 |
| Peak 8562 |
I hadn't been out with Dan since our Jerry Peak outing the
end of December. He emailed me with a
few ideas and I was up for getting out but was hoping to limit windshield time
and get home at a decent hour. With this
in mind we settled on an obscure peak in the Smoky Mountains north of Fairfield
– Peak 8562.
Dan, Shadow and I hit the hill outside of Cherry Creek at
8:30AM sans snowshoes. It was a bit
chilly at first, so the heat we generated as we climbed the steep sagebrush hill
was welcome. As we progressed upward
toward the sunshine we entered the moonscape that was the terrain after the Beaver
Creek fire.
 |
| Dan heading up the ridge |
We made quick time in gaining the first 1100 feet to reach point
6788 and could finally see our objective, Peak 8562, a few miles away. From here we followed the wide undulating “ridge”
to the base of the peak alternating between solid snow and burned ground. With the charred surface, the going was relatively
easy since we didn't have to watch our feet as we walked and chatted in the bright
sunshine. All this time, Buttercup
Mountain was looming on our left. I was
drooling, wanting to climb it, but without an ice ax today wasn't going to be
the day. Maybe I’ll head that way in a couple
of weeks.
 |
| Buttercup Mountain |
After four miles we reached the base of the peak and all
that remained was the short 600 foot gain to the summit. As we grunted up this section a cold breeze
from the north started picking up. The GPS read 11:45 and 5.25 miles.
The views from the summit were excellent. The Pioneers really stood out to the east as
did the burned our drainages that surrounded us. The previous weeks hike up Newman Peak had us
on the northern edge of the Beaver Creek fire; here we were on the southern edge
close to 20 miles away.
 |
| Pioneers |
 |
| Currant Gulch |
 |
| The view back to the truck |
 |
| No sign of human occupation |
We huddled behind the summit cairn out of the wind for a
quick lunch before dropping of the north side to make a small loop out of the trip. The descent path we chose provided some
excellent views showing the destruction a large fire does to both the trees and
land.
 |
| Dan making his way slowly down to Cherry Creek. I glissaded the snow to the right. |
 |
| Burned and blown out Cherry Creek |
We arrived back at the truck a little after 2:30 in good
shape and headed to Fairfield where the burgers at the Wrangler were excellent!
Total distance was a little shy of 10 miles
with over 3100 feet elevation gain.
No comments:
Post a Comment