"Lake Fork Peak"

Route: From La Plata TH
Posted On: 2/9/2025, By: Geckser
Info: Arthurspiderman and I took the long road from the La Plata trailhead to ski Lake Fork Peak yesterday. It claims on 14ers this is a first winter ascent but I doubt that. The road seems to get quite a lot of snowmobile traffic so we were able to make it about 3 miles from Lake Fork Pass before having to do any real trenching. Beyond this point the snow was fairly deep and surprisingly unstable on all the aspects we travelled near. We had plans for a more ambitious line that were cancelled by the issues with the snow we saw. We set a trench but given the wind and snow I imagine it is already gone. We took the least steep route we could find to the pass but the snow here was deep and very unconsolidated making for difficult travel. Once at the pass we skinned to a rocky rib which we booted to the summit. The weather for the day was as forecasted, very bad. It was quite windy, cold and snowed for ~80% of the time we were out. It was only a minor annoyance until we hit ridge at which point we had to take regular breaks to wait for the wind gusts to die down. We skied from near the summit down a strange gulley that leads directly to Lake Fork Pass. The snow was a prime example of alpine variable and was not very good. We got a few fun turns skiing off the pass at which point we had to walk mode our way out the 7 miles of too flat to ski road. Though this ended up being much easier than we expected. Overall a great day on a seldom climbed peak! Always good to be out and the scenery up there is amazing. Trip came out to about 17.5 miles and I would recommend it if you get a nicer weather day, still a blast with good company. 

Route: Sayres Gulch
Posted On: 6/29/2024, By: CarpeDM
Info: I climbed Pt 13,305 then took the ridge to "Lake Fork Peak" with start at the head of Sayres Gulch. The first 3.5 miles are on pretty good trail. It occasionally peters out a little, but is quickly found again. After that, choose your adventure. There are some willows, but they weren't much of an issue. The forecast was wrong on this one. Expected no rain Friday night and Saturday morning, with about 30% chance Saturday afternoon. It actually rained a large part of Friday night, some light on-and-off rain during the hike Saturday morning, but it cleared up before noon. Snow is largely avoidable, but I did cross a few short snowfields with only trek poles. As expected around this time of year, the trail was sometimes muddy, sometimes watery, and some stream crossings required searching to find the best way across. Bring an extra pair of socks. The first few hundred feet of the ridge down off of Pt 13,305 were particularly treacherous today. Not only is there some tippy talus, but the lichen on it was made particularly slippery by the rain. The rest of the ridge alternated between talus and grass and a bit of looser scree, with several ups and downs. I had expected mosquitos, but they weren't a big problem. The road as far as Sayres Gulch was about as I remembered it: Subaru-able. There were a couple of spots with lots of potholes to navigate or where you had to pick a good line; just go slowly. 

Route: Red Mountain Creek from Pieplant Mill
Posted On: 6/17/2024, By: HikerGuy
Info: I orphaned this peak when doing the Middle-Booby-Prize group a couple of years ago. It's a short hike from the north approach, but I decided to take the path less traveled up the Red Mountain Creek Trail from the south, starting at Pieplant Mill. 10.79 miles, 3,546 feet and 5h39m round trip. 

Route: From Point 13,295
Posted On: 10/18/2020, By: supranihilest
Info: The ridge from Point 13,295 is something like 2 miles long and though it's easy (mostly Class 2, a teeny amount of Class 2+ without really looking for a way around it) it's super tedious. The rock is generally solid, angular stuff that's just annoying to walk on or around if necessary. To descend I went down east-southeast first down loose scree slopes to grass, then east-northeast into the forest. Route finding isn't particularly hard but I did run into a vertical and extremely eroded streambed that I couldn't see the bottom of (it was dark). Most of the terrain in the forest was quite steep, though manageable. Assuming you're descending in daylight (I descended after nightfall) route finding would be a lot easier. I found the trail in the willows and took it back to CR391 and my vehicle. I ran into a porcupine right on the trail so know there are potentially dangerous critters in Sayres Gulch. 

Route: West Face
Posted On: 9/20/2020, By: Flyingfish
Info: The only snow on the loop that is impactful is on the 12ers between Prize and Lake Fork. I'm not sure if the snow made the loose slopes better or worse than they would be dry. The slope itself is pretty dry but the decent back to the basin is decently soggy.