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A group of us had been planning on this trip for some time and I couldn't wait to make my first venture into the Elk Mountains. We made it to Lead King Basin Trailhead around ~8pm. That 4WD road is a sweet ride and definitely reminded me numerous times to get a lift package in my frickin Liberty. We made it to camp site 3 by ~9pm and met up with the other fellas in our group. They had already finished a case or two of PBR and we put a few shots of Johnny Walker down while trying to find some Perseids under the new moon sky.
The next morning we awoke and hit the trail around 8:30am.
If there is anything important to gather from this report its this: make sure to stay left at this sign for "site 4". This will keep you on the correct trail.
We ended up going the wrong way and had to bushwack up along the water fall below Gem Lake. Definitely added an extra 3/4 mile to journey and about 45 minutes out of the way.
From there we followed the West Slope route to the base of the mountain.
And just like Bill's route description states you should head towards the grassy knoll and then after that head over the rib to the gully.
Once in the gully its difficult to follow the cairn trail so we just broke away from one another and tried a couple of different routes to the top. This helped to keep rock fall impacts to other climbers to a minimum.
Helmets are highly recommended due to the loose rock potential...next time Near the top the rock solidified and led to some awesome climbing after the crap rock from before.
Couple of nice summit shots.
The first from the group made it to the summit it 3 hrs and last made it in 4 hrs from the campsite. A couple of guys and a dog weren't able to make it, but it still made for a great hike/climb.
The way back sucked to say the least, with plenty of loose rock scuttering down the mountain as we all tried to get down before bustin a shin or knee.
Round trip from camp took ~7 hrs. After a frozen dip into Geneva Lake, pasta and JW/Jaeger never went down so smooth. Saw some bats and a couple deer the rest of the evening.
The next morning we hit Red Rock Diner in Carbondale...highly recommended...they even have a 1986 World Champions Boston Red Sox pennet...damn bambino curse.
From there some epic mountain biking on the Peak to Peak trail from Frisco to Breck. What a sweet ride.
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Near the top the rock solidified and led to some awesome climbing after the crap rock from before.
