Handies Peak (14,048) by  Brian Schultz   Thursday  August 2, 2001

The Grizzly Gulch route drew Tim's and my interest having already done Handies from American Basin. Jason needed the peak and hiking with us meant substantially more elevation gain than the cakewalk from the other side but he didn't care. Besides, this was the scenic route. Art and Mark, satisfied with their accomplishment of bagging four fourteeners, slept in as Tim, Jason, and I each drove separately to the trailhead.

The parking lot was anything but quiet at 6:15 when I pulled in and had to avoid a large group of young teens sitting right in the middle of it. I hoped the annoying loudmouths would be hiking Redcloud. Also in the parking lot were the marathoners from Wetterhorn yesterday who would be running up Redcloud and informed us the teens were hiking Handies. Darn.

As we readied our packs I watched the teen leader pour fuel in a circle out on the main road. Inside the circle was their jumble of shoes and when he lit it they jumped through the fire to retrieve their shoes, hurriedly put them on and took off running up the trail. A strange ritual and I bemoaned the fact that we'd have to pass them all when they straggled ahead. One of the boys' shoes was flaming as he put it on and charged up the trail.

We left at 6:30, and all I can say is, it's a good thing we didn't start in front of them because we'd have been in THEIR way- other than one late starting girl from their group who passed us quickly, we never saw them again!

The trail through the woods was excellent and remained so as we wound our way above treeline and entered a beautiful basin full of wildflowers- a scenic paradise if there ever was one. As we progressed further into the basin we watched a solo hiker in front of us ascending a gully up to the ridge, which was perhaps shorter, but we opted to stay on the trail as it cut to the right and gained the summit ridge more gently. Jason was eager to get on top and pushed ahead while Tim and I took it slower. Coming down the trail was a group of young kids who summited but they weren't the teens from this morning. The summit is a bit deceiving- after trudging up the ridge and thinking it's close, there's a discouraging little jaunt yet to the top. We arrived at 9:35.

Jason had been up 15 minutes already. The fine weather we had earlier disappeared, clouds settled in all about us, and it got very cold. We visited with the solo climber and two others who came up from Grouse Gulch, one of whom was a fellow Minnesotan. After they left, a family of three claimed the summit but quickly departed, then a young man sauntered up and upon dropping his pack, pulled out a cigarette and asked if anyone had a lighter. When told no, he produced his own and lit up, failing to impress us in the least. Despite the cold we spent an hour on top before leaving at 10:35.

We took lots of breaks on the descent and slowed the pace considerably when Jason's knee acted up. It got worse as we neared the trailhead and he hobbled out in much pain, forcing the change in plans for Mt Wilson in the morning. We made it back to the trailhead at 1:00 and Tim headed for home while Jason and I stuck around debating whether I should chance driving over Cinnamon Pass in my non 4x4 truck. With Jason bailing out on Mt Wilson, I had a hard time deciding whether or not to go to the Silver Pick but ultimately decided to skip it too. I didn't want to disappoint Tracy who said she'd be there but also didn't want to drive all the way there in case she didn't show up. As much as I wanted to climb Mt Wilson again, I didn't want to climb it alone.

Jason left and I visited with the friendly marathoners from Wetterhorn who ran up Redcloud & Sunshine and also climbed some thirteeners along the way. As for the teens- they were an Outward Bound group who'd already spent 30 days in the mountains and today was a marathon that had them running up Handies from Grizzly Gulch, down into American Basin, and over Cinnamon Pass. No wonder we never saw them again.

This route was easy with a great trail all the way to the summit.

Trailhead to summit- 3 hours 5 minutes

Total hiking time- 6 hours 30 minutes (including all breaks and 1 hour on summit)

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