Friday & Saturday, July 11-12, 2025
This weekend I decided to return to the edge of the Elk Mountains near Kebler Pass and the Ruby Range so I could finally finish hiking the trail along Scarp Ridge all the way out to the Red Lady (Mount Emmons) since I was unable to reach the summit a few years ago when I was stopped by an impassable washout of the trail in Evans Basin. I left from work on Friday afternoon, topped off my gas tank in Delta and then made my way over to Kebler Pass and Ohio Pass for the evening. Along the way I took a short detour and stopped to hike the Three Lakes Trail Loop since the last time I had hiked in this area was during the fall of 2009 and I really can’t remember if we hiked the entire loop or just up to Lost Lake and back. It’s a short and easy trail that visits three small lakes and a nice little waterfall at the foot of East Beckwith Mountain.
Lost Lake
The Falls
Most of the Three Lakes Trail is in the trees when not near one of the lakes, but there was one opening with a decent view between Lost Lake and Dollar Lake.
Dollar Lake
Lost Lake Slough & East Beckwith Mountain
After finishing up the hike it was time to look for a campsite. It’s been a few years since I last camped in this area, but it seems to be so much more crowded now and finding a spot to spend the night turned out to be quite the challenge. I suspect that the new camping regulations surrounding Crested Butte have pushed more people into this area in search of campsites now, which is a bit disappointing since it used to be so easy to find a place to camp around here on a Friday evening…
Although it was pretty smoky out this evening from new wildfires burning in western Colorado and eastern Utah, I still liked the way the light was striking The Castles at sunset near Ohio Pass.
I didn’t get much sleep on Friday night, which unfortunately seems to be a common occurrence for me this summer so far, but this time it was mainly because a pika decided to crawl under the hood of my truck shortly before midnight and I ended up having to chase it away and then find somewhere else to spend the rest of the night. When I opened the hood it was sitting right on top of the airbox looking up at me! It’s kind of funny, I’ve camped with my Jeep hundreds of nights in the mountains without ever having an issue like this, but now it’s only my second weekend with the 4Runner and something is already crawling under the hood. I hope this is not a sign of things to come. Anyway, after another poor night of sleep I still got up early and drove over to the Scarp Ridge Trailhead above Lake Irwin to start hiking shortly before sunrise. There were some nice views along the trail as I hiked to the top of the ridge.
Although the wildflowers were definitely past their prime this weekend, they still looked nice in a few places as I watched the Ruby Range light up this morning.
The smoky West Elks at dawn.
East Beckwith Mountain seen from the Scarp Ridge Trail.
Lake Irwin and the Anthracite Range.
East Beckwith at Sunrise
Looking back towards Ohio Pass.
Mount Owen
Once I reached the top of Scarp Ridge I had a smoky view to the Crested Butte.
Mount Owen & Purple Peak
Field of Flowers
A smoky view over Gothic Mountain to the crest of the Elk Mountains.
I followed the trail along the top of Scarp Ridge as I made my way to Gunsight Pass and the Red Lady.
Scarp Ridge
Scarp Ridge & Peeler Basin
Gunsight Pass
Looking back over Gunsight Pass to Scarp Ridge as I made way way to the summit of the Red Lady.
Red Lady (Mount Emmons) Summit
Emmons, 1959
Looking through the smoke and beyond the summit to Gothic Mountain and Maroon Peak.
After resting at the summit for a little bit it was time to turn around and start heading back.
Looking down to Gunsight Pass.
Once I reached Gunsight Pass again it was time to climb back up onto Scarp Ridge.
Following the trail along Scarp Ridge.
Peeler Basin
Upper Peeler Lakes
Clouds were starting to build over the mountains during the hike back and it appeared that the smoke was beginning to clear out a little.
Scarp Ridge to the Red Lady
Following the trail along the edge…
Elk Mountains View
Hiking through another patch of wildflowers.
There were a few ups and downs along Scarp Ridge, but I would turn left before heading up this next section of the trail to return via a different route.
Here’s one last view of Peeler Peak and Peeler Basin before I left the top of the ridge and started downhill for the trailhead.
The descent took me through this nice little unnamed basin. Although there was a trail most of the way, it did disappear a couple of times and some easy route-finding was required.
Passing through one last field of Old-Man-of-the-Mountain wildflowers on my way back to Lake Irwin.
My original plans for the weekend were to stick around for another night and get one more hike in on Sunday morning, but the area was just too busy and finding another campsite would have been a challenge, so I decided to just call it a day and headed home this afternoon instead.
Great pics. Be curious to hear what u think of your 4Runner va jeep. Thx
Nice looking area, and very fine pix as always! Funny about the pika- last October while camped near Escalante we had a rodent of some type get up under the hood of our Tacoma overnight- that ended up chewing one of the fuel injector wires and severing it. We limped into town where the local garage was fortunately able to diagnose it and do an inexpensive temporary fix. After that, everyone we mentioned it to had a rodent-vehicle story of some sort! First time that we had heard of that in over 20 years of desert camping, and it’s not typically a problem here in the Alberta mountains.