"K 49" (13,535) by Brian Schultz Sunday July 23, 2017

Roundtrip mileage: ~8.8 miles from (4x4) North Halfmoon Creek trailhead (10,500')
Elevation gain: 3,035'
Start to finish: 7 hours
Participants: Tim Briese, Brian Schultz

This was another fill-in peak because of the monsoon weather. We drove past the parking lots for fourteeners Mt Elbert and Mt Massive, dropped my car off at a pull-out, and continued on the 4x4 road to the North Halfmoon trailhead. The road was rough and slow but presented no issues. We wanted to drive across the creek but the raging current prompted us to park and, at 8:00 AM, we removed our boots for the short wade across. Too bad we couldn't have driven because the road was in great shape on the other side. We did notice while on the summit later that a number of vehicles were parked at the mine along the road but were likely better equipped to handle the creek.

We departed the road without going as far as the mine. A short distance through trees put us onto the lower slopes (elevation ~12,100') at 9:55, and we stopped for a break to ponder a route up. We agreed to head up on as much grass as we could but as we got higher we couldn't avoid the inevitable talus. The ascent was brutally steep and we were happy to reach the summit ridge (~13,200') at 11:20. From that point on the ridge, we still had .19 miles to the top but it was an easy stroll and we topped out fifteen minutes later at 11:35.

The weather was sunny with no storm issues so we stayed on top until 12:20. Ours were only the 2nd and 3rd signatures in the summit register this year and after the long break, we headed down. We had no problems on the descent, other than it being steep, and hiked out mostly nonstop. We waded back across the creek and reached Tim's truck at 3:00.