"Tincup Peak" (13,345) by Brian Schultz Friday August 28, 2020

Roundtrip mileage: 4.35 miles from Mirror Lake
Elevation gain: 2,370'
Start to finish: 4 hours 30 minutes

It's a pleasant drive on the west side of Cottonwood Pass road now that it's all paved to the Taylor Reservoir road. The turn-off road to the town of Tincup is an excellent gravel road but the road to Mirror Lake from Tincup is rougher and slower. It's still very manageable though. I arrived at Mirror Lake (no camping allowed in the parking area on the north side) and continued on the extremely rough road to the other side of the lake to set up for the night.

There are a couple sites just up the road from the lake but I parked in the parking area instead, not wanting to drive up the gnarly looking road. Had I driven up the road, I would've found that the road smoothed out nicely and I could've started closer to Tincup Peak in the morning. That said, I was told by ATV drivers the road gets really rough as it nears Tincup Pass. Mirror Lake was quite scenic in the evening light and Tincup Peak by moonlight was pretty neat.

I began at 6:25 AM by hiking up the road. After about a half mile I exited the road and began a bushwhack through the trees toward the Emma Burr/Tincup saddle. With the dense trees preventing a clear view ahead, I ended up going up the slopes toward Tincup instead of to the saddle, which was fine at first as the slopes above the trees were grassy.

But that changed higher up. Then it was steep and sharp talus for hundreds of feet before reaching Tincup's ridge well above the saddle. In hindsight, I wish I'd set a waypoint for the saddle so I could've followed a bearing to it. Anyway, it didn't take long to reach Tincup's summit once on the ridge and I arrived on top at 8:55.

The weather forecast wasn't very good today and storm clouds were already brewing. I'd planned on adding UN 13050 to the day's climbing but the long route over to it would be risky in a thunderstorm. So I kept my summit stay to only ten minutes and began the descent to the Emma Burr/Tincup saddle. I clearly saw how much easier the ascent would've been had I gone that way up but at least now I could make a speedy descent.

I was able to stay on the grassy slopes most of the way down. Once I got into the trees, thunder started rumbling and shortly afterward it began raining so I was glad I didn't go for the other peak. I got back to my truck at 11:55. This peak turned out to be a good choice with its short distance and nominal elevation gain, especially with how early the storm activity rolled in today.