On Walkabout On: The Icy Road to Mt. Sherman, Colorado

This past Saturday I attempted to go and hike up to the top of the 14,046 foot Mt. Sherman which is located in Colorado’s Mosquito Range just outside of the village of Fairplay.  Unfortunately my hike stopped before I even had a chance to begin it because the road to access the trailhead was covered in snow and extremely icy:

Here is a Google Map that shows the location of Mt. Sherman:

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I traveled up the road as far as I dared and then looked at my map to see how long it would take me to complete the hike from where I stopped.  It would have added 3 miles each way for a total of six additional miles to the hike.  So instead of being a half day hike this would have had extended the hike into the afternoon where a storm was projected to hit.  That is one of the things about hiking up Colorado’s mountains, you have to be prepared to turn around.  So that is exactly what I did and I am just going to wait until next month and let the road thaw out more before attempting the hike again.  In the meantime I just decided to enjoy the views of the heavily snowcapped mountains such as Mt. Sherman’s neighbor the 13,748 foot Mt. Sheridan:

Since Mt. Sheridan is connected to Mt. Sherman by a saddle I planned to hike to the summit of this mountain as well.  Like with Sherman it will just have to wait until next month though the current snowcap on the mountains would have been nice to snowshoe up now.

Here is a picture of the Mosquito Range as the sun rose a little higher in the sky that morning.  In the below picture Mt. Sheridan can be seen on the left, Mt. Sherman is the round mountain in the center, and to the right is the 13,951 foot Gemini Peak:

As the picture shows there is really nothing aesthetically impressive about Mt. Sherman that would cause people to want to hike it, but because it is one of Colorado’s 14ers it attracts plenty of people to hike it.  Looking further north I believe this peak is the 14,172 foot Mt. Bross that I also plan to hike this year:

After taking in the views of the mountains for a little while I then proceeded to drive back to Colorado Springs.  On the way back I stopped at Wilkerson Pass that has a nice overlook of the neighboring mountains.  Looking towards the southwest I could see various mountains from the Collegiate Peaks:

Here is a closer look at the 14,197 foot Mt. Princeton:

Then here is 14,196 foot Mt. Yale, the 14,073 foot Mt. Columbia, and the 14,420 foot Mt. Harvard:

Directly to the east I could see the impressive looking Buffalo Peaks that rise 13,326 feet over the South Park basin as well as the 14,336 foot La Plata Peak out in the distance:

Here is the view looking northwest towards the Mosquito Range:

Mt. Sherman along with its neighboring Mt. Sheridan were easily visible out in the distance:

Just a beautiful view that made me further wish I could of hiked up Mt. Sherman that day, but later I would find out I made the right choice because a storm did hit as expected that afternoon.  The mountains are not going anywhere and will still be there next month for me to complete this hike.  In the mean time I will just enjoy the views.