Boulder Mountain (13,528) by Brian Schultz Wednesday July 23, 2014

Roundtrip mileage: 8.1 miles from Baldwin Lake road

Elevation gain: 2,800'

Start to finish: 6 hours

Participants: Tim Briese and Brian Schultz

We wouldn't have the benefit of a good weather forecast today. Even though it called for 50% chance of storms/showers after 11:00 AM, we intended to summit before any inclement weather came in.

We drove from Buena Vista to the Baldwin Gulch trailhead. Our plan was to drive the 4x4 road all the way to Baldwin Lake but the road after Baldwin Creek got so rough that we stopped and parked at 11,060', which meant an additional 1,000' of elevation gain and more mileage than we were expecting. That was worrisome but at least the skies were sunny and clear when we started walking up the road at 7:35 AM.

We weren't paying attention and managed to hike past the cut-off road to Baldwin Lake. We didn't travel very far but we gained 100' of unnecessary elevation before turning around. I did the same thing when I climbed Mt Mamma four years ago.

The side road continues past Baldwin Lake and ends at a mine, from there it was an easy hike to the Mamma/Boulder ridge. The remaining distance, 1.25 miles, on the ridge to Boulder's summit was straightforward and easy.

Our arrival time was 11:25 and we only stayed 12 minutes because it was already raining to the northwest and clouds were quickly building near us. We reversed our route a short distance on the ridge and descended Boulder's slopes back to the road. It was raining on Mt Antero before we reached the road and dark clouds threatened all around us but we made it back to Tim's truck without getting rained on.

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