Hike Treasury Mountain and Treasure Mountain White River National Forest, CO

Sep 16, 2021 — Treasury Mountain and Treasure Mountain are a couple of 13ers outside of Crested Butte, two of only a small handful in the area. I wanted to get them both in a day, despite the route not making a ton of sense since linking them up along the ridge isn't possible due to a Class 5 cliff (or so I've heard). I reached the Yule Pass Trailhead (any vehicle can get there) and set out along the Yule Pass Trail, an old road that has been eroded into a narrow and sometimes treacherous trail. A couple of spots were particularly steep on the left and required a little bit of extra care, uncommon for Colorado trails.

After a mile along the Yule Pass Trail, I decided to head up an obvious social trail on the right in order to access Treasury Mountain first. The ridgeline was for its majority a nice Class 1 hike with some steep sections. About halfway up I crossed a significant flat section from where I'd descend later. Past the flat bit, a somewhat faded social trail leads up a not-unpleasant talus/scree slope, followed by a lovely flat section where Treasury Mountain came into view. The last bit to the summit introduced some Class 2. A social trail wrapped around to just left of the ridge crest, but I also descended along the crest on my way back. It's really all Class 2 and you can't go too wrong to gain the summit. I could see Treasure Mountain to the northwest, and I was tempted to try continuing along the ridge crest, despite knowing the sketchy stuff I'd have in store. I'd also heard of some people using some old cables to descend the southwest face of Treasury Mountain to get down to the Yule Pass Trail below, but this also seemed particularly loose and steep and scary, and I didn't want to make this otherwise very tame day into a horror-fest. Instead I backtracked along the crest.

I reached the first flat section along the way to Treasury Mountain and descended generally southwest. I could see Yule Pass below and headed more-or-less toward it. Along the way I hiked down steep tundra for the majority, but there were a couple of talus sections. There's a bunch of options for getting back down to the Yule Pass Trail, so just have fun descending the slope. Once I was back on the Yule Pass Trail, I followed it as it descended around 500 feet of vertical loss. On the right, a social trail led away from the main trail. This social trail is more popular for its access to the Yule Lakes. It begins in very good shape and is easy to follow as it gains elevation steeply and then ascends more lightly along the slope. The trail started to fade a bit after a mile or so, cairns now helping to mark the way, but you can't be too wrong here if you lose the cairns. Just stick roughly to the 11800-11900 contour line to reach Yule Lakes.

There are a couple of options to gain the Treasure Mountain ridgeline, my next objective. Most seem to leave the social trail early and ascend via a minor cirque, but I used this as my descent route (the eastermost line on my attached map leading up to Treasure Mountain). Alternatively, I decided to follow the ever-fading social trail to Yule Lakes to check them out. The lakes were gorgeous and I was happy I did so, despite the ascent being quite a bit steeper for longer. After reaching Yule Lakes, I ascended north and up the alternating tundra/talus slope for around 1500 vertical gain to reach the ridgeline above. It was overall a pretty fast ascent and didn't exceed Class 2, but it was a bit brutal on my quads.

Once on the ridge it was a tundra stroll to the summit of Treasure Mountain, where I got excellent views toward Maroon Peak and Capitol Peak, among others. I didn't stick around for long and decided to attempt the somewhat more standard route for accessing the summit rather than via Yule Lakes. I headed east along the ridgeline and started own the cirque-esque slope. The crux was toward the top, where a steep Class 2 dirty bit of slope led me off the ridge crest and onto the tundra below. From here it was overall very pleasant grassy walking with the occasional boulder to dodge. I made it back to the social trail and followed it to the Yule Pass Trail, which I then took back to my car.