Chalk Mountain
The day after J & I climbed up Asgard Ridge to the summit of Mt. Valhalla and descended to East Vail, Kristine, Rainie, Kona, & I headed over to the Fremont Pass area between Copper Mtn and Leadville in Summit County to check out a hike up the 12,017′ Chalk Mountain.
We had been wanting to scope this little mountain out solely because of its name, but it actually turned out to be a nice 4-5 mile hike roundtrip and really good for a 32 week pregnant Kristine. Rainie & Kona had a great time as well. Despite being surrounded by the lands of the notorious Climax Mine on all north, east, & west sides, the south side has a nice forest service road open to the public directly up to the summit plateau of Chalk Mountain. We parked just a few hundred yards off Highway 91 and began the nice stroll up Forest Service Road 134. We actually didn’t get going until maybe after 10am, but the weather was partly cloudy, nice, and cool. Kristine did wonderful and soon we were above treeline staring at the Jackal Hut in the distance.
Chalk Mountain’s summit plateau was quite large extending for probably a half mile east to west. The views south to the Sawatch, west to Mt. of the Holy Cross, north to the Gores, and east to Mt. Arkansas were pretty spectacular.
It was very enjoyable being up on the summit of Chalk Mountain with just the Chalks.
We ate a sandwich, spent 30 minutes on top,and then strolled down the road back to the car getting a little rain/hail on the way down. We then headed to Silverthorne, did a few errands, and picked up J’s truck at the North Rock Creek TH, which we had left in order to climb Asgard Ridge and do our traverse over the Gores. A great day with all my ladies!