Elliott Mountain (12,340), Sockrider Peak (12,308), & Johnny Bull Mountain (12,029) by Brian Schultz Tuesday August 30, 2022

Roundtrip mileage: ~8 miles
Elevation gain: ~2,700'
Start to finish: 6 hours 40 minutes
Participants: Tim Briese, Brian Schultz

We drove Highway 145 south of Telluride to Dunton Road (CR 535). Views along Dunton Road were outstanding, especially of Lizard Head. We turned onto FR 471, which was smooth and quick to the West Fall Creek trailhead, where we dropped my truck off for a shuttle. We drove back to the East Fall Creek trailhead and began there at 8:40 AM. Beautiful weather was in the forecast again today, a nice treat since we've avoided this area of the San Juans for several years because of fires and/or poor weather.

The trail is excellent to the Calico trail junction (photo 1, photo 2, photo 3). We turned left here and left again at the Calico/Sockrider trail junction (photo 1) for Elliott Mountain. The slopes below Elliott's summit are very steep so we continued along the trail a short distance before cutting up from the trail to the summit. Several dirt bikes roaring by had us standing off the trail briefly to let them by before heading up the slopes. We arrived on Elliott's summit at 10:50 and stayed until 11:10. Views (photo 1, photo 2) are excellent from the summit.

On the descent we stayed north a bit further along the ridge before dropping down to the trail. Once on the trail again, we backtracked to the Elliott/Sockrider saddle and made our way up to Sockrider on another great trail. This was easy hiking and we arrived on Sockrider's summit (photo 1, photo 2) at 12:10. The flies were horrible as we sat down for a break, finally getting relief when the wind picked up and blew them away. We departed Sockrider at 12:30 and continued on the trail to Johnny Bull Mountain.

The ridge to unranked Johnny Bull Mountain was easy and we arrived on top at 1:30. Many climbers continue on to climb Calico Peak and other nearby peaks but we were fine with ending our day with Johnny Bull. We wanted to get to Durango at a reasonable hour, and after a half hour on top we departed. At the saddle below we took the West Fall Creek trail back to my car. This is an excellent trail as well. At one point we heard what sounded like a gunshot but likely was a tree that fell or snapped. We made it back to my truck at 3:20. This was a nice outing today in an area I've wanted to visit for years.