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Sep 13, 2021 — Redcloud Peak and Sunshine Peak are remote 14ers south of Lake City, Colorado. Any vehicle can reach the trailhead, though sedans may bottom out a little bit on rockier sections. I wanted to hike these two peaks, but also include a neighboring 13er called Sundog. In advance, I want to make some recommendations. If you're just doing the 14ers, I recommend heading up to Redcloud, continuing over to Sunshine, and then backtracking the route. The gully used to descend from Sunshine is horrible and makes the hike a lot less pleasant and more dangerous. However, if you're adding Sundog into the mix, I recommend still not using the descent gully and instead descending from Sundog via its north ridge, which includes some light bushwhacking and Ben Feinstein reports the higher portion of the ridge is only Class 2/2+. I added a short pink line on my attached map to illustrate where this descent would be. I can tell you in hindsight that I would have prefered to take that route rather than the somewhat standard route people use for Sunshine Peak, but the day of my hike I had it in my head that I wanted to check out the horrible gully in question in order to see for myself. It's dumb, and the high road would have been a lot nicer. Anyway, my trip report will outline what I ended up doing, though I do recommend you descend from Sundog via its north ridge.
I started along the standard trail from Silver Creek Trailhead. It's a pleasant forest walk with occasional views toward Handies Peak to the west, as well as toward Sundog's northern slope on the right. After a couple of miles I reached the junction with the South Fork of Silver Creek, which would later be my return route, ending the lollipop loop. I kept to the main trail and headed along Silver Creek, above treeline, and then through tundra. Some switchbacks led to the saddle on the northeast side of Redcloud Peak. The trail was in great condition up to this point, but it deteriorated and steepened significantly for the ridgeline ascent to Redcloud Peak. While easy to follow, there are a few social trails cutting through the talus/scree, and I chose to stick to the most prominent one. I'd still give it Class 2 since it gets pretty steep, but I wouldn't call it particularly dangerous. Once on the summit of Redcloud Peak, I took in the views of the pleasant trail that would lead me all the way to Sunshine Peak to the south. The ridgeline was nice and went really quickly, not even Class 2 at any point except maybe some very light scrambling toward the summit of Sunshine Peak.
From Sunshine Peak, I backtracked along the northern trail and descended via a social trail on its northwest talus face. The trail was steep and loose, but was barely Class 2. Once below Susnhine Peak, I noted the descent gully many use as a standard route for accessing Sunshine Peak, but I was first going to head up to Sundog before backtracking to take this gully. I dropped a hundred feet or so along the ridgeline to get to the saddle south of Sundog, then proceeded up Class 2 talus along its ridgeline. A Class 2+ move on solid rock led to a Class 2 short, narrow gully which brought me to the ridge crest. The ridge crest didn't exceed Class 2 as it undulated on a few small bumps before reaching the high point at the end of the ridge. I noted the possibility of a descent via Sundog's north ridge, but instead backtracked to the saddle with Sunshine Peak, opting to instead take the standard horrible gully (see my anecdote in the first paragraph above).
The gully was pretty bad and I kind of can't believe it's considered a standard route. It's heavily eroded to the point where all scree/talus has been pushed away leaving hardpan dirt behind - I hope you have good traction or don't mind butt-scooting! This descent is fairly dangerous. There are at least three options, and mine didn't seem any better or worse than the others. It just kind of sucks and isn't "on-brand" with the rest of the hike, which was quite pleasant and mostly a trail. I'll note it will be tempting to follow a tiny stream's watercourse, but there's a waterfall here.
Once below the dumb gully, I followed cairns through the expansive talus field as it worked its way down to a social trail below. There was another very short, steep section along the way that my shoes/butt weren't happy about. Eventually I made it to the trail and followed it back to the main Silver Creek Trail. I believe a mudslide wiped out a couple hundred feet or so along the trail, though it was still easy to follow and not unpleasant, and I'm sure it will be repaired soon. I thought this was a great hike except for the descent from Sunshine Peak.
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