I can’t just get enough of the Colorado mountains in the
fall . Only a week after a beautiful mountain hike to Mohawk Lakes the weather
was forecast to be sunny and quite warm again for the weekend. OK, so where to
go? I’ve got it – if we go to Rocky Mountain National Park I get to use my
annual National Park pass to get in free and I can feel like we’re saving some
money. Brilliant!

One hike in Rocky Mountain National Park that very much
interested me is one in a part of the park I haven’t hiked in yet that seemed
to meet most of my criteria for being a great hike. I suggested it to Jerad and
he was game for the outing. The hike to Mount Chiquita and Ypsilon Mountain
starts at a trailhead near timberline at Chapin Pass and follows the allows
access to the three peaks of the Mummy Range in the northern part of the park.
I said it meets all my criteria. By that I mean that the trailhead is at a high
elevation (around 11,050 feet), the ascent to the peaks isn’t too great (about
2,500 feet in total to Ypsilon Mountain at 13,514 feet, the ascent appears
relatively gradual and not too steep, the trail is above timberline most of the
way, and takes you to the top of two mountains and possibly three if you also
climb Mount Chapin . Who could ask for anything more than that?

And an additional bonus is that access to the trailhead is
via the unpaved one-way Old Fall River Road which parallels and eventually
meets Trail Ridge Road (the main road across the park) near the Continental
Divide. It’s a route through the park I’ve never taken before.

Well, it was quite a long drive to get to the trailhead, but
the hike was everything I hoped it would be with stunning views for almost the
whole eight mile round trip to Ypsilon Mountain. The topography of the range is
similar to hikes I did about two years ago with my friend Kelly to Flattop
Mountain and Hallett Peak along the Continental Divide farther south in the
park in that the west sides of the peaks are grassy and rocky, typical alpine
tundra, while on the east side of the peaks are massive cliffs that drop
several thousand feet to the valleys below. I guess I only have a fear of
heights when I sense there’s a risk of falling, so I stay away from cliff
edges . Or if I want to get close to them, I do so not just on hands and knees
but on my belly. Jerad experienced a bit of a panic attack, though, on the top
of Ypsilon Peak even though he wasn’t close to the edge, just from the feeling
of being so high up.

Even though I’ve now hiked in the northern part of the Front
Range, what lies north of Trail Ridge Road in RMNP and onwards towards Wyoming
still always seems a little mysterious to me. I loved looking at the contours
of the land, the mountain ranges, and the valleys in this part of the state. I
know places in the Rockies in the central part of Colorado much better because
of the views from the ski resorts in the area and the many “fourteeners”
(14,000 foot peaks) I’ve climbed over the years. But up here the topography is
like a new discovery.

When we got back to the car it was quite late in the
afternoon and we had to continue going up the one way road westward to its
junction with Trail Ridge Road . The drive back east on Trail Ridge Road as the
sun began to set was the most spectacular I’ve ever seen it in the fading
light. Most times I’ve crossed have been during the bright light of mid-morning
to late afternoon in summer, but it’s completely magical when the light is
lower near the end of the day (or at dawn I’m sure). It was a beautiful end to
another wonderful day in the Colorado high country.