Turner Peak & 12,585'

2,210’ gain

4.05 miles RT

I have this pipe dream of finishing all the Thirteeners. I try and work towards this monumental goal when I can, but honestly, I’m not entertaining any illusions I’ll actually ever finish. And to clarify, using back of the envelope math, I think I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 more peaks to go. And to clarify further, those are only RANKED peaks. If you were so inclined to add in the unranked peaks (which I am), then I would need to add an additional ~150 more peaks, give or take. And that doesn’t touch the fact that some of these peaks are highly technical; skills that are above my pay grade to lead climb. So, try as I may to limp my ass over the finish line, I’ll more than likely crash out a few hundred meters short, face down in the gutter.

Looking for something to hike that didn’t involve careening our heads into a campfire (Colorado + wildfires are becoming synonymous with summer), we drove up to Cottonwood Pass in the Sawatch to hike Turner Peak. The smoke affects Regina badly (asthma). So, we needed something that didn’t involve marshmallows and smores.

We left the Western Slope around 10:00 am and arrived at Cottonwood Pass around 12:30 pm. We got lucky and I poached a prime spot as a camper van from Virginia left. Although, I gingerly maneuver around a dipshit, white Tesla from Texas who decided to block the whole thoroughfare. Cottonwood Pass was used frequently by early Ute Native Americans before white men came onto the scene. Named by an early settler & freighter named Dave Wood in 1877, he traversed this pass multiple times before the wagons made their marks. Once placer gold & silver were discovered in Taylor Park a few years later, Cottonwood was basically open for business.

As we left the parking lot, the smoke wasn’t bad, hardly noticeable actually. But that would change. I watched some tourists marvel and laugh at a small snow patch that was in the tundra and smiled. The older we get, these moments get fewer & fewer. Although, when I saw an alligator in the wild for the first time behind a Publix in Bluffton, South Carolina chilling on the grass, I turned into a screaming, 12-year-old girl. So, I understand. We gave the dog some food and water, waited for an RV that was towing a Jeep & everything else you could think of (except for maybe a bathysphere), crossed the road and started up the Collegiate West Colorado Trail (segment two). There’s only a trail for a short time.

Once we turned off from the CT, we followed an easy social path up to the summit of Point 12,585’, also known in some circles as “Turn-a-Round’ peak. I imagine because, for such an easy mountain to summit (Turner), it looks impossibly far from this point. And it all fairness, it does. But also, enticing because it means losing the circus of tourists of Cottonwood Pass.

Because we had the dog and I thought the ridge was going to be a rocky, scree-filled suck fest, I opted to descend the steep, grassy tundra that I could see. This way, it would be easier on her paws. And honestly, it wasn’t that much out of the way. We descended about 520’ to the saddle and took a quick break in the grass. More so, that Kaiah could get her ‘roll on’ in the wildflowers.

There was a faint, social trail heading up the opposite shoulder that we took. We followed it up as it dog-legged right (pun intended) across a short talus patch before we lost it again in the tundra. Not that it mattered anyway. Seeing the saddle with Turner and an unnamed high point on the ridge, the path forward was clear. Although I will say, walking up almost 1,000’ seemed to take forever. The views down into Osbourne Creek were nice. I thought it would be a great place to camp. Even with the commotion, dust, blaring music and downshifting gears of Cottonwood Pass under a mile away, it’s good to know that one can literally walk in any direction for an hour and be in alpine solitude and quiet. In the words of Neil Young,

“Got fuel to burn, got roads to drive.”

Even with as dry as it’s been, the wildflowers were abundant. Though, if no rain falls, I can’t imagine the color sticking around for much longer. I plopped down in a patch of Monet yellow and waited for Kaiah and Regina to arrive.

We contoured up the easy slope aiming for the saddle which, pretty much stays in view the entire time. However, Kaiah wasn’t for the summit. Floating like an island surrounded by a sea of sharp granite rock and talus, was this great little tundra patch where we decided to stop the dog. We didn’t have her booties and the rock would have tore up her paws. So, we took turns in achieving the summit.

As expected, the summit of Turner Peak wasn’t all that. But it’s the Sawatch, so, par for the course. After we each summited, we descended back to the saddle and took the ridge/shoulder up instead. It was all dirt and scree. There were multiple social trails weaving in & out like braided glacial streams. We thought about just staying low and traversing into South Texas Creek, but the bushwhacking would have cost us more time then regaining the altitude of 12,585.

Trekking back to the pass, we watched the Willow Fire to the north roar up like a phoenix throwing massive cumulonimbus into the skies. It was truly amazing and scary at how fast it erupted. And considering I worked on contract for an arborist tree company after the Black Forest Fire of 2013, going in and marking trees and taping off dangerous areas, I’ve seen first-hand what fire can do (including ground zero). Hopefully, 2026 isn’t the summer of devastation.