Hail Peak

Well, I guess it was a fitting morning in terms of the name of this high 12er in the Gores. It certainly hailed on Reid & myself on Hail Peak. However, hail was not what was forecasted, which was a bit of a bummer.

The night before, Kristine & I had a great car camp dinner up at one of our favorite camping spots on Red & White Mountain. Hot dogs, burgers, and corn were our dinner items cooked over an open flame campfire. It was delicious. Then, Kristine, made us some awesome s’mores for dessert. She really needs to enter a s’mores-off contest.

Me and our dinner roasting over the campfire

Me and our dinner roasting over the campfire

A tasty dinner

A tasty dinner

Now, that's a s'more!

Now, that’s a s’more!

A gorgeous sunset topping off a great evening

A gorgeous sunset topping off a great evening

One of the many great things about this campsite is we just packed up when we couldn’t see anymore and drove down the 4WD road to Wildridge and back to Edwards and were home 20 minutes later around 9 pm.

I had yet to summit this reclusive Gore peak called Hail Peak, so the next morning my buddy Reid Jennings from Denver met me around 8:30 am last Sunday morning to go out for a nice trail run up Gore Creek. The first 4.5 miles to the Recen brothers grave site is a superb trail run. Fairly mellow and flat, it only gains around 1,500′ in 4.5 miles. Reid’s knee was acting up, so we hiked it from the grave site north up the steeper trail towards Gore Lake. Our first wave of wind and hail came on this steeper trail and it was only 10am. Interesting when the forecast was for mostly sunny and 20% chance of storms. After turning north off the Gore Lake trail on an extremely faint climber’s trail and enjoying some bushwhacking through moist meadows, we reached the high basin containing Snow Lake and chose our steep ascent gully full of talus. We actually got on some nice class 3 rock to the gully’s west side to reach Hail’s southeast ridge/face.

The ascent gully/slabs to reach hail's southeast ridge/face

The ascent gully/slabs to reach Hail’s southeast ridge/face

It actually cleared up and got sunny for the remaining class 3ish boulder field scramble up the final 600′ to Hail’s 12,904′ summit, which was pleasant and pretty fun.

Reid on Hail's summit ridge with Mt. Silverthorne behind

Reid on Hail’s summit ridge with Mt. Silverthorne behind

The views were great from the summit after topping out around 11:15 am (2 hours & 45 minutes after we started).

Snow Peak & Snow Lake below from Hail's summit

Snow Peak & Snow Lake below from Hail’s summit

Grand Traverse Peak basking in what sun there was

Grand Traverse Peak basking in what sun there was

The weather over the northern Gores looked really nasty ...Asgard Ridge and its tower can be seen leading up to Palomino Point & Mt. Valhalla in the foreground

The weather over the northern Gores looked really nasty …Asgard Ridge and its towers (in the darker shadows) can be seen leading up to Palomino Point & Mt. Valhalla (far left) in the foreground

Reid & myself on the summit of Hail Peak (12,904'). It was nice to go super light for this peak (as in a bottle of water, a few snacks, and a rain jacket)

Reid & myself on the summit of Hail Peak (12,904′). It was nice to go super light for this peak (as in a bottle of water, a few snacks, and a rain jacket)

Weather was definitely moving in from the west and so we boogied after only maybe 10 minutes on top. We got hailed on descending Hail’s boulder-strewn southeast face and by the time we reached the creek draining from Snow Lake it was a full on hail storm. I had wanted to continue a trail run up past Snow Lake, over Snow Pass, down to Deluge Lake, and back to the Gore Creek trailhead to make a nice loop out of it, but the weather dictated our descent path. We beelined for treeline and descended the way we came in. Reid’s knee was still acting up so we just hiked fast the entire way back to the trailhead. All in all, a memorable 13 mile run/hike up Hail Peak with about 4,500′ of vertical gain. It took us about 5 1/2 hours roundtrip, so back in time to watch some football and the Broncos. I’ll have to go back to trail run that loop with Kristine at some point.