Dolly Varden Mountain (12,935), UN 13093, Sunshine Mountain (13,321) by Brian Schultz  Tuesday August 21, 2018

Roundtrip mileage: 8.1 miles from parking area along Henson Creek road (elev 11,400')
Elevation gain: 3,400'
Start to finish: 6 hours 50 minutes

I stopped in Denver to have lunch with John Kirk before driving to Lake City. It was great to meet after exchanging many emails over the years, and to thank him in person for his great site, which has opened my eyes to many climbing opportunities that I otherwise wouldn't have known about. We had a long lunch before I headed to Lake City.

From Lake City, I drove the Henson Creek road and truckcamped near the Nellie Creek trailhead. This morning I drove to a handy parking spot (elev 11,400') just before the bridge over Henson Creek, to begin a loop route for these three peaks.

I started at 7:25 AM, walked across the road to an open area, and hiked up a grassy slope with sparsely populated trees. A northeast bearing brought me to a drainage where I stayed on the left side until dropping down into it and crossing over to another drainage. There wasn't a trail to follow but it was easy terrain and the route essentially headed straight up grassy slopes to Dolly Varden's summit. I arrived at 8:45 and stayed for fifteen minutes (photo 1, photo 2, photo 3).

It was only a ten minute descent to the Dolly Varden/UN 13093 saddle and another 25 minutes to UN 13093. Despite the talus on UN 13093, it was a quick and easy ascent to the top. I reached the summit (photo 1, photo 2, photo 3) at 9:35 and stayed for thirty minutes with intermittent light rain falling along with some graupel.

I headed over to Sunshine Mountain at 10:05 on a good but sometimes fading trail in the tundra and topped out on the summit at 11:25. I stayed all of two minutes. With a 2,000 foot descent, I didn't want to slip on the steep grassy slopes if it started raining more heavily.

I found a manageable route down, first on an old mining road before it faded, then weaved between the steep cliffs lower down. I finally reached the Henson Creek road and walked up the road to my truck, arriving at 2:15. Stormy weather hit when I got back to Lake City so it was good to finish the peaks when I did.