Peters Peak – 13,138 and PT 13229

RT Length: 4.1 miles

Elevation Gain: 1897’

From my campsite at Rock Lake, I was up and on the trail at 7am, heading west towards the pond at 12000’

I skirted the pond to the left, and ascended on the tundra parallelling the small rock pile

At the top of this small pile of rocks was a much larger pile of rocks. I continued following them west to the Peters/Buffalo saddle.

At the saddle I turned left, and headed southwest up the slope to the ridge. This was 600’ of elevation through kitty-litter scree and talus in .2 miles. This was class 2+ choose your own adventure, but this is the basic route I took:

At the top of the ridge I turned left, and rock-hopped to the summit. This was all class 2 or easy class 3.

I summited Peters Peak at 8am

Peters Peak:

From Peters Peak, I could see PT 13229 to the northwest. I turned and headed back down the ridge, but not to the Buffalo Peak saddle. Instead, I followed the ridge west, all the way to the saddle of Peters Peak and PT 13229. This was rocky, but could all be kept class 2

From the Peters/13229 saddle, I looked for a yellow gully in the rock, and aimed for it. This is the basic route I took, all class 2 until the gully.

The gully itself goes at class 3, but you can find more stable (also class 3) rock about halfway up to the left. The gully itself was pretty stable, but there was scree littering the rocks. The goal is to gain the ridge.

Once on the ridge, I turned right, and followed it a short distance north. There were cairns here. It was rocky, and the rocks were loose.

At the top of the ridge there were more cairns, all going left, following the ridge west. The ridge was pretty flat, and there were several large cairns (most likely for the traverse). I wasn’t able to tell where the actual summit was, so I just hiked the entire rocky, class 2 ridge.

I summited PT 13229 around 9:15am

PT 13229:

I was not doing the traverse today. While the skies were currently clear, it would be pouring down rain in another 2 hours, and I knew I had to get back to camp. So, I turned and headed back towards the Peters/13229 saddle.

I headed south towards the yellow gully

Then took the yellow gully down to the 13229/Peters saddle

Once at the saddle, I re-ascended much of the ridge to Peters Peak, then descended to the northeast, avoiding cliffing out below the Peters/13229 saddle.

First, up the ridge

Then, down to the Buffalo/Peters saddle

Once at the saddle I turned right, and followed the drainage east back towards Rock Lake

I made it back to Rock Lake at 11am, making this a 4.1 mile hike with 1897’ of elevation gain in 4 hours.