Mini Mummy Mania

2 Sundays ago, we met up with Aaron at the Lawn Lake trailhead in RMNP, left his car, and drove up to Chapin Pass.  We were going to hike "Mummy Mania," climbing 6 peaks in a 16+ mile semicircle traverse through the Mummy Range: Mt. Chapin, Mt. Chiquita, Mt. Ypsilon, Mt. Fairchild, Hagues Peak, and Mummy Mountain.  We hit the trail a little after 5:30am (in the dark) and made good time up the backside of 12,454 foot Mt. Chapin, the smallest of the peaks on our agenda.  After getting above treeline, we were briefly transported to our friend Larry's favorite level of "Big Buck Hunter," the greatest of all bar arcade games.  Thankfully no drunk people shot us.

There was only a slight glow from the still hidden sun, and it took us a moment to spot this group of gangsta mule deer bucks.  Further up Chapin, the sun began to illuminate the tundra with a beautiful alpenglow on the distant Never Summer Range.

Just off the summit we saw a far-away family of ptarmigan, and after a quick descent to the Chapin-Chiquita saddle, we made good time up 13,069 foot Mt. Chiquita.  We had quickly climbed two peaks in only two hours of hiking.  Next up: Mt. Ypsilon

We made similarly good time up Ypsilon, and were greeted by this awesome view of Spectacle Lakes near the summit.  These two lakes are blocked in by steep ridges and rarely seen or hiked to.

We were on the summit of 13,514 foot Mt. Ypsilon a little after 8:30am, and were feeling pretty good.  We were averaging a mountain an hour, and about to traverse the hardest section of the hike.  The route to Fairchild was far more difficult than the primarily tundra walking we had been doing.  There is a long rugged ridge between the two mountains with lots of rock hopping and route finding.  It was much slower going on this section.

After reaching the low point between the two mountains, we began the very steep climb of Mt. Fairchild.  Almost immediately, Fairchild began seriously kicking my ass.  I can't remember ever feeling so exhausted.  Laura and Aaron were doing fine and began to get far ahead of me.  I was really struggling and it felt so good to stop and take some pictures.  Here is the view looking back at Mt. Ypsilon:

From Ypsilon it took a little over two hours to summit Fairchild, and I had some much needed food and rest on top.  By the time we got to "The Saddle" (the lowpoint between Fairchild and Hagues), it was almost noon and the clouds were building up in all directions.  We proceeded a short ways up 13,560 foot Hagues Peak (the tallest in the Mummy Range), before deciding to bail down the trail towards Lawn Lake.  At this point our climbing was over.  All of us were bummed to have come this far and failed, but the alternative would have been foolishly climbing a peak in an approaching thunderstorm.  After some light rain on the way down, we saw these deer in the woods near Lawn Lake:

The thunderstorms ended up passing quickly with little danger, but despite our growing disappointment, we still made the prudent decision at the time.  After another 6+ miles of seemingly endless hiking, we finally reached Aaron's car at the Lawn Lake trailhead and proceeded to do our parking lot push-ups as suggested in one of (local mountaineer) Gerry Roach's guidebooks.  As much as I'd like this to become our standard epic hike finale, it's not particularly appealing after 16+ miles of exhaustive hiking.  I dubbed our journey Mummy Mania Lite; Laura called it Mini Mummy Mania.  Maybe we'll attempt it again with an earlier start time, but because of the logistics involved, it won't be until next year.

After retrieving our car at Chapin Pass, we stopped on Trail Ridge Road to admire the Mummies we had climbed (without, I might add, a threatening cloud anywhere in the sky...).  From left to right is Chapin, Chiquita, Ypsilon, and Fairchild, with the summit of Hagues just visible to the right behind Fairchild.