin and I returned to the site of our pain, moved the cut log out of the way, and bagged Puma Peak.