I had finished up a morning of meetings and work, and had nothing on the docket for the afternoon. I felt the need for a dose of mountain exercise. So I nabbed a timed entry permit for Brainard Lake (there was just one left!) and decided to do an ascent of Little Pawnee to Pawnee Peaks, one of the classic short traverses in the Indian Peaks. The forecast called for a 50% chance of afternoon rain, but I decided to chance it.

Fortunately (especially fortunate because I had forgotten to pack a rain jacket), the rain never materialized, but it did cloud up with some interesting muted skies. The traverse between Little Pawnee Peak and Pawnee Peak was quite fun and exposed 3rd, with a few short 4th class sections. My initial plan had been to finish the loop by regaining the trail at Pawnee Pass. But on top of Pawnee Peak, I was compelled to head north towards Mount Toll to tag another summit. I looked for a good way to descend the north side of Toll (supposedly there is a 4th class way to avoid the 5.6 of the North Ridge) and continue the traverse over Paiute Peak and Mount Audubon to tag a total of five summits, but I could not locate a descent I was confident about and I was also a bit concerned that the rain would at some point develop. So I decided to head down the snow slopes to Blue Lake and regain the trail there.

This was a fun traverse with 360° views for the entire ridge section. Mountain exercise does wonders for the soul. My round trip time was 5 hours and 23 minutes from the Brainard Lake parking lot. I'll be back for some longer traverses in this area in the future.

This page contains a map, stats, and lots of photos. Enjoy!