Taylor Peak (13,435) by Brian Schultz Sunday July 19, 2020

Roundtrip mileage: 4.4 miles from Taylor River Road 742
Elevation gain: 2,900' (includes extra gain from route finding error)
Start to finish: 6 hours
Participants: Tim Briese, Brian Schultz

Our climb would start from the end of the Taylor River road. It's a good gravel road, slow and dusty, and very popular with campers. Lots of RV's, trailers, and tents were set up in dispersed areas along the road. I arrived early and enjoyed the relative peace and quiet before Tim showed up. A number of people on dirt bikes and ATV's occasionally came to see what the end of the road looked like. The ATV drivers turned around but all the bike riders crossed the stream and continued to the trail on the other side.

Tim showed up at dinner time. It was nice to relax and catch up as we fixed dinner and later set up for truck camping.

Taylor Peak offers two approaches from where we parked. We could either cross the stream and follow the trail to the road above, but it involved taking off boots to ford the stream and then backtracking to the road, or we could bushwhack up through the trees for a direct line to the road. We chose the bushwhack and began at 5:55 AM.

The bushwhack was steep through the trees and we were mindful to stay on the right side of the stream as we headed up. Views of Taylor Peak opened up as we got higher. When we joined up with the road, we followed it east for just a short distance, then turned left onto an old track that led to a trail junction.

At this junction we should've turned left and crossed the stream toward a cabin but there was lots of vegetative overgrowth that covered the trail and we didn't see it. We turned right onto a defined trail that led to a boulder field. Upon topping out on it, we knew it was wrong but at least we could see how the route was supposed to go.

We dropped back down and got situated correctly. We were able to stay on grassy areas for the most part and weaved through willows to get to a grassy slope that would take us to the summit ridge. There was some loose scree near the top and when we reached the ridge we turned left with just a short walk remaining to the summit. We arrived at 9:40.

It was great to be on an Elk peak again. The weather was nice enough to stay on top for 35 minutes and take in the views. When we departed at 10:15, the descent went without a hitch. We no sooner got back to the trucks at 12:00 noon and it started raining. This was a fun peak despite the minor route finding error.