Saturday, June 29: My friend Lacie and I headed to the trailhead for Huron Peak in the wee hours of the morning, only to be greeted with rain and chilly weather. We slept in the car for maybe 90 minutes and the rain subsided, but our motivation to hike had gone away and we headed back home.

Getting There

Fast forward to July 2, where I headed off to the trailhead after work. There’s plenty of dispersed camping along CO Rd 390, as well as some historical sights if you’ve got the time. This road also leads to trailheads for other 14’ers Missouri Mountain, Mt Belford, and Mt Oxford. The road is gravel and a sedan and AWD can easily do this drive. However, the trailhead for Huron Peak is down a road best driven with a 4x4, and an AWD probably won’t cut it. Thus, many hikers have to park around 1.8 miles before the trailhead. I found a dispersed camp site just before this faux trailhead, made a delicious Farm to Summit Garden Mac n Cheese, and hit the hay early for a 2:30 AM wakeup. Of course, the snooze button was hit, and I started hiking at 3:10AM.

The Hike

From the faux trailhead to the real trailhead is an easy hike and relatively flat. Hiking in the dark is a bit of an ignorance is bliss situation- I believe it actually helps to not get tired since you’re not looking up at what you are left to hike as you’re just focusing on the steps you’re currently taking. However, it also creates a bit of a scare when you don’t know if an animal (read: mountain lion) is going to appear at any moment.

Once you reach the true trailhead, it is switchbacks until you reach the basin which is rather flat. To exit the basin, prepare for more switchbacks until you reach a rocky, steep push to the summit. The trail in this last section is not so easily found, so you may be doing a bit of scrambling and creating your own path.

Finally, you’ll reach 14,006 feet elevation, and the summit of Huron Peak. From the summit, you can see the Three Apostles to the south, and more collegiate peaks to the east. You may also have the company of mountain goats, like I did. As I was packing up my backpack to head down, I looked up an there was a mountain goat no more than 5 feet in front of me. I had brought my hefty camera with me on this hike, so I made the extra weight worth it and hung out with the two mountain goats for a while to get some shots of them.

[Take care when descending the summit, but after you pass the rocks it is smooth sailing from there and you can get down rather fast].

As I was summiting there was a family coming down. I happened to catch up to them on my way down, and while deaf, we communicated with photos and hand signals. Lucky for me, they offered me a ride back to the faux trailhead! This made my hike 9.1 miles versus a likely 10 miles had I walked that final stretch back to my car.