There aren't very many Elk 13ers that one can just walk up, especially in the dark. Taylor Peak, at the northern end of Taylor Park, is an outlier in that regard. It's also positioned perfectly for people looking to enjoy a late fall sunrise on the Castle group given that set of peaks sits almost perfectly northwest of Taylor. With the sun so low in the southern horizon at dawn during October, I figured that aspect looking over towards Castle would make for a pretty good show at dawn. I was right.

Taylor is generally climbed with Star, the next 13er to the West. There are a few TRs for the pair but the pictures from Wild Wanderer's and Furthermore's were most helpful to me as I did the approach. I dropped into Taylor Park from Cottonwood Pass and drove FS 742 all the way to it's north-western terminus. On a Friday afternoon making this drive up, there were only a handful of people hanging out on Cottonwood Pass and once down in the park, I passed no cars on the drive up the road and had the trailhead area at road's end completely to myself for the evening (and the entire next day). No crowds on these relatively unknown 13ers even during the most beautiful October weekend one could imagine.

I started in the dark the next morning around 430am and followed the Mt. Tilton Trail (582) to the West, dealing with a little bit of snow in the trail given it's on a northern aspect of Tilton and sits in the shade all day. Where the Tilton Trail meets a junction with the Taylor Divide Trail, I left both of them and suffered a short but tedious bushwack up a steep slope directly north to make for some old mining ruins that sit in the basin south of Taylor and Star Peaks. Doing this in the dark wasn't the most fun and the line I chose ended up zig-zagging around dense trees in places. The slope eventually thins out and opens up for a final slog up to the mine. From here I searched around in the dark for a little bit to get around some tall towers of talus that stack up around old mining ruins like this and eventually found a way through and came out into the upper basin above the mine as a little bit of blue light finally trickled over from the East.

I should mention that I stopped often to catch my breath on the approach, and while looking skyward, the Orionids were putting on quite a show, with several streaks and flashes of light per minute during my rest breaks. Given the shortness of the approach and limited gain to get this summit, I wasn't in much of a hurry and probably stopped and admired the meteors for as many minutes as I spent hiking. From the basin to the ridgeline though, with the sun fast approaching, I hauled ass to try getting a good seat for the show, which Peak Finder said would start just a few minutes before 7am MST.

I headed slightly east to avoid the nasty looking cliffs between Taylor and Star and eventually ended up on tundra for the final walk up to the ridge, which I took at almost a jog. The final 100' or so is very steep and trekking poles helped a lot.

I made the ridge around 6:45am and so missed most of the Belt of Venus descending towards the western horizon, but I managed to grab a few pictures before it disappeared. The light those final few minutes of blue hour before the alpenglow hits is my favorite part of mornings in the mountains. I ended up sitting on the ridge in this spot for an hour photographing and enjoying the views. There was zero wind to encourage me to keep moving.

After I had a sufficient timelapse of Castle and the Pearl Pass area lighting up, I finished the scramble up the ridge, which took longer than I expected. There was a bit of spice just before the true summit which is featured in the attached video, where snow coverage on the east slopes forces one to take the ridge crest with some exposure to the left. From there it's a short walk to a summit with views that pack a punch for how little effort it takes to get up here.

The views from Taylor's summit in October are a dream. The light could not be better. My ambition to grab Star Peak later that morning dissolved as it both looked a long way off and the gully used to ascend it looked snow-covered which would mean lots of trap-dooring into the talus underneath. Why do all that suffering when it's warm enough to lounge in a tee-shirt up here and take a nap with these views?

I ended up hanging out on top of Taylor for three and a half hours. To be on a mountain summit in calm weather and not be in a hurry is a very pleasant thing. This may be my first peak where I spent more time enjoying the summit than I took actually earning it. I ended up falling asleep and woke up overheated which was very unusual with so much snow around and below me, so I opted to head down. Once back down by the mining ruins, I took a few more pictures there before repeating the bushwack down (it's much easier in daylight) and following the trail back to the Subaru.

By mid-afternoon the light wasn't particularly good around the mining ruins but they're still too photogenic to ignore.

I found a great campsite near the bottom of Italian Creek road to hang out in before hiking the Italian/Lambertson combo the following day, and enjoyed another quiet evening with stellar views. This whole area between the gentle giants of the Sawatch and the crumbling facades of the Elks is a uniquely quiet and remote location surrounded by overrun areas in all directions.