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| Estes Cone |
Kristi and I have been talking about getting out and doing
some camping this summer and our opportunity finally arrived. I was able to get the last spot at Glacier
Basin Camp in Rocky Mountain National Park.
We just bought a new tent last week since our old tent ripped on our
last adventure to the park about a year and a half ago. Cole and Jenny were able to join us, so we
had a small crew heading up for two days hiking and one night of camping.
The tough decision for RMNP is deciding where to hike. There are so many great places, and the hard
part is getting away from the hordes of people.
I really wanted to do a summit hike so I could get a nice view of Longs
Peak in. A few years ago I did the Twin
Sisters Peak hike which I highly recommend, so I wanted a new peak. The answer was easy and it was literally
across the road; Estes Cone.
Estes Cone
The hike of Estes Cone starts from the Longs Peak TH. This is located along HWY 7 to the south of
Estes Park. The parking lot will remain
full for the remainder of the summer since this is also the TH for Longs Peak,
so expect a lot of people. The good news
is that most of the people will be making their way towards Longs or Chasm
Lake, leaving the trail to Estes Cone relatively free of traffic.
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| Cap Rock |
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| RMNP Pano |
From the TH, the hike is about 3.2 miles to the summit. The first half mile runs along the Longs Peak
Trail, then there will be a split that is well marked heading to the north;
this is the Estes Cone Trail. After this
split it’s roughly another mile to the Eugenia Mine which is located along the Inn
Brook Creek. There is little left of
what was apparently “produced more dreams that gold” as the sign states. It is a nice area for a breather, but the mosquitos
were pretty heavy so we pushed on.
The trail kind of tricks you here, instead of going uphill
the trail heads down. There is a nice
meadow after the short descent that gives a open shot of the mountain. Once meeting up with another trail junction
the gain is steady to the top. Another junction
.7miles up the grade is where Estes Cone Trail and Storm Pass Trail meet. From here it the main trail fades in the
first few hundred yards and a climbers trail leads to the summit.
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| Nick and Cole Checking in on Longs |
Follow the cairns and it’s pretty easy to stay on a decent
trail to the top. It is only .7miles
from the last junction so it can go pretty quick, or not. We took our time because this was our only
hike for the day. There is a nice short
scramble through the cap rock to the summit.
Once on top the views of Meeker and Longs are amazing, even better than
from the summit of Twin Sisters. I took
the opportunity to do a father’s day photo.
We hit the road to get back to camp and relax for the rest of the
afternoon.
I must say one of the funniest parts of the day was driving
by the line of cars waiting to pay at the park’s entrance. Sometimes those annual passes are really
nice; you get to open the gate with a swipe of the card. At camp we were discussing options for the
next day. We came up with the idea of
hiking Emerald Mountain from camp. This was
barely 500ft, but it still counts in my book.
Then after our morning hike we would head to the Bear Lake area and do a
hike to one of the many lakes with all the other tourists.
Emerald Mountain
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| Jenny, Cole and Nick on Emerald Mountain |
This is a small peak, but it we made a fun route through the
woods and up the rocks. There may have
even been some prospecting along the way, but I can’t confirm that. We took about as direct of a route as
possible, once through the trees there was a good game trail leading up through
the large rock outcrops. This just took
us over half hour to ascend, a good way to start the day. This was a great place to view a lot of the
glacial geomorphology of the park. The
moraine park to the north was quite impressive as were all the cirques to the
west. This made it well worth the
effort.
Nymph and Dream
Lakes
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| Longs Peak |
We were looking for an easy hike to lakes or waterfalls,
unfortunately so was everyone else. This
part of the park was packed full of tourists getting in an easy hike. The beauty of this area is the backdrops of
the mountains. Hallett Peak looks like
it made my list, and has an amazing view from Dream Lake. This would be a great place for a snowshoe in
the winter and maybe the traffic would be down around then. As we descended the trail the arête to the
east was quite impressive. I was glad we
were able to sneak another hike in for the day.
We all had a beer and some lunch from Oskar Blues on our
mind, so we made our exit pretty quickly.
I can’t say I recommend hitting up Oskar Blues on a Sunday, the wait was
pretty ridiculous. But, when you’re with
good friends it doesn’t really matter.
It was a great weekend, now it’s time to climb some real mountains.
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| Estes Cone GPS Track |
Date: 6/14,15/2014
Estes Cone
TH Elevation: 9,375ft
Estes Cone
Summit : 11,010ft
Total Gained
Elevation: ~2,000ft
Class: 1-2
Distance: 6.4 miles
Time: 4:00
moving, 2:00 stopped.
Climbing Partner:
Kristi, Jenny, Cole
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