Total stats: ~19.5miles, 7K vert.

Route credit goes to supranihilest's inspiring report: (https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=19919)

Again looking to spice up a centennial bag, I aspired to solo this thorough traverse that is a full tour of the lovely looking Baldwin Basin with a side bonus of Cyclone and Carbonate. The vast majority of time is spent around 13,500' on semi-loose tallus and remains class 1-2 except for one class 3/4 spot. I opted to do the route counterclockwise starting with Boulder mountain so that I could follow a road in the dark early morning as opposed to having to leave the road to bushwack through the forest for the standard route up Cronin.

I was able to take my subaru up the Antero road about a mile where I would begin and end my loop at a road junction. I began around 4AM for a sunrise summit of Boulder Mountain.

Boulder's summit had a fresh notepad summit register in a peanut butter jar. Every other summit today was lacking in the register department. This ridgeline was a relaxing morning cruise.

I saddled in for a longer-than-you-think-it's-going-to-take trek to Grizzly, wondering what it looked like from the top of that middle bump.

Grizzly's final pitch is mellow. More than usual there are a ton of seemingly random mineshafts on this trip. I'm not sure how much of what I see of these mountains is mining tailings.

Grizzly's east ridgeline is a bit loose, but relatively short and sweet. And rather pretty.

The small crux of the route is this short scrambling pitch up (or down) the chimney on the ridgeline. Afterwards you are welcomed to a flat, open field of tundra that serves as the junction between Grizzly, Cronin, and south to LoCarb. The terrain at this point is the easiest, so going to grab the southern peaks should move a little faster than in the cirque. The only exception is Cyclone, which gets just a little messy with some looser rock.

By the time I got to Carbonate I decided I could use a rest, so I relaxed here for about a half an hour. I'm glad I did because I got to see this small heard of goats! It's been a while since I've seen them so I was stoked.

After my cool off I headed back over Cyclone and LoCarb to finish this thing with with my primary objective; Cronin.

I'm pretty beat after Cronin. I'm still working on my endurance.

I begin the experience of the standard route of Cronin.

The north ridge is pretty cool. A little loose and narrow but there is a worn trail.

Finding a decent way down the east face of the ridge was less fun. Seeing cairns here and there but no discernable trail I began down the loose talus aiming for the grassy tundra below. After finding the slope unappealing I went back towards the ridgeline to continue the descent. Took a right at another cairn on the ridge but I still turned down too early. Although there doesn't appear to be a way to avoid the talus the slope in the photo below looks like it has the least amount, which is further north and better presented when going uphill. This would be very nice to do in the snow.

The bushwhacking through the forest was actually kind of nice. There are a lot of dead fallen trees to navigate around but the terrain is a relief. There are some willows to wade through around the river crossing.

After hitting the road the last couple miles back to the car are gravy. The Baldwin Creek is really flowing and was pretty nice to hike along.