Mt Guyot (13,370) & Mt Falcon (7,851) by Brian Schultz Sunday June 30, 2013

Mt Guyot (13,370):

Roundtrip mileage: 1.85 miles (from 4x4 camp area west of Georgia Pass, otherwise 2.5 miles from Georgia Pass)

Elevation gain: ~1,600'

Start to finish: 3 hours

Once again early storms were predicted so I changed my schedule for a shorter outing. My only concern with climbing Guyot was the amount of snow on the peak because the mountains in the area were still holding a fair amount and I didn't have an ice axe with. I approached Georgia Pass last night from Highway 285 in Jefferson, following County Road 35 northwest to County Road 54, staying on County 54 as it turned into Forest Road 54, and continuing on Forest Road 54 to Georgia Pass. The pass can be driven to by car if care is taken to slow down in a few rough areas.

I drove a 4x4 road west of the pass about a third of a mile, to 11,700' elevation, and set up for the night in the back of my truck. There are lots of nice camp sites along this road and many were already taken. I could've driven the road (shown on Trails Illustrated #105) very close to the bottom of Guyot's ridge and really shorten up the climb but I was content to walk the road from my camp area in the morning.

I began at 7:25 AM and quickly reached the steep ridge. A climber's trail follows the rocky ridge but it fades at times and I stayed on the right side whenever it faded. I enjoyed climbing up the ridge but when I got closer to the summit, I thought I'd be stopped by the snow. I found some snow-free slabs, stashed my poles, and scrambled 10 feet up the class 3 slabs. I popped out on the summit moments later at 10:00 (photo 1, photo 2) and stayed for 15 minutes. I found the snow on the descent to be nowhere near as intimidating as it looked from below earlier and easily made my way down to retrieve my poles.

Halfway down the ridge, I met a young man with his very young daughter, and his dog. He insisted they were going to the top even though he was constantly lifting his young girl up and over most of the rocks. I also met two women resting on the ridge below who were calling it quits because they didn't like the steep talus. I reached my truck at 10:25 and drove back to the pass, and stopped there to take a few pictures of Guyot before heading back to Jefferson. The weather was still holding but that would change as I drove back to Denver.

Mt Falcon (7,851):

Roundtrip mileage: 1.5 miles from the parking lot

Start to finish: 30 minutes

After getting back on Highway 285, it started raining. I stopped for a lunch break before taking the Parmalee Gulch road exit near Morrison, and drove the well signed Mt Falcon road all the way to the Mt Falcon parking lot. The park area has lots of trails and I used a courtesy map to follow one leading to the summit. I climbed up several different rock formations to make sure I covered all the high points near the lookout tower, and talked briefly with two fellows from Texas before turning around. This is a pretty easy ranked peak.