First things first, thanks to Dad Mike for the info on the route! Turned out to be a good one

These peaks are cool. They're just so prominent and isolated from the rest of the Mosquito range, and make for an awesome view from Fairplay. I'd been eyeing them this winter, but snow and closed roads make access tough. The route on this site from the north ends up being 20+ miles with the road closure. That's long. This route is long too, but not THAT long.

The route starts up road 375 just north of Buena Vista. The driving ends abruptly in a gate closure at 9,000. From there, the route follows the 375 road and subsequent trail for 4 1/2 miles, veers off right when the snow gets deep and unconsolidated, and finds the path of least resistance up the peaks.

We started from the gate closure right before 7; Kirsten, Jeremy, and myself. There was a light dusting of snow from the previous day, maybe a couple of inches, but we were able to boot the first 2 1/2 miles of the road (maybe should have snowshoed a liiiiiittle earlier).

After about a mile, 375 takes a hard right, while 377 goes straight. Take the right and follow 375.

There were 3 separate parking lots with what appeared to be trail signs encountered along the way. Each time, the road seemed to shrink from a superhighway to a highway to a country road to a trail.

Eventually we snowshoed up and immediately sped up. We passed the last parking area, which spit us on a trail that dropped elevation, directed us through a gate reminiscent of the TSA security corrals at the airport, and led to the spot where we leave the trail, cross the creek, and start the bushwhack.

It's worth noting that the road, though going on for at least 4 1/2 miles, gains minimal elevation. In fact, the first mile or two of the road may lose elevation. At the point where we veered off the main road/trail, we'd gained less than a thousand feet of elevation.

Once in the meadow seen above, we picked a line somewhat toward the general vicinity of the peaks. We hadn't decided our ascent line (and didn't until the last minute), but knew generally where we needed to go.

Unfortunately, this is where things bogged down. The snow was wildly inconsistent; supportive slab for 20 steps, then sinking to mid-thigh for 20 steps, then a step on supportive slab, then sinking for one step then supportive, then sinking, and on and on forever. The worst part was not knowing which was coming. It wasn't that bad breaking trail and it was awesome not sinking in, but the uncertainty with each step made this exhausting.

We eventually fought our way out of that area and to a snow-covered ridge above a creek. We followed the ridge for 10 minutes or so before crossing the creek to the south facing slopes below West Buffalo. This portion was dry, so we took off our snowshoes, thinking we were done with them. But of course, we weren't. After ascending the dry slope, we found ourselves in a large, snow-covered meadow. This had the worst snow of the day, and we had just taken off the snowshoes and had nowhere to put them on. Our progress slowed to a crawl (literally) and we had to swim our way to find anything supportive to get the 'shoes back on

We got the snowshoes back on, but still didn't have a planned route up the mountain. I noticed a gully up to our left that seemed to head up (which was good, because we hadn't done a lot of that yet). Forward toward the saddle of East and West Buffalo seemed to encounter a lot more deep snow and trailbreaking, which none of us wanted to do. We shot up the gully and figured that based on what we'd seen from a distance, we'd have options once we got higher.

The gully helped us gain some altitude quickly. The snow was mostly supportive for a change. Upon reaching the fork in the gully, we chose to go right, as snow quality deteriorated in the main gully, and the right would put us on rock sooner and let our tired legs get out of the snowshoes.

We made it to rock! From the top of the right branch of the gully, we were put onto a sea of talus that extended all the way to the summit ridge. Getting snowshoes off never felt so good! It gave a nice burst of energy too.

Our route up the rock took us to just a couple hundred feet from the summit of West Buffalo. There were a few minor snowfields to cross, but nothing of consequence and the snow was good. The snow above treeline was generally supportive and stable, while below was inconsistent and frustrating. We were quickly to the summit of West!

We didn't take too much time on the summit, as the job wasn't done. We stayed fairly high on the ridge for the traverse to East Buffalo and only found one scrambly section. For the most part, it was class 2 angled talus with snow in between each block. We were typically no more than 20 feet below the ridgecrest until the last point on the ridge, at which point we dropped lower

From the saddle, it's a pretty uneventful hike up East. A few minor snowfields to cross, but nothing worth using traction or shoes. For the most part, it was rock hopping on Mosquito-quality talus.

We made it! East has a broad, expansive summit, with your choice of windblocks. The summit was special; it was snowing in almost every direction other than where we were, which was sunny.

For our descent, we spied mellow slopes leading to a gully not too far below the saddle of the peaks. We aimed for the gully, in hopes that a good butt-slide would save our legs some work.

Unfortunately, the snow was too soft to get a good glissade, but with some swimming motions we were able to keep enough momentum to at least move. The second we stood up, it was back to posthole hell.

The trip back to the car was long and tough. The snow had warmed up, so all of the trail we broke previously was even softer, and the areas where we didn't posthole in the morning we sunk in now. We made it back to the creek crossover and the trail right as the light was disappearing.

The hike out seemed to drag, but after the trenching, loose talus, and retrenching, mindless trail and road miles weren't too bad. According to my watch, we ended the day at about 16.5 miles and right on 5k in elevation gain. Solid day!

Thanks again to Kirsten and Jeremy for volunteering to join me on this one!