Two Buttes was a place I had never heard of before, but in August of 2020 my daughter and I were on the way back to the Texas Panhandle from Wellington, CO and had opted to take the highways through the eastern plains of Colorado rather than I-25. It was definitely a part of Colorado I had rarely seen. Then I saw the bump out in the middle of the flat plains after hours of absolutely nothing. As soon as I got home I looked on Google Maps to see if that point had a name. I kind of forgot about it for a while and then my wife and I were on our way home from Breck in Sept of 2023 and had opted to take the route east and when I saw it a second time I decided to do some research and see what info I could find about climbing it. I found a few scattered trip reports on this particular mountain, a couple here, a couple on Peakbagger and listsofjohn, even a couple videos on YouTube, but nothing really gave a lot of info as far as access or the fact that Two Buttes is the shortest ranked mountain in the state. I am going to assume it is volcanic in nature just because of the type of rock I saw throughout the hike...someone might verify that for me.

I had Monday, Feb. 12th off, wasn't on-call at work, and was kind of getting the "road trip itch" that I often do when I haven't taken any kind of trip for a while...some call it wanderlust, so what the heck, I had my summit goal set. Since I didn't have anything urgent to do at home I decided that I'd make the quick 3 hr drive up and do a quick hike of the shortest ranked peak in the state and then head back home.

I left the house at about 7:30 AM CST, stopped for a gas fill-up in Boise City, OK and arrived at the fence on the NW side of the peak at 9:35 MST. I got started heading that way at 9:42, opting to go under the barbed wire fence where I parked, more on that detail in a bit.

It had snowed quite a bit throughout the High Plains the previous Saturday night through Sunday night and, while we only had about 2-3 inches of snow at home I could see that the further north I went the snow accumulations were increasing, but most of the snow drifted into the fencelines along the roads. I hiked through about 5-6 inches of snow that was piled up on the grasses and weeds, so basically getting wet up to mid-shin until I got right at the west base of the mountain. The north slope is pretty steep, so I angled towards the west slope that is gentler and leads right up to the saddle between the two summits.

I continued up the west slopes, postholing a couple times up to my knees through snow as well as bushes that were under the snow, nothing too bad though.

One thing that immediately stood out to me was all the names carved into the stones around the summit. What I thought was just graffiti turned out to be an interesting glimpse into the past. Many of the names were accompanied with where the person was from and the year that they stood at that spot, many of those dates going back to the early 1800s. I tried to get pics of many of those carvings.

The views from the top are expansive, though that word doesn't really encompass it. No trees except for a few that grow around Two Buttes reservoir. Prairie land as far as the eye can see, with wind mills dotting the horizons.

I spent roughly 25 minutes at the two summits, it was in the low 30s but with no strong winds, only a light breeze and sunny, it was pretty nice out.. I opted to descend from the clearly visible path that went from the saddle down to the SW to a boarded up gate.

Earlier I said I would get back to a detail about going under the fence where I parked. Turns out there is a public access point further south, right where the roads splits to go down to the wildlife preserve. I got a couple pics of the signs and markers that I found on my descent.

I got back to my truck and checked my time...10:42, exactly one hour for this 1.5 mile hike with plenty of time at the top for pictures and semi-bushwhacking on the ascent.

I noticed on Google Maps that there was a cemetery just west of the peak that you drive by on your way to the peak. I decided to check it out on my back towards US 287. It looks like most of the headstones had been relocated or possibly under snow but there were still three I could see. findagrave.com had a lot of interesting information about folks that had been buried there though.

Now, as per my modus operandi, my thoughts and advice for this hike:

This hike is simple, the hardest part was because of the snow, but anyone could do this peak. I would highly advise doing it in the early spring or fall, or even a decent winter day, once things have cooled down. Rattlesnakes and extreme heat are common in this area. The views from this isolated point are actually pretty cool, and knowing how much pioneer/early state history took place in the area helps make this a pretty fun experience, plus it is the shortest ranked peak in the state as well as the Prowers County highpoint.