Hoosier Ridge (13,352), unranked Red Peak (13,215), & Red Mountain (13,229) by Brian Schultz Friday August 25, 2017

Roundtrip mileage: ~12 miles from Hoosier Pass (11,550')
Elevation gain: ~3750'
Start to finish: 8 hours 55 minutes

The monsoon weather pattern was finally winding down, a big relief after last month's unusually wet weather. I truckcamped in Fairplay last night knowing the temperature would be cold, and drove up to Hoosier Pass this morning where it would've been colder yet had I camped up there. The weather looked pretty good despite the chilly temps when I began at 7:00 AM. I walked across the highway to the gated road and followed it to its end at a cell tower, and headed up to the ridge from there. Other than some immediate willow bashing, the terrain was very easy and once on the ridge, I followed the many bumps on the ridge toward Hoosier's summit.

There are nice views all around while making the long journey to Hoosier's summit; Mt Silverheels in particular showed off a snow dusting from overnight precipitation. I arrived on Hoosier at 9:50 and stayed for 20 minutes. I wasn't sure I wanted to climb unranked Red Peak but it isn't that far away so I headed over. It's a fun peak with interesting terrain.

It only took a half hour to summit Red Peak from Hoosier and five minutes later I returned to the flat area below Hoosier. Instead of re-summiting Hoosier, I traversed to the Hoosier/Red Mountain saddle, which turned out to be easier than it initially looked, and at 11:20 began the ascent up Red Mountain. A very steep talus section has to be reckoned with, by either going straight up as I did, or contouring around it. The class 3 scrambling was fun but I decided to go around it on the descent. I arrived on top at 11:50 and sat down to enjoy the views for nearly a half hour.

At 12:15, I made the long haul out, returning over Hoosier, and taking on all the ridge bumps again. I was tired when I got back to Hoosier Pass at 3:55.