Elk Tooth - 12,848'

Indian Peaks Wilderness

August 13th/14th, 2021

Stats : ~19 miles, ~5K'

After a long trip to nab Ogalalla Peak last year (TR Here), I was down to just Elk Tooth as my final remaining to finish off the ranked IPW summits. I had some plans to head there off and on throughout the summer, but with a busy schedule and a bigger focus on trail running this year I just didn’t find the time. Finally, I got off my butt and grabbed an available permit for Middle St. Vrain, followed by an invite to some others to join. I was happy to get a thumbs up from Kimo and Anna. (Especially since Kimo has been my partner on a large chunk of my past IPW summits, so would be good to finish with him.) The one request they had was to change to an approach from RMNP versus the Middle St Vrain drainage. That was fine by me, so plans were set.

We started out from Allenspark TH around 11AM, passing a lot of workers thinning trees in the area, assuming fire prevention. After a nice full year of trail running in the mountains with a light pack, hoofing it with an overnight pack was a bit of an unwelcome change. That said, it is a nice gradual ascent past some nice scenic locations in RMNP. Rough markers of the ascent: Reach Wild Basin trail intersection ~2 miles, Finch Lake ~4 miles, and Pear Reservoir ~6 miles. Some nice views of Copeland to the west and distant Longs to the north on the way up. About when we reached Pear Reservoir we started getting a light rain. Our permit was for the Cony Creek Dispersed area, so we looked for a site as far west in the permitted area as possible. We settled on a nice area a quarter mile or so below the Lower Hutcheson Lake at about 10,800’. From Pear Reservoir to camp was ~1 mile, so total approach came to 7 miles. After setting up camp and grabbing a bite to eat I took a short stroll up to near the upper Hutcheson Lake to get an idea for the morning’s approach.

The next morning, we took off from camp around 7:30 and retraced my path from the previous evening. Although still pretty wet from the previous evening rain, different pieces of trail were easy to connect up to the upper lake. Our plan was to cross the small finger of land that splits the Upper Hutcheson Lake to get to the northern slopes of Elk Tooth, however upon arriving we found a moose standing exactly in this spot. While discussing a different way around, the moose wandered off into a small patch of trees to the north of the lake. We made a quick scamper across to get out of his zone as fast as we could.

From lake crossing split, our path headed straight up the northern slope aiming to hit the right as close to 12,200’ as possible. The first portion of the slope was pleasant (but steep) grass, but about halfway up it switches to loose talus. Nothing bad, just a bit annoying and made the going slow. Once at the 12,200’ shoulder, the ridge heads west for .5 miles/700’ to the summit. We stuck to the ridge top the whole way, mainly class 2 with occasional class 3 moves. Total ascent from camp was only 2 miles, but a deceptively long/slow 2 miles.

We descended the same route which went well, this time no sign of the moose. I did take the opportunity for take a quick swim in Lower Hutcheson Lake on the way back to camp. Refreshing. After packing up, we headed back down. Nice trip with some good people, great way to finish off a pretty great list that is the Indian Peaks Wilderness.