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While hiking to East Buffalo Peak last September, I tried to eyeball the bushwhack down from West Buffalo Peak on the loop route Bill describes on this site. The route didn’t look very geezer-friendly, and with limited time and energy, I never made it to West Buffalo. So, I started looking for an alternative route to West Buffalo.
Looking at a map revealed a route from the west, via the Fourmile Creek trail. This route was taken by scottda in a TR from July 2014, but the trail conditions I experienced and the mileages I recorded are different enough from his that I’m posting a new TR of this route.
The Fourmile Creek Trailhead is accessed from Buena Vista. Turn east onto main street from the stoplight in BV. The second stop sign is North Colorado Avenue. Drive north on this road for 2.4 miles and then turn right on 375. Follow this road for 6.7 miles until it ends at the Fourmile Creek Trailhead. There are branches off this road, so stay on the main road, except for a sharp right turn about 5.3 miles in, where the road straight ahead is 377. If you have a low clearance vehicle, it’s probably best to stop about 0.3 miles from the end of the road.
Turn Right Here
The trailhead at approximately 9470' elevation
The route follows the Fourmile Creek trail north for 4.5 miles to a high saddle. This is an excellent trail, not a single downed tree, fewer rocks and roots than many trails, and many sections of packed dirt cushioned by a soft layer of pine needles. The terrain is a mix of aspen and pine forest.
Early section a highway, probably an old jeep road
Enter the Buffalo Peaks Wilderness just over a mile in. Trail narrows here.
Trail sometimes next to the creek
Keep left at intersection with Salt Creek Trail, about 2 miles in
Trail section cushioned by pine needles
After reaching the saddle at about 11,400’ elevation, the route follows the Park/Chafee county boundary all the way to the summit. Turn right (east) into the woods, and in 0.2 miles emerge onto a steep grassy slope. Continue east to the top of the ridge at 12,000’. This is the most difficult section of the route, good footing but lung-busting. I don’t know when steep grass becomes class 2, but I think this is still class 1. After reaching the ridge, the route follows the ridgeline to the summit, mostly high alpine grass, a few rocky areas. The route loses about 100’ of elevation at 12,900’, but otherwise ramps straight up to the summit.
Entering the woods, looks like others have walked over this log
Emerge from woods onto grass
Looking back at the northwest ridge from about 12,900', Sawatch in the backgrouund
Looking towards the summit from the bump at 12,900'
On the summit looking at East Buffalo
View northeast toward the other Mosquitos
A significant advantage of this route over the standard approach from East Buffalo is that it avoids the loose class 2 section on East Buffalo. In previous reports, WildWanderer describes this section as difficult class 2, and user "scrambling" describes it as 2+. I agree with these assessments. I like to avoid loose terrain when possible and feel safer and more comfortable on solid Class 4 than loose Class 2. I’ve never seen any official statistics, but I’m suspicious that more accidents occur on loose terrain. For others with similar tastes, I highly recommend this Fourmile Creek route to West Buffalo. For trail-runners, it’s an easy class 1 route with great views. As with many 13er routes, I saw no one else on the trail, and no other vehicles at the TH.
Mileage: 12.9 miles
Vertical gain: 4200’ (3850’ elevation TH to summit, plus some ups and downs)
Asters
Mushrooms. Thought these were boletes because of rounded top, but fins rather than sponge underneath. Any mycologists out there to identify these?
My GPS Tracks on Google Maps (made from a .GPX file upload):
I logged a GPX file on my GPS and meant to save and post it. But accidentally erased it when I went hiking the next day (I'm a technologically challenged geezer). The place where it might be useful is the 0.6 miles from the end of the trail to the top of the ridge. I have an app on my phone called Pocket Earth, and its map shows the county line between Park and Chafee counties, which I generally followed up to the ridge, where the rest of the route is obvious. The route you take from the saddle to the ridge is not crucial, just don't go too far south or you'll end up in an aspen forest. Something may be stored on my Garmin watch. I've never tried to download anything from it, but will try.
Edit: I see a track in the Connect app on my phone that picked it up from my Forerunner 955. If someone can tell me how to get it from there to my Windows computer, I can post it to my TR.
Edit #2: I'm making progress, uploaded .gpx file. Larger than usual, still trying to figure out how to downsize it.
Okay, take your time! Hope to try West Buffalo Peak next month.
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