Summiting Mt. Sherman And Visiting The Neighbors

      Each time I drive back from Elbert, Massive, etc in the Northern Sawatch range, and every time I step out of the grocery store I see the Mosquito Range beckoning.  And it was about high time I made my way up there.

Seen to the far right, conical and reminiscent of Mt Pisgah back home, stands Mt Sheidan, to the right, taking up most of the picture is Mt Sherman, and just outside of the range of this shot is Gemini

     The route up the gulley to the saddle of Sheridan and Sherman was a bit of a pain. I came into it with intentions of running most of the way, but the loose scree and jumbo-sized gravel made hiking far more practical.

The climb has begun

    After being nearly blown off the mountain by the wind whipping through the saddle I made my way up Mt Sheridan.

Looking back from Sheridan towards Sherman and their shared saddle

    At this point, I had become pretty fluid in my ability to move quickly up and across the rubble, and throughly enjoyed the summit at 13,748 ft.

Horseshoe Mountain as seen from Sheridan

No quite ready for the timed shot... Atop Mt Sheridan

     And back down to the saddle I went, which probably took as long as getting up...

Snowy ridge on top of Mt Sherman

     I was pleased to have propelled myself up another 14,000+ foot peak

Sherman's summit (14,036)

Looking down on Leadville and Turquoise Lake

    From Sherman I headed northward towards Gemini Peak.  The trip across the saddle was a blast, the first unforced runable terrain of the day!

Gemini Twins

     The above picture is taken from basically on top of one of the peaks, but you can see some of it's rubble on the lefthand side of the photo.

The northeast summit stands the highest at 13,951

    The climb up Gemini was pretty exhilarating.  It truly was a climb, and the wind was acting a bit fresh trying to thwart my every step.

    As I said, the run on the saddle between Sherman and Gemini was a blast:

     The trip rounded out at about 8ish miles with 3,500 feet of vertical, and I completed it in 2 hours and 51 minutes.

     Thanks for reading.   Also, I'm hooked on this mountain thing.