Sugarloaf Mountain (8,403) by Brian Schultz Wednesday August 24, 2016

Roundtrip mileage: 1.35 miles
Elevation gain: 590'
Start to finish: 1 hour 5 minutes

After a night of steady rain in Gunnison, I drove north of town to climb some peaks. I never got to the peaks because I got stuck on a muddy road. Still in cell service, I was able to call for a tow but it took three hours for the tow truck to arrive. After the driver stopped to assess the situation, he tried to get around me and also got stuck on the road. He eventually had to put chains on his tires and after finally getting out of his own predicament, he was able winch me out. I headed to Buena Vista with the hope of salvaging a climb.

I drove CR 301 from Johnson Village, turned left on CR 300 and left again to a signed gate. Access is allowed so after opening the gate and driving through, I parked just a short distance past it and started my hike at 3:20 PM. Even though it was raining on the high peaks in the Sawatch range, skies were sunny above me. I stayed high on the left side of an obvious gully and enjoyed some fun scrambling around good sized boulders and small towers as I made my way up.

At 3:50, I thought I'd reached the summit but it was a false summit. It even had a cairn, but my GPS said the summit was still about 50' to the east. Trees obscured the true summit but sure enough, it was over there with a register in a plastic bag stuffed under a rock. I wouldn't be surprised if many hikers stop at the first summit thinking they've arrived.

There are surprisingly nice views from the top of both summits and I stayed for fifteen minutes before departing. I contoured around the gully before descending into it, and arrived back at my truck at 4:25. This was a fun little hike and I beat the incoming weather but on the drive up to Leadville it snowed furiously, with the summits of Mt Elbert and Mt Massive taking the brunt of the storm. Snow also layered the peaks to the east as I drove north of Leadville and on to Georgetown.