I wanted something that was dog friendly and not too far from home. 13er Rosalie Peak near Mt Evans fit the bill perfectly. To spice it up I used the 12er rule, and decided to climb Bandit Peak as part of the route too. I arrived at the Deer Creek TH to a large empty parking area about sunrise. After quickly getting ready I started up the Tanglewood Trail which would take me to the saddle between Rosalie and West Pegmatite Points. There was dense forest on both sides with several stream crossings over nice foot bridges.

The trail remained heavily wooded, and slowly became more rugged and narrowed as we passed into the Mt Evans Wilderness area. At 1.1 miles we came to the Rosalie trail junction. You do not want to take this, and we stayed straight on the Tanglewood Trail. We passed through several clearings along the way and eventually lost track of the trail at about 10,800 feet in another dense forest area.

Instead of backtracking to find the trail, and since I knew we were on the eastern slopes of Bandit Peak, I decided to improvise and headed west up Bandit. I would do the lollipop loop in reverse order. We quickly climbed out of the trees into a boulder field and saw Rosalie for the first time.

Luckily there were grassy areas interspersed within boulder field so it was easy to negotiate. After climbing several false summits we came out on a gentle grassy slope which led to a large summit area with rock piles scattered around. There was a large cairn marking the summit and I did not see a registry tube.

The spacious summit had nice views all around, and oddly, to the south across the valley there was another peak named Bandit.

From here we walked directly north towards Rosalie across Bandits mostly grassy summit. As we descended to the saddle it became rockier but still easy to negotiate.

The descent was short and the saddle small, so before not too long we were headed up the steep slopes of Rosalie with the false summit in view. We needed to go about 1300 vertical feet to reach the summit.

Most of the ascent was on grassy slopes with scattered boulders and occasional large rocky outcroppings. The wind really began to pick up here too.

The summit area was very large with the same grassy tundra interspersed with rocks and boulders along with a large cairn. The views of Bierstadt and Evans were fantastic!

Because of the winds our stay at the summit was brief. We then headed directly east towards the Rosalie-West Pegmatite saddle where we could pick up the tanglewood trail for the return to the trailhead and my truck. It was an easy moderate slope all the way to saddle.

We quickly made the Tanglewood Trail and started our decent down the single track into the valley. It was here we saw other hikers for the first time and we would pass many more on the way down. This is a popular trail to reach The Roosevelt Lakes. I don't think too many head up to Rosalie.

We ended up hiking 11.56 miles in 5 hours and 15 minutes with 4451 vertical feet gained.