After such a wonderfully relaxing Saturday in Lake City, we felt revived enough to venture out for our earliest 14er start ever: we were hiking by 4:45 am! Redcloud and Sunshine Peaks are the other two 14ers (besides Handies) right next to Lake City, so it was a perfect opportunity to bag them.
Redcloud was another hidden gem of a mountain.
That’s Sunshine Peak in the background, connected to Redcloud by a saddle. It looks so deceivingly easy from here, and though we knew we would have to hike back over the top of Redcloud to get back down (due to ecological concerns we couldn’t make a loop down from Sunshine back to the trail), we couldn’t let the opportunity pass us by. The summit of Sunshine is about 1 mile each way, but because it is an official 14er on its own, that means that you lose and regain over 300 feet of elevation in that mile.
So over to Sunshine we went. You can now see Redcloud in the background below.
As you can see by the sign, Sunshine is the lowest 14er. Now I have bookends, as I’ve climbed Mt. Elbert, the highest 14er (and my first).
We love being above 14,000 feet!
After Redcloud and Sunshine, I ended the summer at 24 peaks hiked (out of 53 official peaks, or 58 including a few unofficial ones), and Mike has 16. We’re hoping to grab a few more before we move next summer, but it’s incredible when I reflect back on the summer and realize that we hiked 5 this year!
