That’s right, another high route! This year we decided to attempt the Pfiffner Traverse through the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. We completed the route in six days in mid-August.
In typical fashion, we weren’t satisfied with just completing a high route—we also biked 70 miles back to the starting point!
If reading isn’t your thing, check out our trip in video form on YouTube:
The route
The Pfiffner Traverse is another1 Andrew Skurka special. The route starts in Rocky Mountain National Park at Milner Pass, then travels almost 80 miles south through the Indian Peaks and James Peak Wilderness areas, ending at Berthoud Pass.
Like all Skurka routes, it’s equal parts beautiful and challenging. There is a ton of elevation gain—almost 30,000 feet over the length of the route. That’s huge. Probably more on a per-mile basis than any other hike I’ve done. The route includes seven summits and numerous high passes, and it stays at high elevation throughout, only dropping below 10,000 feet a few times.
The route is named for Karl Pfiffner, an ambitious climber and mountaineer from Colorado. He had envisioned a traverse of this section of the Continental Divide, but never attempted it as he died young in 1960. In the decades after his death, other climbers established a route and named it after Pfiffner. Check out Andrew Skurka’s full write-up for more details on the history of the route.
Logistics
One of the nice things about the Pfiffner Traverse is that it’s easily accessible. The route starts at Milner Pass on the northwest side of Rocky Mountain National Park, just 2.5 hours from Denver. We first made a quick stop at Berthoud Pass (our ending point) to drop our bikes, then continued to the national park.
Permits are required throughout the route, with the strictest restrictions in RMNP. In the national park you can only camp in designated campsites and permits are highly competitive. For that section, we booked permits for a couple of the lesser known cross-country zones, which can only be reserved by calling the wilderness office2. Those zones required small detours off the primary Pfiffner Traverse route. Indian Peaks Wilderness also requires permits, but those permits are less restrictive and more readily available.
We faced one major logistical challenge: Siyang’s checked bag was lost by the airline on his way to Denver. That bag contained most of his hiking gear and his bike. Fortunately, he arrived a day early, so Sean was able to bring some extra gear on his flight the next day. We did some quick shopping to buy a few replacement items, including an Ozark Trail bike at Walmart, which is a surprisingly great value3.
The hike
We completed the route in six days (more like five and a half). We mostly followed the primary route as defined by Andrew Skurka with a few exceptions (most notably, we bypassed Paiute Pass and the Northeast Gully).
I’ll break our trip into three sections corresponding to the national park and wilderness areas that the route passes through.
Section 1: Rocky Mountain National Park
We reached the trailhead at 3 PM, which was later than we’d hoped. The logistics of dropping off the bikes and picking up our wilderness permit took longer than expected, and of course the scramble to replace Siyang’s lost gear caused a delay. But we had a short first day planned, with only 7 miles to our first campsite.
The Pfiffner Traverse starts with a highlight, as it immediately climbs along the Continental Divide to the summit of Mount Ida (elevation 12,864). The climb is on trail with great views the whole way. It started out sunny but got cloudy and a bit gloomy by the time we reached the summit (but hey, I’ll take that any day in the Rockies, which are known for afternoon thunderstorms this time of year).
Siyang struggled a bit with the altitude right out of the gate, so we took it slow and easy. He acclimated a bit later in the trip but he continued to have a bit of trouble with some of the high altitude sections. That’s definitely one of the challenges of the Pfiffner Traverse, as it spends a lot of time over 12,000 feet.
After Mount Ida, we scrambled down some sketchy talus to a small pass. From there the primary route immediately climbs another summit, Chief Cheley Peak, but we decided to skip that summit and instead take a direct route to our camp in the Onahu Creek cross-country zone. Due to our late start it was already getting late, and we didn’t have the time (or interest) in doing the extra miles and bit of backtracking that the primary route would have required.
We found a beautiful campsite overlooking Onahu Creek and the valley it runs through. Unfortunately, the beautiful campsite wasn’t paired with a nice night of sleep—it got very windy overnight and we slept terribly.
After our late start on Day 1, it was refreshing to get an early start on Day 2. Our first task was reconnecting with the primary route. We discussed and probed a few options before eventually descending all the way down to Onahu Creek, then up towards Haynuch Pass. These were our first off-trail miles of the trip (other than the short descent from Mount Ida yesterday) and they went pretty smoothly. There were a few soggy meadows at the bottom of the valley and the climb up the pass was a bit steep, but otherwise travel was easy and navigation was straightforward. We reached Haynach Pass after about two hours, at which point we were back on the Pfiffner Traverse route.
Shortly after Haynuch Pass, the route joins the Continental Divide Trail for the first time and follows it for 9 miles. In that sense, the Pfiffner Traverse eases you in a little bit—there’s a lot of on-trail hiking in the first couple days. This section of the CDT climbs up through Bighorn Flats towards of the summits of Flattop Mountain and Hallett Peak (optional summits that we declined to add on). This is a popular day hiking and backpacking area, and for good reason—there are great views all around. We were lucky to get perfect weather for this stretch.
After many switchbacks down, we made a quick stop to use the facilities (pit toilet) at the North Inlet Junction campsite and then proceeded onto the Lake Nanita Trail. Just as we turned onto that trail we encountered a park ranger, the first (and only) one on our trip. He checked our permits and was very excited to see that we had reserved cross-country zones—it sounds like they’re rarely booked. He was familiar with the Pfiffner Traverse and wished us good luck with the rest of the trip.
The well-constructed Lake Nanita Trail took us past two nice lakes (Lake Nokoni and, of course, Lake Nanita) and we continued a bit farther before setting up camp. I’m not sure we quite made it to our permitted Upper North Inlet cross-country zone, but please forgive us—it was getting late and we were running out of gas at the end of the day. The final daily tally was approximately 17 miles and 5k feet of elevation gain, but I can’t be sure because Strava was paused in my pocket most of the day… whoops!
Day 3 was a big day. We had a lot of miles to cover, almost all off trail, including four passes. We got our first really early start of the trip, waking up a little after 5 and getting on the trail before 6:30. First up was Beak Pass, named after the nearby Ptarmigans Beak. The climb involved the most talus hopping of the trip so far4, but otherwise wasn’t too bad and we made good time. The way down was another story.
The section after Beak Pass is the closest thing to a bushwhack on the Pfiffner Traverse. It’s not so bad that you’d want a machete to clear a path, but we had to climb over quite a few blowdowns and push through some brush. It’s also a mercifully short section—about half a mile. I thought it was unpleasant but not terrible. Opinions varied within our group.
After reaching the bottom of the valley, we walked about a mile on the East Inlet Trail (our only on-trail mile of the day) as we approached Isolation Peak Pass. This was one of my favorite sections of the route. The long climb up Isolation Peak Pass winds through a lush valley, past a pristine alpine lake surrounded by steep rock walls, and then up a grassy slope full of wildflowers. A really beautiful spot with lots of solitude, and pretty mellow as far as off-trail passes go.
The way down from Isolation Peak Pass (into Paradise Park) started easy and then got a little iffy. We’d read some trip reports and heard from a few people that there were a lot of blowdowns in this section. There were indeed some blowdowns but not too many, and we were able to follow elk trails most of the way. I wouldn’t say travel was easy, but it really wasn’t too bad—certainly easier than the bushwhack down Beak Pass earlier.
At the bottom we reached Paradise Park, which I’ve seen described as a highlight of the route in many trip reports. I’ll be honest… I was a bit underwhelmed. It was nice, but I wouldn’t call it a highlight. In fact, I preferred the section immediately prior to this one (Isolation Peak Pass). To be fair, it’s possible we simply missed the best parts of Paradise Park—we took a line that entered the valley a bit east of where I think the official route suggests. In any case, we walked alongside a creek and through a nice meadow as we approached Paradise Pass.
The climb up Paradise Pass was short but steep. Holy smokes, it was steep. A real leg and lung burner. But otherwise it was pretty straightforward with decent footing the whole way up. We reached the top in about half an hour. Paradise Park marks the border of Rocky Mountain National Park and the Indian Peaks Wilderness, so we stopped briefly to admire the views before leaving the national park behind us.
Section 2: Indian Peaks Wilderness
We left Paradise and entered Hell. Hell’s Canyon, that is. It’s a small section of the Indian Peaks Wilderness. We’d soon learn that it’s aptly named.
When we got down from Paradise Pass we decided to stop for an early dinner. It was only around 4 PM, but we’d hiked a lot of difficult miles and had another big climb immediately ahead of us. Yesterday we all bonked pretty hard towards the end of the day, so we thought an early dinner break might help avoid that. We set up in a nice spot by Upper Lake and cooked some Mountain House.
After dinner we climbed Cooper Peak Pass, our hellish exit from Hell’s Canyon. This one was similarly steep to Paradise Pass (1100 vertical feet in less than half a mile!), but rather than sturdy tundra it was full of loose scree. We made our way up very slowly and carefully, with quite a bit of frustration. Near the top, Sean and I went left into the scree and Siyang went right towards the larger talus. The talus proved to be a much better choice (faster, easier, and probably safer). In any case, the climb up Cooper Peak Pass used most of our remaining daylight, so we headed down to find a place to set up camp.
We found a nice spot to camp near Island Lake. As we went to bed, I realized we didn’t see a single other person all day. Pretty cool.
The original itinerary on Day 4 called for another huge day. We were approaching the two most challenging features on the trip: Paiute Pass and the Northeast Gully. However, we changed our plans and decided to take an easier on-trail bypass around both of them.
We’d had perfect weather for three days, but our luck was beginning to turn. The weather forecast from my Garmin inReach showed a high chance of thunderstorms later in the day, as well as for the next few days. We did not want to be climbing the Northeast Gully with a thunderstorm rolling in, so the bypass (which stays lower and tree covered) was clearly the sensible choice. We also wanted to make sure to cover as much ground as possible to set ourselves up for success later—if we had to stop short today due to storms, we might not put ourselves in position to finish the last high section of the route a few days later.
There’s not much to say about the Paiute Pass/Northeast Gully bypass. It’s a pleasant walk through the woods, but that’s about it. We mostly put our heads down and walked all day. Sean and Siyang were alert enough to put their heads up to spot a moose and a few deer—I was not.
We reached Caribou Lake, where the bypass rejoins the primary route, around 3 PM. By that time it had started to drizzle, validating our bypass decision. We sat around and chatted with some other hikers for a while, waiting to see if the weather would clear up so we could hike a little farther. A storm never quite materialized, but there were dark clouds and high winds all afternoon. Around 5 PM we decided to set up camp and call it a day.
Caribou Lake was an excellent campsite, and I highly recommend it if you can get a permit5. It’s a beautiful setting with peaks all around the lake, and the campsites are nicely tucked away among the trees. It also seems to be a hotbed for wildlife—we saw two moose before we went to bed!
Day 5 began with yet another early start. The day’s itinerary included a lot of walking along the Continental Divide, and again there were thunderstorms in the forecast. Those two things are not compatible, so we started early in hopes of getting up and down before the storms rolled in. Siyang was on trail by 6, and Sean and I were about 20 minutes behind him.
From Caribou Lake, we climbed up to Arapaho Pass and then over to Caribou Pass. This section was a highlight—maybe even my top highlight—of the route. There are great views all the way up Arapaho Pass, and the top was so peaceful, especially this early in the morning. But Arapaho Pass is just the beginning—the best part is the one-mile trail between Arapaho Pass and Caribou Pass. It’s a daring trail that’s practically carved into side of a cliff in a few spots, with great views of Caribou Lake, the surrounding peaks, and the valley beyond. Simply spectacular. And this section is all on trail and fairly accessible from some trailheads, so I highly recommend even if you’re not inclined to high routes.
After Caribou Pass we went back off trail for the first time since the previous morning. We made an easy descent down to Caribou Lake, then a short climb to Cabin Pass, made easy by an unofficial use trail. Then the fun began.
For the remaining 23 miles, the Pfiffner Traverse essentially follows right along the Continental Divide. That means great views, but also high altitude and exposure to wind and weather. And, at least at the beginning, a lot of talus hopping. The climb from Cabin Pass up to the Divide (just past the summit of Mount Neva) was full of medium-sized talus and took us a long time. Once we reached the Divide travel became much easier—mostly tundra with only a few short rocky sections over the next handful of miles.
Around noon we were met with an unwelcome sight: some dark clouds on the horizon. It was hard to tell which way they were moving, but eventually the entire sky began getting darker. It looked like the storms were rolling in a bit earlier than the forecast called for. Fortunately, we were in a somewhat convenient spot to take shelter. We descended the slope opposite Devils Thumb into some tree cover, and then ate lunch and waited out the storms. For a few minutes we got some light hail and it seemed like we might be in for a rough storm, but it quickly died down and we just had on-and-off drizzle. We waited for 2.5 hours until the skies and looked clear enough to continue.
It was hubris to leave our patch of trees. Less than an hour later we hastily scrambled to take shelter again as another storm rolled in. This time we actually saw a bolt of lightning off to our right. We set up Sean’s tent to wait out the storm, but it ended up passing very quickly and we never got heavy rain. In hindsight, we could have pushed onward instead of stopping—we weren’t climbing up to a high point and we only had a couple miles left for the day, mostly downhill. In any case, we packed up the tent and hiked down to Rollins Pass (with some pep in our step, just in case the storms weren’t finished).
Interlude: Rollins Pass
Rollins Pass has quite a bit of history to it. First, it has remnants of an old train station which was operational from 1904 to 1928 (it was always intended to be temporary while a tunnel was being built). Before that, it was a common crossing point for travelers heading west by wagon in the 1800s. But it also has some older history. Much older.
Native Americans used Rollins Pass as a summer hunting ground, and there are remnants of the structures they built. About half a mile from the pass, there is a series of ancient hunting blinds and rock walls used to create a game drive. Historians suggest some of these structures were built 10,000 years ago. Pretty remarkable history.
Among our group, only Siyang opted to walk the extra mile roundtrip to see the hunting blinds while Sean and I continued straight to camp. He’d say it was definitely worth the trip.
Section 3: James Peak Wilderness
The official Pfiffner Traverse route stays along the Continental Divide after Rollins Pass, but we needed a place to camp so we ducked down into Riflesight Notch instead. There’s a dirt road leading from Rollins Pass so it was an easy walk. We found a nice campsite off the road (with a fire ring and everything; we did not use it).
Continuing the trend, we got another early start on our sixth and final day of the hike. This time we started hiking by headlamp at 5 AM. Why so early? Surely by now you know the answer: thunderstorms. The forecast called for storms as early as noon, and we really didn’t want to get caught in them. Our itinerary included five 13,000-foot summits in the remaining 13ish miles. Those summits are the last place you’d want to be during a thunderstorm, so a before-sunrise start was our only chance to complete the route.
First up was James Peak. It began with a gentle climb up to a beautiful plateau where we had views of our route from previous days. From there it was an unrelenting climb to the top: 1,000 vertical feet in one mile. At least there’s a trail, and we made decent time. We reached the summit around 7:45 AM.
James Peak was the last easy bailout point to avoid inclement weather. There’s a trail down to a lower alternate route. If you proceed to the next summit (Mount Bancroft), you’re pretty committed to doing all four remaining summits. An updated weather forecast was much the same as earlier (thunderstorms arriving between noon and 1), so we decided we were still on schedule. Onward to Bancroft!
The remaining summits are off trail, although the character of the route varies quite a bit. This first section, between James Peak and Mount Bancroft, is legitimately off-trail travel. There’s a tricky rocky bit in between the peaks—we took our time with that spot—and then there’s a very steep tundra slope up towards the summit.
When we neared the summit of Mount Bancroft, I saw an easy way to contour around the summit and elected to do that to save a few minutes. Siyang decided to tag the summit (so he’s the only one who officially climbed all five peaks).
The ridge between Bancroft and Parry Peak, summit number three, was much easier than the previous one. We had a gentle climb down from Bancroft followed by a moderate climb up Parry. At this point we also started seeing some day hikers and trail runners who must have started their days early, too. We made good time climbing Parry Peak, which was the high point of our route at 13,397 feet.
It’s a long, steep way down from Parry Peak towards Mount Eva. We carefully made our way down the tundra slope, keeping an eye on the darkening clouds way off in the distance—that early afternoon storm was definitely on its way. The climb up Mount Eva had some medium-sized talus at the top. It was a bit hard to see exactly where the summit was, and I ended up overshooting it be a couple hundred yards. Oh well; I couldn’t be bothered to backtrack to tag it. Sean and Siyang both reached the summit, so they both have bragging rights over me for completing more of the route.
As we left Mount Eva and started towards Mount Flora, the trail started to feel busy, even crowded, for the first time on the whole Pfiffner Traverse. These summits are apparently very popular among day hikers, which is no surprise—they’re very accessible from the Berthoud Pass trailhead and it’s a good taste of off-trail hiking (although there might as well be a trail between Eva and Flora).
You’d never know if from the crowds, but let me remind you: there was a thunderstorm on the way! In fact, it began drizzling on our way down from Mount Eva. We weren’t too concerned for ourselves because the darkest clouds were still far away we were close to the end of the hike. But these day hikers were hiking away from their trailhead, into challenging, highly exposed terrain. Some looked like experienced hikers, but many did not. Some groups had small kids! Each step made it more and more certain that these people would get caught in a thunderstorm. Madness!
Alas, we were only responsible for ourselves, so we focused on the task at hand: finishing the Pfiffner Traverse! The climb up from the saddle between Mount Eva and Mount Flora was one of the steepest of the trip, on par with some of the off-trail climbs from previous days, but it eased up near the top. We triumphantly walked up to summit of Mount Flora and celebrated very briefly (onlookers had no idea what we were celebrating). As we looked back at the previous four summits, they were being swallowed up clouds. Perfect timing.
We surprisingly had perfect sunny weather for the last three miles down to Berthoud Pass; mountain weather can be strange. We reached the trailhead around noon, right on schedule. Success!
The bike ride
Sure enough, the thunderstorm arrived. We had just about finished unpacking our bikes from where we’d stashed them when the rain started. We got a little bit wet, but we headed down to the Berthoud Pass warming hut to take shelter.
This was no small storm. We waited out the heavy rain and thunder in lightning from the comfort of the hut for more than three hours, during which time we saw dozens of soaking-wet hikers emerge from the trail. I can only imagine how scary it must have been for all of those people on the Divide. (Well, I would have been scared. Perhaps those people are fearless, judging by their decisions.)
In any case, the ride back to our starting trailhead at Milner Pass was about 70 miles. Due to the thunderstorm delay, we didn’t start until 4 PM, which meant we’d need to spread the bike ride out over two days.
The first part of the bike ride looked like a lot of fun on the map: it’s 13 miles from Berthoud Pass to Winter Park, entirely downhill. It was a little less fun in reality. There was a lot more (fast moving) car traffic than I expected, and the shoulder is narrow and often filled with gravel. I wouldn’t say it was unsafe or that you should avoid biking down Berthoud Pass, but you can’t just point your front wheel and let it rip; we had to ride our brakes on the way down.
The road improved as we entered Winter Park (a big ski town), and we finally felt like we were back in civilization. We stopped at a cute little place for our first post-hike meal of beers, burgers, and dogs. I got a Chicago-style hot dog; I must have been feeling homesick.
While we ate, we planned the rest of our route. We booked a hotel in Granby for the night, and we decided to take the Fraser to Granby Trail to get there. The trail would be a bit slower than the road, but more scenic and interesting.
I really enjoyed the Fraser to Granby Trail. The trail had lots to offer—great mountain views, cute mountain towns, even a giant pasture of cows—and it changed character constantly. It started as a nice dirt path through the woods, and at various points it changed to singletrack6 to smooth gravel roads to pavement and everything in between, with a few punchy climbs mixed in. My only complaint is that it was a little tricky to follow at times; we made a few wrong turns along the way and had to backtrack.
We capped off our night with a McDonald’s dinner and a quick grocery store run in Granby before checking into our hotel. It felt good to sleep in a real bed.
We started the second day of the bike ride early, getting on the road by 6:30. Siyang had a flight to catch in the afternoon so we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time. We decided to take the most direct route today: we got on CO-34 and followed it all the way to Milner Pass.
I really enjoyed the Fraser to Granby Trail on the previous day, but it’s pretty tough to beat a beautiful road ride. And this was a beautiful road ride. We had perfect weather, and the morning light through the mountains was nice enough to make me wish I was a morning person (which I am decidedly not). The route took us past two spectacular lakes: Lake Granby and Shadow Mountain Lake. We had driven this route just a week before but didn’t fully appreciate it at the time. Siyang summed it up best: “everything just looks a little more beautiful from the point of view of a bike.”
Soon we entered Rocky Mountain National Park. We made a quick stop at the Kawuneeche Visitor Center to fill up our water bottles, then rolled through the park entrance.
The last big obstacle was the climb up Milner Pass. The climb is about 1,700 feet over six miles (~5% average grade, with some short sections above 10%). That’s huge for someone who lives in Chicago, where the biggest hill is a highway overpass. I was also a bit nervous based on my experience a few years ago on our Wind River bike ride, where my legs gave out and my bike broke on the long climb at the end. Fortunately, the Milner Pass climb went much more smoothly. We all made it to the top with plenty of gas left in the tank (Sean kicked my butt!) and it was a fun challenge. We celebrated with a customary three-way high-five.
What a way to end a great trip! I highly recommend the Pfiffner Traverse to anyone looking for a challenging hike, and I highly recommend the bike ride between trailheads!
Now, it’s time to take some time off from high routes. (Probably.)
Footnotes
- We hiked Andrew Skurka’s Wind River High Route a few years ago. ↩︎
- If none of the backcountry campsites along the Pfiffner Traverse route are available (a likely scenario), I recommend the cross-country zones, specifically the Onahu Creek and Upper North Inlet zones. They are not well known and will almost certainly be available. Plus, the park rangers will be very excited to hear about your trip because they don’t get many requests for these permits. ↩︎
- Update: The airline eventually found and returned Siyang’s bag, and they reimbursed him for the replacement gear, including the bike. Maybe we should have bought an even nicer one! ↩︎
- There wasn’t too much talus on the Pfiffner Traverse. Nothing like our previous high routes in the Wind River and Sawtooth ranges, anyway. Most of the climbs were steep tundra rather than talus. ↩︎
- Caribou Lake is one of the few spots in the Indian Peaks Wilderness with strict permitting (there are designated campsites). We did have a permit for Caribou Lake that night. ↩︎
- Some of the singletrack sections are a bit rough if you’re underbiked, which we were. You’d be more comfortable on a mountain bike. ↩︎
Great writeup on an outstanding hike! Congrats to all of you for completing a very challenging route!