Paiute Peak – 13,094

RT Length: 11.32 miles

Elevation Gain: 2781’

I was parked at the Brainard Lakes parking lot. I already posted about why I was parked there, and not the Mitchell Lakes trailhead, so I’m going to skip that part this time.

I was on the trail at 4:30 am. My first order of business was to hike the 1.3 miles to the Mitchell Lake Trailhead.

From the Mitchell Lake Trailhead, I followed the Blue Lakes Trail west towards Blue Lake. This is a well defined, class 1 trail with no junctions, so I was able to follow the trail the entire way. From the Mitchell Lake Trailhead, it was around 3 miles to Blue Lake.

From Blue Lake I had a clear view of Paiute Peak. Here’s an overview of the rest of my hike

First, I followed the trail around the north side of the lake

When I came to a grassy drainage, I left the trail and followed the drainage north

At around 11580’ I crossed the creek at a small waterfall, and headed northwest.

After crossing the waterfall I kept heading west, aiming for the ridge in the distance. This was choose your own adventure. I chose to go up and over the rocky gullies, doing my best to avoid the snow. This can all easily be kept class 2.

At this point , the lake at 11833’ was to the north of me, on my right. I kept heading west, to gain this ridge. There are a couple of cairns here, and parts of a game trail, but the main goal is to head towards the gully.

And now to head up the gully. I did this by heading north, staying to the right of the snow. If there isn’t snow when you’re doing this route, you can aim for a rather large vertical rock sticking up straight (you’ll know it when you see it, as it stands out). This gully had game trails leading to the top, and I’m sure you could take them all the way to the top of the gully. However, I stayed to the right of the snow and then climbed up the rocky rib. This was mostly class 2, with a few easy class 3 moves thrown in.

At the top of the rock rib, you’ll see what appears to be the summit of Paiute Peak to the north. It’s actually a false summit, but aim for it.

From here, the true summit is to the northeast. Head towards two boulders that look like the summit (they’re another false summit)

From those two boulders, the summit of Paiute Peak is visible to the north.

To get there I downclimbed a difficult class 3 section (or easy class 4) with exposure. This was much more difficult to downclimb than to upclimb. And it was very windy this day, making this ridge extra spicy. The route down and then up to the summit are obvious. There was a cairn at the top, and a summit register.

I summited Paiute Peak at 7:30am

Paiute Peak:

From the summit looking back, it really, really looks like where those two boulders are is higher, but there was a register here, so I’m assuming it’s the true summit. Now to head back. This “v” was much easier to upclimb. I used the same route down as I did on my way back up.

I then made my way towards the gully.

I went southeast down the rocky rib

Then descended the gully

At the bottom of the gully I turned left, and made my way back towards Blue Lake

I aimed for the drainage, then followed it south towards Blue Lake and the trail below

Back on the trail, I followed it east back to the Mitchell Lake Trailhead, passing several lakes along the way.

Back at the Mitchell Lake Trailhead, I followed the road back to the Brainard Lake parking area.

I made it back to the Brainard Lakes trailhead at 10:30am, making this an 11.32 mile hike with 2781’ of elevation gain in 6 hours.

On to the next trailhead!