T8 (13,315')
T7 (13,359')
Telluride Peak (13,509')

Saturday, July 18, 2020
Trailhead: Base of Imogene Pass
14.0 miles
~5100' total ascent

Party of 1: Tony

Something I have wanted to do for a while is hike a couple of the "T" peaks near Imogene Pass via the pass road. Although I do have a 4x4, my daily car is a much more comfortable ride, so I figured why not use it for the weekend and just hike a little more? We can consider this a 2WD trip report for the "T" peaks of T-8, T-7, and T-ride (just to keep with the theme here).

I arrived at the base of the pass at about 9:30 on Friday night, planning to set up the back of the car for sleeping. The parking lot there has a sign saying "day use only," but there's a small camp spot just behind and below the parking lot, so I backed into there and turned in for the night. In the morning, I could conveniently just begin hiking from here. So convenient.

I started up the road at 6:30 in the morning, soaked my left foot at the very first creek crossing, and promptly made it to the junction with the Camp Bird road (perhaps the alternate base of Imogene Pass). Here is where the elevation gain started, but it wasn't that steep. It wasn't too long before I hit the Richmond Basin junction at 7:20.

I turned to follow the Richmond Basin road in its entirety from below treeline to almost 12,800'. For a road walk, this part was super enjoyable. The road is narrow, so it feels more like a trail, and although it gets more scree-heavy above treeline, it's still a road, so the level of tediousness never got very high. As I made my way up the road, I periodically turned to admire Sneffels and Potosi across the valley, revealing themselves more and more.

The end of the road is just a few hundred feet below the summit, so I figured this last push would be somewhat straightforward and quick. I reached the end of the road at 8:30 and turned south to hike a grassy slope up and around some scree, joining up with the valley flowline at the entrance to a small circque just below the summit of T-8.

The little cirque bends around to the west, with the summit of T-8 sitting only a couple hundred feet above. Here, there was a choice between going left and right to gain the ridges to the summit. They both looked the same; I chose to go right and walk up some grass to the broad ridge. From here, the last push to the summit involved hiking up a hundred feet or so of easy, gray scree. Before I knew it, I crested the easy scree and walked over to the summit at 8:50.

I admired the views for a brief period and decided to continue at 9:10. From studying previous reports, I knew that the ridge between T-8 and T-7 doesn't go all that well, so I planned to descend around and to the west (Imogene Basin side) of it, then re-gain the ridge on the other side. After a couple hundred feet down the ridge, I turned off of it and walked down an initial section of scree followed by a steep grassy and flowery slope.

This slope brought me down to a snowfield (same as shown above), which I assume is present for a while every year since the San Juans ended their winter quite dry and this one was present on July 18. I crossed the snowfield and contoured around and below the ridge difficulties. I'd say I was at the low point of the traverse at around 9:30. I kept going until I could see grass above me, which would be used to re-gain the ridge. I ended up going slightly farther than optimal, but it still worked out very nicely.

Shortly after, I was back on the ridge and almost at the summit of T-7. That was fast! I finished up T-7's ascent at 10:10 and once again sat down to admire the views for a brief period.

At 10:25, I began the descent down the easy ridge to the saddle and then up toward the spur road off of Imogene Pass. As I passed through the area, one of those tour Jeeps drove by, full of puzzled-looking tourists in the back. One woman who had the most WTF face I'd seen in a while asked me "Did you hike up here?" "Yeah." "...You need a ride down?" "Nah I'm good." Has she ever heard of hiking?

I continued up toward an old wood structure and then left (southward) toward T-Ride.

There were clouds developing now, especially over Sneffels, but the summit of T-Ride wasn't far away at all. I followed the ridge, hiked up some scree, and arrived at the top where it got much rockier and exposed at the very last bit, hitting the summit at 11:00.

The views were great from the summit of T-Ride, and I'd say they were the best of the day. Two trail runners joined me, having come up the west ridge. We made small talk briefly and then all continued on our way at 11:10, with them running toward Imogene Pass and me making a brisk walk of it.

The weather was holding, so I decided to go over to the Imogene Pass summit, sit down for a while, and people-watch a little, arriving at 11:30. Tourists can be an interesting breed, but hey, everybody's a tourist sometimes.

I started the brisk hike down the Imogene Pass road at 11:50, sometimes passing vehicles that were going super slow with it. I walked by one area where people were waiting in line for their turn to pull their vehicle onto a rock outcropping for photos. I couldn't' help but think that - as they say - geologic time is now.

Farther down the pass road I went, watching the storm over Sneffels get larger. Eventually the cloud grew enough to cover up the sun and rain started to fall over on Potosi, but not me. Before long, I passed the Richmond Basin junction once again. Not long after that, I reached the Camp Bird junction. Light rain was finally starting to fall as I made my up the slight uphill grade, one final section of elevation gain for the day. Before I knew it, I was back at the base of the pass and my car at 1:30.

Overall, it was a great day. I can't say I recommend against hiking Imogene Pass to access peaks; it's really not that bad at all. Have at it.