Clinton Peak (13,857 ft), McNamee Peak (13,780), and Traver Peak (13,852 ft) from Montgomery Reservoir by  Brian Schultz  Monday  July 21, 2003

I drove to the Montgomery Reservoir and, just like the last three times, took the wrong turn and ended up at the lower area of the reservoir. Fortunately, it's only a few minutes to turn around and get righted. I was hiking solo today and had clear skies when I started up the rough four wheel drive road at 5:57 AM. There were many flooded stretches on the road which I bypassed on the right side through willows, and a relatively fast pace brought me to the fork in the road where a left turn goes to Democrat and straight goes to Wheeler Lake. My destination was straight ahead but the creek was flowing wide and deep across the road, requiring a steep climb up a hundred feet to the right and then crossing the raging creek before descending back to the road.

I reached the very scenic Wheeler Lake at 7:30 and took a twenty minute break to study the cliffs on the left side. It may not have been the easiest ascent but I followed recent footprints in the snowbanks below the cliffs and then picked my own way up, well to the left of the waterfalls, before topping out above the cliffs to a flat grassy area. It was quite steep. I saw no cairns along the way until reaching the grassy area on top where a solitary cairn stood. 

The route was straightforward from there, although uncairned, and led to the old ruins of a cabin before gaining the basin between Clinton and Traver. I checked the elevation (13,300 feet) in the basin before heading up to Clinton. Large snowbanks presented steep and slippery hiking and made me wish I had my crampons with but I never thought I'd need them on this trip to Colorado. When the opportunity arose, I left the snow for better footing on the rocks and soon arrived on the summit at 9:26. It was a nice change to be on top of a peak this early and I enjoyed clear views of Mt Elbert, Mt Massive, and the Climax mine below. Yet, despite the bright sunshine and clear skies, it was very windy and I stayed just 15 minutes before heading to McNamee.

A 17 minute rock hop along the ridge put me on McNamee at 9:58 where I was surprised to see an electric hotplate rusting away as well as some kind of cooker. With the many wires lying around it appeared that the miners had tapped into power lines for their own usage. Five minutes later I departed and reached the summit of Traver Peak, at 10:21. It was neat to look over at Mt Democrat, and the North Ridge route my pals and I took last September. For a brief moment I thought about repeating it today but was content to sit and enjoy this summit and not worry about storms. I left Traver at 10:53 and had a somewhat difficult time descending the cliffs by Wheeler Lake. I saw the first people of the day later when a family hiking up the road asked for directions to the lake. Other than them, I had the entire day to myself and made it back to my car at 1:23. I stayed dry today!

Trailhead to Clinton- 3 hours 29 minutes

Clinton to Traver- 40 minutes

Traver to trailhead- 2 hours 30 minutes

Total time- 7 hours 26 minutes, including all breaks

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