Saturday (August 25) was such a beautiful day in Colorado's Rocky Mountains. It was pretty much sunny all day with little wind and temperatures in the upper 70's. After briefly visiting Twin Lakes earlier in the morning and getting some work done in the middle of the day, I felt compelled to get out there in the mountains again.

I wound up walking along the trail near Cottonwood Pass that leads to Lost Lake. It's a fairly short and leisurely trail and at the point of the adjacent photo, I took note of how great Turner Peak appeared with the westerly sun gleaning its sunlight on it. It was then I decided to make a Turner Peak tribute page!

Turner Peak sits very close to the Continental Divide with its summit measured at 13,232 above sea level. If you are an avid mountaineer and wish to do a "13er" in this area Turner Peak might be a peak worthy considering. I actually hiked to its summit in June 2006 (See my report: Turner Peak), beginning at the parking lot at Cottonwood Pass. A good topographical map will help obviously, but in short, I traveled along the divide, reached the slope of the unnamed ~12,800 foot point (left in the photo), traveled back down to a saddle on the divide, before traveling up to Turner's summit.

I have included some of my pictures from various spots in the Sawatch Mountains. Enjoy them!

-Steve

Part of my walk in this area was to get out and "clear my head" a bit, for I would be consumed in a fantasy football draft a couple of hours later in front of my computer in Buena Vista. ;) LEFT: Turner Peak's pointed summit to the right. RIGHT: A view with "Jones Mountain South" (right peak) and beautiful high country trees and foliage. Mt. Princeton's summit can seen way out there on the left.

All three of these photos were taken during the day I hiked Turner Peak. TOP LEFT: Turner Peak as seen from Chaffee County Road 306 ("Cottonwood Pass Road"). TOP RIGHT and BOTTOM: Two views of the summit taking the aforementioned route. Link: Turner Peak - June 2006

Two photos displaying Turner Peak from my hike along the Continental Divide Trail south of Cottonwood Pass. Link: Continental Divide Trail - June 2006

While standing on the Mt. Yale summit on July 1, 2007, Turner Peak can be seen standing above (and to the left) of Hartenstein Lake. Link: Mt. Yale - July 2007

The view of Turner Peak during a recent visit to Ptarmigan Lake. Pesky clouds covered its summit in the right photo, but at least the lake came out nice. Link: Ptarmigan Lake - August 2007