Mt Wilcox (13,408) & Otter Mountain (12,766) by Brian Schultz Friday August 15, 2014

Roundtrip mileage: 7 miles from Silver Dollar Lake trailhead (elevation 11,145')

Elevation gain: 2,725'

Start to finish: 5 hours 55 minutes

Participants: Colin Levey and Brian Schultz

The forecast called for 30% chance of storms/showers after 2:00 PM so we slept in a bit and enjoyed a hot breakfast before leaving Georgetown. We headed up the Guanella Pass road and turned right on the Naylor Lake road (north side of Guanella Pass). The trailhead parking lot is 0.6 miles up the Naylor Lake road on the left side.

We began at 7:55 AM on an excellent trail that ascends above Naylor Lake, continues to Silver Dollar Lake, and then up to Murray Lake. From Murray Lake, the trail fades but it's easy enough to pick a route up to the Argentine/Wilcox saddle. It was a steep grunt to the saddle but from there it was a pleasant hike (photo 1, photo 2) to Wilcox's summit. We arrived at 10:30 and relaxed for twenty five minutes before heading over to Otter Mountain.

The terrain between Wilcox and Otter is gentle and grassy. From the low point between the two peaks, Colin wanted to head straight up the slopes to Otter. I suggested we head left to gain Otter's north ridge because it might be a bit quicker, he thought a straight line would be faster, so we split up. I arrived on Otter at 11:50, a couple minutes before Colin. He could hardly believe I beat him to the top.

Instead of reversing our route we decided to take Otter's south ridge down. The loop would save us some elevation regain and mileage but the map contours indicated steep terrain on the lower ridge. We were both fine with that and if we kept a good bearing, our descent would bring us to the Naylor Lake road pretty close to where we parked.

We departed Otter at 12:00 noon, an easy descent at first before it turned into a nasty, steep bushwhack. We were hopping over deadfall that seemed to never end and we passed through very few open areas. I wasn't too crazy about all the deadfall, it reminded me of Minnesota bushwhacking in the Boundary Waters, but Colin loved it. We eventually cleared the deadfall and knew the road was near when we came across two people setting up a tent.

We made it back to the parking lot at 1:50 and it was packed full of cars. Two young guys asked for a ride back down to the Guanella Pass road where they were parked and we obliged. We hoped for a quick drive down the south side of Guanella Pass but road work delayed us at several points. Traffic was very slow on Highway 285 but we still made it to Salida in time to enjoy the motel's hot tub and pool before meeting Pete Krzanowsky for dinner.

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