Emerald Mountain

July 25th, 2008

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The easiest way to climb Emerald Mountain is to start from the East Portal, although, I think a nice alternative might be to start from Sprague Lake. It's an out-of-the-way TH, but it has some good destinations: Estes Cone, Battle Mountain, Sprague Lake, and a couple of good bushwhacking summits, Thunder and Lightening.

Parking for the TH is at the end of county 66. The YMCA conference camp is also down that road. There's parking space for about 8-10 cars, that I suspect rarely fill. You hike west from the parking area along a dirt road between a reservoir gaging station and the base of Emerald Mountain's south slope. A very short distance past the station is a TH sign at the park boundary. A short distance past the sign, several trail systems connect, including the Wind River Trail, and routes to the YMCA and Sprague Lake. Somewhere in that area we did something that didn't quite match Foster's route description, but we looped back somehow to the correct section of trail.

Once on the right track, we quickly reached the rock out cropping where we left the trail, and began the ascent. Emerald Mountain is not densely wooded, and it would be easy to find the summit without using any trails. Essentially that's what happens anyway, because you only stay on the trail for about 0.1 of a mile. It's a pretty mountain to climb on, and the views are nice and diverse. Most of the way up is open grassland and sparse trees, with just a little easy scrambling to gain the summit. Similar to Estes Cone and Deer Mountain, the summit offers views from Twin Sisters around to the Mummy Range.

This is a nice hike for an acclimation day, a rest day, or for first-time bushwhackers to gain a little off-trail experience. You could also add about 3 miles round trip, and hike through the woods to Sprague Lake. Or make it a full day by heading for Storm Pass and then climbing either Estes Cone or bushwhacking up Battle Mountain. After descending Emerald Mountain, we enjoyed hiking along the Wind River trail. About a mile down the trail, there's a bridge across the Wind River to the Wind River Bluff camp site. That's the starting point to bushwhack up both Thunder and Lightening Peaks. On a future visit, we hope to try one of those. We turned back at the junction with the Storm Pass trail. It's 3.6 miles to Estes Cone from that junction.

Hike Stats:

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