South Arapaho Peak (13,397 ) & North Arapaho Peak (13,502) by Brian Schultz Sunday August 27, 2017

Roundtrip mileage: 10.5 miles from 4th of July trailhead (10,150')
Elevation gain: 3,800'
Start to finish: 10 hours 25 minutes
Participants: Tim Briese, Brian Schultz

Poor weather turned us back on North Arapaho exactly two years ago to the date. Today the weather outlook was great and we knew we could take all the time we wanted. And that we did, with the forecast calling for only 30% chance of showers/storms after 3:00 PM.

We drove up from Boulder at 5:00 AM and joined a small convoy of vehicles as we neared the 4th of July trailhead. This is a busy place, even at 6:10 in the morning, and especially on a Sunday. Lots of vehicles were already parked but we were able to find parking at the higher lot. We readied our packs and started at 6:20 AM on the excellent trail.

We reached the Arapaho trail junction at 7:25 and chatted with a group of three climbers while watching a drone flying overhead. We never saw the operator. The fellows were also climbing North Arapaho and soon barged ahead of us.

With the clear sunny weather it was nice to see South Arapaho (photo 1, photo 2) as we approached, unlike two years ago when the weather was fogged in and raining. There are braided trails on the ridge but we stayed close to the crest and arrived on South Arapaho's summit at 9:50. We departed five minutes later.

It's only a half mile to North Arapaho as the crow flies but the ridge curves and adds a little more mileage. Gerry Roach describes four cruxes on the route- all brief class 3 sections. Much of the ridge is slow going, at least it was for us, and there's a fair amount of exposure.

The first part of the ridge does travel quickly. We reached the area where we turned around two years ago and after that, we slowed to a cautious pace. Stay high or drop down? That was the question we always spent lots of time on.

At the obvious first crux, we dropped down slightly off the ridge before regaining it. The second crux was a smooth slab (photo 1, photo 2). The top of the slab was just out of arm's reach for me and rather than waste time for me to make the move on my own, Tim extended a hand to me. Crux 3 has a sharp drop-off from the ridge that we bypassed by dropping down on the left side again. The fourth crux had us stymied for a while but a descending climber directed us to the route he went up even though he wasn't descending from it. So, we scrambled up a ways and crossed to the right (east) side of the ridge. This area is below and to the left of the steep cliffs of the summit, and a steep dirt path leads to the top where a short walk put us on the summit at 11:50.

The summit cairn might be the biggest cairn I've ever seen on a peak. It's absolutely huge. We didn't find a register but we enjoyed spending a half hour on top before departing at 12:20. We made it back to South Arapaho at 1:40 and continued to the trailhead. We pulled in at 4:45.