Byers Peak (12,804), Bottle Peak (11,603), & Ptarmigan Peak (11,773) by Brian Schultz Tuesday July 26, 2022

Roundtrip mileage: 12.2 miles from Byers Peak trailhead
Elevation gain: ~4,200'
Start to finish: 10 hours 10 minutes
Participants: Tim Briese, Brian Schultz

From Fraser we drove CR 72 and then CR 73 to the Byers Peak trailhead. Any two-wheel vehicle can handle these roads. As we pulled up to the trailhead we thought it was fine to park next to it but we found out on our return that vehicles are only supposed to park on the left side of the one way road. Fortunately I wasn't issued a citation.

We began at 6:25 AM on the excellent trail. Others were ascending the same time as us, including a young woman from Carson City, Nevada and a group of four friends celebrating a group member's birthday. We stopped often for photos (photo 1, photo 2, photo 3) and breaks, no need to rush because the weather forecast was excellent.

As we neared the summit, there was some easy scrambling just before we topped out at 10:00. I entertained continuing on to Bills Peak but was content to enjoy the summit (photo 1, photo 2), which we did for 50 minutes. We talked with Claudia from Nevada for a while and the group of four after they arrived. It was nice to just soak in the sunshine and the views.

We departed at 10:50. Many others were now ascending the ridge and as we got lower on the ridge, Tim brought up the idea of climbing Bottle Peak and Ptarmigan Peak after seeing the grassy slopes of both peaks. Our maps showed trails leading to Bottle Pass so we left the Byers Peak trail hoping to join one of those trails. We spotted some cairns leading downward and followed them until reaching a trail. We stayed on this trail until it appeared to be leading away from Bottle Peak's slopes. We departed it and began a bushwhack but had we stayed on the trail we would've been fine because it looped back. After following my GPS bearing to Bottle Peak's slopes, we were soon back on the trail.

The trail brought us to the lower slopes of Bottle Peak and after a short break we headed up. We noted a different trail we would descend on the return to join up with the Byers Peak trail. We reached Bottle's summit at 1:35 and descended to Bottle Pass, reaching it at 1:50, and started up the easy grassy slopes of Ptarmigan Peak. Twenty five minutes later, at 2:15, we were on Ptarmigan's summit and took a long break with the weather holding nicely.

At 2:50 we began our descent and Tim found a nice contour to avoid reclimbing Bottle Peak or dropping too far down the slopes. There's a great view of Byers and Bills from Bottle's slopes and we found the trail we noted earlier on Bottle's lower slopes. This handily leads to the Byers Peak trail. Interestingly, this trail isn't obvious to someone looking for it coming up on the Byers Peak trail but it's a great trail and I'm surprised there wasn't a sign marking it. We pulled into the trailhead at 4:35, making for a long but rewarding day.