Hike Mount Lindsey and Huerfano Peaks Loop Rio Grande National Forest, CO

Jun 10, 2022 — Our second day of wrapping up the 13ers around the Huerfano River in the Blanca massif brought Marisa, Whiley, and myself together to tackle yet another gorgeous traverse, which would include the Huerfano ("orphan") peak naming theme, plus Mount Lindsey. We wanted to get all the 13ers+ in one big swoop, facilitated by a traverse along the ridgeline, put on our radar by Ben Feinstein. Any car can make it to here (37.66455, -105.45968), but at least a Crossover vehicle is required past this point. If coming from the north, getting there's no problem, but from the south Google had difficulty. I recommend you navigate here (37.60875, -105.21967) and head north on the primary road (572), which avoids private property and uses an excellent dirt road. We parked at a pull-out where the Raspberry Trail crosses the road, though there are plenty of other spots to park before reaching the trailhead.

Whereas yesterday we headed west along the Raspberry Trail to reach California Peak, today we headed east. The trail's deadfall was a bit worse on this side because it's more heavily forested, but we were happy to have a trail despite the deadfall. A few switchbacks and about 1000 feet of vertical got us up the slope and to the forested ridgeline. Leaving the Raspberry Trail, we headed south through the trees, some occasional light bushwhacking required. We emerged from the treeline and continued ascending the tundra slope all the way to the summit of Huerfana Peak. Some light Class 2 talus and the steep summit slope were the only obstacles.

The traverse to Huerfano Peak to the south would include ample scrambling, and the peak seemed pretty far away. Unsure what to expect fully, we started down from Huerfana and quickly encountered some Class 2/2+ to avoid the ridge crest's loose crap. Keeping to the right, we found our way in and out of minor obstacles, nothing exceeding Class 3+, one lightly exposed move requiring a little pull. It's hard to describe exactly what we did, but after the first few hundred surprisingly fun feet of side-hilling below the crest to avoid rock outcroppings, we reached another significant descent on somewhat loose terrain. Another short ascent (still staying to the right of the crest) got us a small lump and then a dip led us out of the side-hilling and route-finding into less convoluted terrain where it made most sense to stick to the crest. Once along the ridge crest, we enjoyed the Class 2/3 fun as it led up to Huerfano Peak. There wasn't anything particularly scary or worth noting, just a bunch of typical ridgeline fun.

Huerfano Peak offered excellent views in all directions, especially toward Mount Lindsey and Blanca Peak to the south. We headed along the tundra slope, taking a short detour up to Iron Nipple (Class 2+ if you avoid the short knife-edge), and then kept going south and passed through a cute notch between a couple of rock outcroppings to reach the saddle north of Mount Lindsey. Iron Nipple is more-or-less a required unranked hump along the ridge since side-hilling to avoid it looked very dumb.

Mount Lindsey has been going through some land access issues since the owners don't want liability (maybe that will change soon?), but there was no sign nor other indication that the summit was closed until our way back later via the standard Mount Lindsey Trail. So, we just kept going along the ridgeline until the base of this 14er. The summit is gained via one of two routes. The first, and what seems to be more common, is a gully that was covered in snow during our visit (Class 2+ normally), and didn't look fun in any way. Even without snow, I think I would have always chosen the second option, which takes the ridge crest (Class 3). The two routes are very close together, paralleling each other and only separating for about 600 feet of ascent before rejoining along the summit crest.

The ridgeline started out as pleasant Class 2/2+, but at around 13500', stay clear of the crest since it becomes jagged and dangerous. Instead, we kept left, navigating some lightly exposed Class 2/3 ledges and ascended a small gully feature just left of the crest. The gully widened into fun, steep slabs and a few Class 3 moves got us out of this steep feature, leading to a minor spur ridge on the left that would shortly meet back up with the main crest. Along this short spur was a Class 3 move that felt a bit exposed, but we were able to shove ourselves into a big crack separating two boulders to keep it safer. Once back on the ridge crest, fun Class 2/2+ scrambling got us to the more obvious social trail coming from the more standard gully route, and this took us to the summit of Mount Lindsey. I loved this route.

We backtracked from Mount Lindsey and followed the standard trail, which passed a very small sign deterring people from entering, the only indicator for private property that we saw for the day. We had one more peak for the day just to the west, Huerfanito. This minor 13er is surrounded by scree and choss on all sides, and previous reports made it seem awful, so we went into it with low expectations. After analyzing our options, we all agreed approaching the summit from the south looked the most reasonable. We later found out this requires trespassing on private property, but again there were no signs and so we had no idea at the time.

Leaving the Mount Lindsey Trail, we descended some Class 2 to reach the saddle, then dropped left and ascended on Class 2 boulders that became progressively steeper as we neared the south ridge of Huerfanito. Less tedious than we thought it would be, we all enjoyed the physical nature of the crawl on relatively solid stuff. Picking a bad route is possible though, since some portions of boulders are bigger, while others are better characterized as scree. Class 2+ led up a somewhat loose couple of moves on the south side of the peak, and then we found ourselves on the summit of our final peak of the day. We went over to the eastern summit to be sure it was lower, and it was.

Rather than backtrack, we decided to continue west along the ridge and descend that way. We encountered some loose Class 2/3, and the terrain was not good. Ascending this way would be pretty not fun. There was some snow on our descent slope leading into the basin above Huerfanito, but even without snow to cover the talus, nothing exceeds Class 2/2+ here. After a short hike through some beautiful tundra, we got back onto the Mount Lindsey Trail and followed it north. The trail here is gorgeous, especially when looking back toward Iron Nipple and Huerfanito. While easy to follow, the trail sort of disappeared at about 10800', so we spent some time navigating the marshes until finding the trail again. After merging with the Upper Huerfano Trail, we continued north back to the Upper Huerfano Trailhead and hiked the road back to the cars. Another excellent loop in this area!