Point 13517A, Point 13,472B, and Huron loop from Clohesy Lake with Ian

I wanted to add this report of point 13,517A and the new LiDAR ranked 13er next to Mount Huron, point 13,472B, to add a bit of beta on a nice class 2+ max route to link these two peaks from the Lake Clohesy side. Most of the reports on this site link 13,517A with Pear Peak, but there isn't a lot of information yet on the link up with 13,517A and the new LiDAR ranked peak. Credit to the route is due the Cooney's as I found this route on their wonderful 13er website, but I felt I could add some info including some photos and a GPX file/map for others in the future looking to possibly link these two peaks in a nice outing.

For this outing I teamed up with Ian. One thing I have really enjoyed about the 13er quest over the years has been bumping into people with very similar summit bagging passions to mine on random outings. I had met Ian earlier in the year near Silverton on the top of Grand Turk. I joked with him at the time that he and his two friends had just spoiled a streak I had running of sharing no 13ers summits with anyone other than someone in my party (I think I was up to about 80 straight 13ers without sharing a summit with a stranger). We linked up for a bit on the hike over to Sultan and learned quickly that we were both on a quest to potentially summit the Colorado 13ers. Ian has been an animal and really is tackling the list quickly. After this random meet up, we connected on this website with the hope to do a few peaks together on our quests and got out for a wonderful day on Mount Daly a few weeks earlier. On this day we had hoped to possibly give Clark Peak and point 13,060 a go but the weather forecast was for a monsoonal surge with storms starting right at noon so we elected for a shorter option. When considering shorter alternative options, I realized Ian only had point 13,472B left to finish off the Sawatch 13ers so I pitched the idea of these two peaks with a Huron add on from Clohesy. Ian loves the Clohesy area, and I had never been, so we altered plans to tackle these peaks with a major bonus of it being Ian's Sawatch 13er finisher!

We met early at the Sheep Gulch Trailhead and I jumped in his stock Tacoma for the drive into Clohesy. The stream crossings weren't an issue at this time of year but much to our surprise the initial hurdle on the road right out of Clear Creek is very impressive. After considering bashing the truck up this step we ultimately decided to park and keep Ian's truck intact. This hurdle on the road really seems to require an impressive 4x4 vehicle or the willingness to potentially damage whatever vehicle you take. There is evidence of the remnants of the underside of vehicles in this area. So, we altered plans and parked at Clear Creek instead. Therefore, we started the morning with a cool ford of the creek. This was going to add some significant mileage but worth it to not potentially damage his new truck. Fortunately, we were starting early a bit after 430 AM so had time before the noon storms started.

The hike into Clohesy is simple and the road is really mellow past the first 1/2 mile. The road really isn't that bad for driving other than the first step out of the creek and the first half mile but the walking was just fine as well. Once you reach Clohesy lake we stayed on the Missouri side of the lake on the trail until we bypassed the lake. The access to the upper basin between 13,517A and 13,472B is next to an avalanche path. There is a very wide initial avalanche path before Clohesy that seems like it would work as well but we used a narrow steep avalanche path a bit after Clohesy. The Cooney's used this narrow avalanche path as well. There is a lot of willows in this area and the bush whack initially is pretty solid across the stream. We quickly made our way into the trees on the left side of the avalanche path. 50 feet into the trees we were able avoid the willows of the avalanche path and had a very pleasant yet steep romp into the upper basin.

The upper basin is a beautiful spot and seems rarely visited.

Once your reach here you trend up towards the saddle through some beautiful slabs mixed with grass. The theme of the day on this route if looking to avoid any significant climbing is that a grassy ledge will arrive just when you want it to before any difficult scrambling begins. Trend up towards the saddle as far as you can then it will be pretty obvious when upper cliffs start to block upward access and you start a leftward trending ascent towards 13,517 on grassy ledges mixed with some rocky slabs and gullies.

We kept an ascending traverse towards 13,517's summit. Every time it seems like it will increase in climbing difficulty, a easy gully or grassy ledge presents itself for relatively easy passage. I do think this can be kept at class 2+. Plenty of class 3 and above scrambling is all around if desired. As we trended up, we were eventually able to angle back slightly to the ridge then finish the climb on the ridge to the summit.

From 13572 the ridge to 13,472 is impressive. Mtnman200 has a report of a high grassy ledge traverse on this website that is worth a look. The grassy ledge can be seen on the above photo and is impressive cutting across the face with lots of air beneath it! We elected to bypass all difficulties by losing a few extra hundred feet around the obvious rugged right ridge of 13,472. Once around the rugged ridge at about 12,600ft of elevation you can round the corner and pretty much hike steep pleasant grass all the way to the summit of 13,472.

After this we decided to take the South East ridge of Huron from 13,472. This is a nice walk up, we saw several goats en route, and we met our first people of the day on the summit of Huron. I had always wanted to see the Nolan's route up Huron from Clohesy lake, so we went down the standard route until the saddle and started to descend down towards Clohesy lake. It was interesting looking for cairns and trying to see how people best attack this section. We never really found a trail but cairns are everywhere in this section. Every time I am on a section of the Nolan's traverse, I am more and more impressed by anyone that can finish it. This section must be so difficult on the northbound trip. We eventually got down to Clohesy lake bypassing Lois Lake which has to be the smallest named lake I have been to. From Clohesy lake we had a pleasant walk back down to the truck as lightening and storms started around us at 1130.

Final stats on the day ended up at 13.86 miles with 5,394 feet of gain. This could really be cut down to a very quick day with a stout 4x4 vehicle and if not doing Huron. I really enjoyed this route. It was in a very rugged area of the Sawatch but never difficult and just a really enjoyable day overall. It was very cool to be so close to the Apostles. Hope this helps some in the future considering linking these peaks.