Never Summer Traverse

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July 11-12, 2026

The Never Summer Mountains are a small obscure range located just west of the northern Front Range in far northern Colorado, stretching less than 20 miles as the crow flies from Cameron Pass to Cascade Mountain. I first took interest to it recently after noticing it's amazingly symmetrical ridges on a map, especially in its central region where a single very prominent ridge ran in an almost perfectly due north-south direction. I mapped a traverse which covered the entire range, noting that it's stats fell right in between a route I would do in one long day or two moderate days. I decided to go for the two moderate days since I wanted to see and enjoy this awesome obscure range during daylight hours as opposed to traversing parts of it in the dark which would be necessary with a 1-day push. Nothing ended up being very technical, with the hardest required moves coming out at class 3. 

The point-to-point nature of this route necessitated a car shuttle. Even though the distances between the two trailheads were not very far as the crow flies, the roads between them did not connect up very well. The shuttle took just over an hour each way, utilizing a series of dirt county roads. 

Peaks/Towers climbed 

Peak	Elevation	Topographic Prominence	Summit Coordinates (lat/lon)
Table Iron	12,040 ft	357 ft	40.51567, -105.86364
Iron Mountain	12,266 ft	1,015 ft	40.50677, -105.85215
Thunder Mountain	12,056 ft	410 ft	40.48624, -105.85490
Lulu Mountain	12,217 ft	887 ft	40.48008, -105.86257
The Electrode	12,017 ft	329 ft	40.47592, -105.88158
Static Peak	12,598 ft	251 ft	40.47664, -105.89163
Mt. Richthofen	12,944 ft	2,668 ft	40.46946, -105.89480
Tepee Mountain	12,435 ft	112 ft	40.46353, -105.89843
Lead Mountain	12,544 ft	462 ft	40.44858, -105.89706
Hart Ridge Peak	12,480 ft	40 ft	40.44049, -105.89990
Mt. Cirrus	12,807 ft	399 ft	40.43481, -105.90191
Howard Mountain	12,826 ft	873 ft	40.42708, -105.89879
Mt. Cumulus	12,728 ft	399 ft	40.41297, -105.90215
Mt. Nimbus	12,721 ft	623 ft	40.39672, -105.90395
Paprika Peak	12,261 ft	541 ft	40.38648, -105.93618
Parika Peak	12,402 ft	403 ft	40.38604, -105.94796
Fairview Mountain	12,243 ft	163 ft	40.37788, -105.94724
Never Summer Peak	12,451 ft	277 ft	40.37197, -105.93735
Bowen Mountain	12,530 ft	1,270 ft	40.36055, -105.93339
Ruby Mountain	12,033 ft	322 ft	40.35487, -105.95544
"Cascby Peak"	12,198 ft	203 ft	40.34809, -105.95950
Cascade Mountain	12,325 ft	842 ft	40.33951, -105.96000

 

Total Stats

25.4 miles

15,000 ft gain/loss

class 3

Mike and I met up at the southern trailhead Friday night, catching a few hours of sleep before waking up at 3:30am Saturday and shuttling a car to Cameron Pass on the northern end. We arrived just as it was getting light, setting off around 5:30am. 

The first 7 miles of ridge headed southeast from Cameron Pass, then back southwest in a horseshoe shape. Most of this ridge, including the first five peaks (Table Iron through The Electrode) were straightforward walk-ups up big anthill-shaped grassy mountains. These made for a nice warm up before the business began after The Electrode. 

From the summit of The Electrode, we headed west to a saddle before a smaller sub-summit, then scree-skied south around the sub-summit before continuing west to pick up a class 2-3 rib which would bring us up to Static Peak's east ridge. Once on the ridge it was great fun, with relatively solid blocks on a sidewalk in the sky all the way up to Static Peak. 

An easy rock hop brought us to the summit of Mt. Richthofen from Static Peak.

From the summit of Richthofen, we dropped west along the ridge for about 150 ft of elevation, then clambered up a small bump just west of Richthofen. From there, the main ridge veered south to Tepee Mountain. The first half of this ridge was class 2 scree and talus, and the second half were a series of small towers. We mostly climbed up and over these towers, bypassing one of them to the east and then another one to the west not far below Teepee. Staying higher on the towers yielded some class 4 climbing on fairly junky rock, while staying 100 ft lower looked to be class 3 on equally junky rock. 

Descending off Tepee's south side was fairly easy on clinky talus blocks. As the ridge continued south and started rising towards Lead Mountain, it became a very fun knife edge which was mostly composed of granite flakes. This section of ridge was probably the highlight of the traverse for me. 

The ridge between Lead Mountain and Hart Ridge Peak was straightforward class 2 rock hoping. From Hart to Cirrus was still straightforward, but slightly slower going due to a few easy but undulating sections of ridge. At this point both of us began conserving water, as we had been going through it at a faster rate than anticipated. My 4 liters of water at the start was now down to just 1.5 liters, mostly owing to how hot it was even above 12,000 ft. 

After heel-plunging down a sandy scree slope south of Cirrus, we walked across a grassy meadow and easily made our way up to Howard Mountain. Here we ran into a group of Bighorn sheep which continued ahead of us. 

The ridge between Howard and Cumulus was decently tedious with several towers which we either climbed over or bypassed less than 50 ft on either side, keeping the terrain to class 3. The rock quality was not great here, and we sent several loose blocks down either sides of the ridge. Our bighorn sheep friends continued ahead of us, easily gliding over the terrain. We followed their tracks when we could, knowing that they would know the most efficient route through the pinnacles much better than us. An isolated rain shower moved over us, mercifully blocking out the sun and cooling us down, slowing down our water consumption. 

Mt. Cumulus contained two summits. The northern summit was slightly higher while the southern one was the "official" summit labeled on the topo. We visited both. 

Cumulus to Nimbus was thankfully straight forward, walking on talus and clinky sedimentary rocks. We dropped our packs for the last bit of out-and-back to the summit. 

Even though we had now finished our last summit of the day, there was one more bit of nastiness ahead: descending the west side of Nimbus to Baker Pass. The first 1,000 ft of descent was on extremely loose large talus blocks which shifted dramatically with each step. Even delicate maneuvering still resulted in several large blocks skating out from under us. 

Finally down at Baker Pass, both of us were slightly banged up but in decent spirits. We headed several hundred feet southwest from Baker Pass, finding a trickle of water and a flat spot for a tent. Deciding that this was a great place to stop for the day, we got about setting up camp there and relaxing for the remainder of the evening. 

The next morning we got a leisurely start. It was after 8am before we were packed up and moving. Almost all the remaining terrain would be on large grassy anthill-shaped mountains, and we would move through terrain fairly quickly. 

From Baker Pass, we followed a trail southwest for about 1.5 miles to the east side of Paprika Peak, then set off up steep grassy slopes to its summit. 

The remaining peaks were very straightforward- just stay on the grassy ridge and follow it south. We dropped packs for two out-and-backs for Bowen Mountain and Cascade Mountain. Bowen's north ridge contained a small bit of light scrambling but it was not nearly as tedious as the previous day's terrain. 

After finishing up the traverse on Cascade Mountain, we retraced our steps north to the saddle between Cascade and Cascby. From there we made a gradually descending traverse northwest to a prominent saddle on Cascby's west ridge with a trail going through it. This trail was not well maintained but still followable. We descended north on it for about a quarter mile before veering north and following the main drainage downwards across several meadows with tall grass. Not long after, we picked up an old road with a newer trail on top of it and followed it a short distance north, crossing a creek right before arriving at our second car at the southern trailhead. We jumped into the creek to wash off before hopping in the car and shuttling back to Cameron Pass.