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July 29, 2026
With a half-day free, Mike and I completed a short loop traverse covering five peaks in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. Similar variations of this route are often done by Boulder locals. I found this to be a relatively quick and pleasant jaunt in the high country with mostly OK-quality rock and great views. Peaks climbed
| Peak | Elevation | Topographic Prominence | Summit Coordinates (lat/lon) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notabon Peak | 12,737 ft | 132 ft | 40.10598, -105.60895 |
| Mt. Audubon | 13,217 ft | 817 ft | 40.09918, -105.61620 |
| Paiute Peak | 13,092 ft | 450 ft | 40.09818, -105.63292 |
| Mt. Toll | 12,985 ft | 451 ft | 40.08862, -105.63370 |
| Pawnee Peak | 12,954 ft | 404 ft | 40.08160, -105.63248 |
| Little Pawnee Peak | 12,485 ft | 187 ft | 40.08276, -105.62093 |
Total Stats
10.5 miles
4,530 ft gain/loss
With afternoon thunderstorms in the forecast, we started from Mitchell Lake Trailhead at 4:15am, hoping to be on the summit of Audubon Peak for sunrise. This was made easy by the Mt. Audubon Trail which headed directly up to the summit over about 4 miles distance. Along the way I left the trail briefly to tag the summit of Notabon Peak which lay just northeast of Audubon. This was a short and easy rock hop.
We summited Audubon right at sunrise, looking out at the remainder of our route. It was decently breezy and we were happy for the rock wind shelters that were built in the summit area as we sat down for a snack. 
The ridge between Audubon and Paiute was straightforward class 2 rock hopping. Thankfully the wind was dying down at this point.
view of Toll from the Audubon-Paiute ridge
summit of Paiute
We descended Paiute's south ridge (class 2) with ease, mostly on easy rock hopping terrain,
Mt. Toll's north ridge gave us our first interesting routefinding of the day. According to Mountain Project, the north ridge is class 5.6, but we easily found a class 4 way up. From the Paiute-Toll Saddle, we initially remained west of the north ridge on a series of low-angle ramps before spotting another series of low angle raps leading left towards the north ridge proper. We stayed on these as long as possible until they hit the ridge, then turned right and followed the ridge straight up (class 4) to a large talus-covered ledge which wrapped around to the right (west). We walked along this ledge to a short class 3 headwall which led up to the summit.
view from the talus-covered ledge
summit of Toll
The next section from Toll to Pawnee was easy and turn-your-brain-off slogging. The south side of Toll and north side of Pawnee resembled giant anthills that were characteristic of much of the Front Range.
From Pawnee we turned east and away from the Continental Divide. Little Pawnee Peak sat about 0.7mi east, the highpoint of a sharp ridge branching east from Pawnee. The terrain started off mellow and grassy, but gradually became more scrambly as the ridge grew more narrow and rocky. There were a few impasses which were all bypassed by scrambling around to the left (north). The rock was not the best here, but it was still decently enjoyable terrain. We made no moves harder than class 3.
Having summited our 6th and last peak of the day, we relaxed and hung out on the summit of Little Pawnee for a bit as there were no more reasons to hurry to beat the afternoon thunderstorms. The sky was only partially covered in puffy clouds and it would be a couple hours before the first thunder.
From Little Pawnee we continued east along the main ridge until we were north of Long Lake, then dropped south to join the Pawnee Trail which we followed east to Long Lake Trailhead. From there a combination of feeder trails and walking on the road brought us back to Mitchell Lake Trailhead.
descending a small cliff band above Long Lake
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