Mt. Yale to Browns Pass Loop

Browns Pass looking northeast at Mt. Harvard near mile 13.5 of the loop.

With the Telluride Mountain Run at the end of August rapidly approaching it’s time to get out there for a few alpine training runs. This past Saturday I decided to check out a route I had earmarked awhile back while looking at a map of the Sawatch in search of long loops incorporating 14ers. I’d never seen any reports or Strava logs of anyone running this particular linkup before, although I’m sure it gets some traffic as the loop makes a lot of sense.

A map of the route viewed from the northwest. Click to enlarge.

It goes like this – start at the Silver Creek TH on the Cottonwood Road (which ends at the standard TH for Mt. Harvard), follow the Colorado Trail to the 12,000 ft pass at the base of Mt. Yale’s east ridge, up and over the top of Yale down to the Hartenstein Lake trail split in Denny Creek, head northwest up to the top of Browns Pass, drop down to Kroenke Lake, and descend back to Silver Creek. Total stats: 21.4 miles, 7,606 ft per Strava.

Starting off the day from the Silver Creek TH.

The day started off cool in the morning but that was not to last. I made decent time up to the saddle at the base of Yale’s east ridge and took a short break with the July sun already starting to beat down on the landscape. It was clear a hot day was in store.

The east ridge of Mt. Yale, which I climbed with Stu Clark from the Avalanche Gulch side in February of 2009.

The east ridge now has a decent trail most of the way up it, with cairns marking the best route through most of the rock steps and boulder fields. There were a few other people on the route but generally speaking it was mostly a feeling solitude, until I got to the summit that is…

Yale’s summit with Harvard and Columbia in back, taken by one of the 20 or so people hanging out up there.

Then it was on down the standard Denny Creek route which also had at least 50 people along it still working their way up the peak.

I tagged along behind a crew of runners who started their descent at the same time as me. Drafting them made getting through all the people on the way down a lot easier.

After a pretty quad thrashing descent back down below tree line I eventually reached the trail spit. Left would take me down to the Denny Creek TH and right, up to Hartenstein Lake and Browns Pass. After hanging a right and leaving Yale’s standard route I was quickly all by my lonesome again.

Looking down valley from near Browns Pass. The north fork of Denny Creek has a pretty remote feel to it.

Just below Browns Pass with the backside of the Three Apostles off to the left.

After a 1,900 ft climb from my low point in Denny Creek, I crested the pass and was happy to have some wind to provide a little relief from the early afternoon heat. The views opened up to a cool perspective on the Three Apostles as well as Harvard to the northeast.

Kroenke Lake with a sub-summit of Birthday Peak up above.

All that remained was a 7 mile long descent down the North Cottonwood Creek drainage, past Kroenke Lake and through the Mt. Harvard TH before another mile or two on dirt road back to the Silver Creek TH. It was hot and my legs were screaming at me by the end, but given how little I’ve actually run so far this year I felt pretty good about the effort overall.

The post-run cool off.

All in all this is a pretty neat route that I’d recommend checking out sometime if you’re looking for a solid training day or a unique way to do Mt. Yale.

Cheers 🙂