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August 25, 2010
~6.8 Miles, ~3,400 Gain.
TH: Petroleum and Anderson Lake TH, 4WD or High Clearance
With an impeccable weather forecast, my wife and I left Denver around 11 AM and made the 3 hour drive to our trailhead located up the time consuming road up Lincoln Creek. I started hiking up the trail around 2:30 PM with crystal clear skies. My wife decided to hike and view the lakes as peaks are not her specialty. The trail was in good shape as I followed it towards Petroleum Lake.
Larson Peak from the trail to Petroleum Lake.
When I reached a small lake at ~12,100 before Petroleum Lake, I left the trail heading northwest up some grassy slopes to the Larson-Petroleum saddle. I left my pack at the saddle and made the quick class 2 talus hike to the summit of Larson arriving at 3:30 PM. Excellent views of Grizzly Peak.
Talus west ridge of Larson Peak.
Anderson Peak with Petroleum Lake from the summit of Larson.
Petroleum Peak from the summit of Larson.
I returned to my pack and headed southwest then west up some easy grassy slopes towards Petroleum Peak; the climbing was a nice change from the San Juan scree. Near the summit of Petroleum, I intercepted the south ridge and made the quick hike to the summit of Petroleum where I arrived at 4:30 PM. It was nice to have clear skies and not to be rained on.
Easy grassy slopes up to the summit of Petroleum Peak. Grass ramp from the left.
The summit ridge of Petroleum.
The traverse over to Anderson Peak. Ah, so nice.
Grizzly Peak from Petroleum.
Truro and West Truro. Fond memories of that traverse.
The ridge over to Anderson looked easy and I followed the ridge, mostly grass with a few easy talus sections to the summit of Anderson where I arrived at 5:30 PM. The views of Taylor Reservoir and the Elks were superb. So far, this has been the most fluent combination of 3 alpine peaks I have climbed in while. No "surprises," nasty notches or other exciting features to make things complicated.
Upper slopes of Anderson.
Looking north at Petroleum from the summit of Anderson.
Larson from the summit of Anderson.
From the summit of Anderson, I headed back north to a scree gully that took me back to Anderson Lake. The scree gully wasn't too bad to descend and made for a quick descent. I think this gully would make a great snow climb in the spring. I arrived back at Anderson Lake and trail ran back to my car arriving at 6:30 where we were able to get camp up before dark.
Anderson Lake on the descent.
Anderson Peak from Anderson Lake.
Boomers.
More Boomers.
Route Map.
Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
I climbed Larson Peak from the trail to Anderson and Petroleum Lakes a few years ago and loved it, your trip report makes me want to return and bag the others... It will probably have to wait until next summer though...
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