Mt Tweto (13,672), Mt Arkansas (13,795), Treasurevault Mtn (13701), Mosquito Peak (13,781) by Brian Schultz Sunday July 29, 2007
Tim and I met in Fairplay and drove up to the trailhead as described in Garratt and Martin's book. The weather was looking great and no storm activity was in the forecast as we began at 6:25 AM on the jeep road. After a short distance we left the road and headed up the grassy slopes to the Tweto saddle, a very straightforward and easy hike, and from there continued up the ridge to Tweto's summit. We arrived on the summit at 8:05. I especially appreciated the sunny and clear skies and hoped we were finally getting a break from the monsoon rains as we gazed over to our next destination, Mt Arkansas. We departed at 8:25, reached the Tweto-Arkansas saddle in short order, and headed up the long ridge to Mt Arkansas.
The rocky ridge to Mt Arkansas was slow and as we neared the summit Tim dislodged a big boulder that I had to quickly scamper out of the way of. I was only a few feet behind him and saw it coming but had I not been paying attention, well... let's just say I'm thankful for fast reflexes. We arrived on top at 9:55 and because the weather was so nice, we considered extending our day to climb Treasurevault and Mosquito peaks also. They weren't that far away but I let Tim decide because he was recuperating from knee surgery. He was willing and after enjoying the views for a half hour we departed at 10:30, returning to the Tweto-Arkansas saddle and contouring underneath Tweto to reach its southwest ridge. We took a ten minute break before heading up easy terrain to Treasurevault.
Treasurevault Mtn isn't a ranked bicentennial but it's on the way to Mosquito Peak and required little effort to hike up. We stopped for five minutes when we arrived on top at 12:40. The descent to the Treasurevault-Mosquito saddle went quickly but instead of going straight up to the summit from there, we contoured around the uninviting loose scree and rock to the right, hiking past old mine equipment on a nice use trail that switchbacked up to the summit. Our arrival time on top was 1:15 and the exceptional weather allowed for another lengthy break. We descended at 1:45 and took the loose ridge route down to the saddle, found a short-cut through the snow banks at the saddle, and headed straight down to the lake below.
We could see the road where we parked and as we descended, we heard the ricocheting of target shooting. We could see their vehicles and where they were shooting from but we didn't want to be unintended victims so we diverted well around them and ultimately reached Tim's truck at 3:15. This was a fun and relatively easy way to gain three ranked bicentennials and also made for a nice loop route.
Trailhead to Tweto summit- 1 hour 40 minutes
Tweto to Arkansas- 1 hour 30 minutes
Arkansas to Treasurevault- 1 hour 10 minutes
Treasurevault to Mosquito- 30 minutes
Mosquito to trailhead- 1 hour 30 minutes
Start to finish- 8 hours 50 minutes