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Aug 19, 2020 — I parked at some historic buildings at the popular Boreas Pass (fine for 2WD), taking the Black Powder Trail through meadows and up to Black Powder Pass. From here, I continued along a social trail occasionally marked by cairns up the steep slope toward Bald Mountain. After a bunch of moderate slope hiking over light Class 2, but mostly just grasses or light scree, I got to one of many false summits of Bald Mountain. Some minor ups and downs led me to the true summit. You can see down toward Breckenridge to the northwest, and east toward Mount Guyot. I toyed with the idea of traversing from Bald Mountain down to French Pass and over to Mount Guyot, but it seemed like it would be a significant undertaking and the ridge to Guyot looked rough.
I headed back from Bald Mountain down to Black Powder Pass, continuing through open tundra toward Boreas Mountain. There was no social trail visible along this section of the route, but it was straightforward enough, starting with a steep grassy slope with some minor Class 2, and then a long tundra walk on the wide northern ridge of Boreas Mountain. When I was about a quarter mile from the summit, talus seemed to appear out of nowhere and the pleasant tundra walk was put to an end. I kept left around a minor bump at the start of the talus, a social trail now leading around humps of talus and scree and through a depression between two minor ridges of talus. It was an interesting section with no obvious summit to be seen until I was on top of it. The true summit is apparently at the end of the left talus ridge/bump. I returned to just below Black Powder Pass and back the way I came.
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