Yesterday I did one of the most challenging hikes of the summer. Starting at Brighton, I wanted to see how many peaks over 10,000 feet I could summit. There are 9, unless you count a few minor, unnamed ones, and I wanted to get at least 5.
Peak 420, Clayton, Preston, a small unnamed one, Pioneer and Sunset Peaks were the ones I managed to summit. The hike from Brighton to the summit of Sunset Peak was 6 miles. The trail I tool went up and across all the previously mentioned peaks. A lot of this was very steep, with some of the inclines being sand and loose rock mixed with pretty stable footing. There was also some fun boulder hopping going up Clayton Peak. In other words, it was hard!
I have hiked around Brighton quite a bit in the past. The lakes are amazing and looking down at them from this hike was no exception. My hike was on a Saturday and I started just after 6:00 AM. The 6 miles to Sunset was quiet – I saw just 5 other hikers. When I got to the top of Sunset there must have been 15 people up there. The trail back down was very crowded, especially at and below Lake Mary.
The route I took was just over 9 miles in length and I had cumulative gain of over 4,000 vertical feet.
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