Question about Virginia Peak, etc.

[Candace66]

I'm interested in climbing (this summer) Winfield Peak, Virginia Peak, "West Virginia", and "Sheep Rock Mountain." (These are Sawatch 13ers generally west of Huron).

I've read the great trip reports by Furthermore and bergsteigen who describe doing a longer loop that takes in a couple other unnamed 13ers that lie somewhat south of my four target peaks.

I plan to tackle the foursome by starting with Winfield Peak and working my way to "Sheep Rock Mt." I hope to avoid completely reversing my route on the return. Possibly by dropping down the south slopes of Sheep Rock Mt., or by returning to the saddle north of it then going east downslope. The climbers in the reports I mentioned continued running the ridge from Sheep Rock Mt. through to the unnamed 13ers.

Going by the topo and from what I can see in pics, the terrain doesn't look horrifically steep or bad. But does anyone who has been up there have an opinion? Did there appear to be a reasonable descent (or bailout) route from near Sheep Rock Mt? Thanks in advance.

[mennoguy]

I climbed those 13ers plus the unnamed ones a number of years ago, I remember there being good bailout options on the saddle to the south of "sheep rock". One could descend into silver basin or the north fork of clear creek from there pretty easily.

[TravelingMatt]

Oh come on, it's a potential seven-bagger! How do you not go all the way?

Yes, I do believe you can bail out east from the ridge south of 13255 (Sheep Rock) at the low point before you get to point 13115 on the Continental Divide (again -- you get to ridgewalk the Divide!)

The whole area is pretty mellow for getting to and from the ridge. I rated the whole day Class 2, 11.5 miles and 4900' of gain starting from the 4wd road and slightly backtracking between Virginia and Winfield. The first peak I have listed was Winfield, not Virginia, which has to mean I gained the ridge north of Virginia. I probably reached it somewhere in the vicinity of point 13100 north of Virginia, perhaps going up 13100's east ridge.

[gurlyclimber]

That sounds fun! Please message me if you'd like a partner.

[Greenhouseguy]

I did Virginia & Winfield last September, but wasn't ambitious enough to continue to West Virginia & Sheep Rock. Fom Virginia, we could see a descent route from the saddle between West Virginia and Sheep Rock that leads to a trail that leads to the CD Trail. That's likely to be the easiest way out. If you look at Sheep Rock in Google Earth, you can see the switchbacks in the trail starting around treeline.

We started at the Banker Mine, and followed a small dirt road that headed towards Clear Creek. There are several good campsites down there, if you're interested. We couldn't find a good place to cross the creek, so we took off our boots and waded. There were plenty of small cutthroat trout in the creek. We followed the CD Trail north towards Winfield, but left the trail too soon and summited 13,100 first. If we had stayed on the CD Trail a bit longer, we would have hit a connecting trail that leads to a mining road that goes most of the way up Winfield's northeast ridge. The road wasn't on our map, but it's clearly visible from surrounding peaks. You can also see it in Google Earth. The ridge between Winfield, 13,100 & Virginia was fun; it doesn't appear to get worse on the way to West Virginia. Our descent from Virginia was relatively steep and loose, but not at all dangerous.

[JeffR]

I did the Winfield-Sheep Rock traverse last summer.

I started across from the Banker Mine, crossed Clear Creek (prepare to get wet), and picked up a faint trail running north on the west side of the creek. After about .5 mile, I bushwhacked straight up the gully and curved north over south-facing tundra slopes to Winfield's east ridge. The ridge-run is just straight-forward class 2, nothing crazy. From Sheep Rock, I dropped down the NE slopes (fun tundra/talus) and followed the drainage down to tree line. Then I did a descending side-slope to the mine at ~11K and picked up an ancient mining road going east. It eventually curved north and turned into a trail (I believe it's called the Silver Basin trail) and followed it back to the creek crossing. The road can be non-existent in places, but it would be pretty easy to bushwhack east to the Winfield road if necessary.

If you don't want to bushwhack up, you can also start from near the West Winfield TH and hike up seemingly miles of mining roads to reach the same place on the east ridge.

[Candace66]

Oh come on, it's a potential seven-bagger! How do you not go all the way?.

Because I'm old and slow !

That sounds fun! Please message me if you'd like a partner.

Are you sure? See above, LOL. At this point I have no idea when I'll be attempting this. But if you're still interested I'll keep it in mind.


Thanks everyone for all the great beta! Sounds like I can do the foursome without major backtracking (but maybe with some bushwhacking) fairly easily.

[bergsteigen]

Glad others remember better than I do. That was many years and many peaks ago!