Sheep Mountain from Brown's Pass

Hike on August 9, 2007
with Tim, Tanya, Scott, Mark, Ginni
and Dave

GPS: Datum WGS84
Brown’s Pass: 39°10’28” N, 106°5’49” W, 11,361 feet
Sheep Mountain: 39°11’37” N, 106°6’43” W, 12,818 feet
From U.S. 285 south of Fairplay, turn west on Park County Road 20, just north of mile marker 179. PCR 20 turns into Forest Service Road 176. The paved road soon turns to gravel, then turns nasty. You’ll need a high-clearance, four-wheel-drive vehicle. Stay on FSR 176 and follow the signs to Brown’s Pass. Park 5.5 miles from U.S. 285 at the junction of 176 and 176A, at the top of Brown’s Pass.
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Our pre-arranged meeting place was on Front Street in Fairplay. From there, Sheep Mountain is easy to spot: She obscures the southern half of the Horseshoe Mountain amphitheater.Her long, southern ridge slides down from her peak through the trees to the low point that is Brown’s Pass, our starting point.After a spot of java and story swapping, we loaded into the SUVs and were off.

We rattled up the pass and parked at the top, piled out and surveyed our surroundings. The air was crystal clear, and only a few puffy clouds hovered above the eastern horizon. Warm temperatures and the light upslope winds we’ve enjoyed all season encouraged us to be on our way.

My newer map shows a trail heading north, up the slope from Brown’s Pass, but not the side road 176A. Assuming they were the same, we headed up the road, but left it when it turned west.The slope was not too steep, so we followed the top of the ridge up. From Fairplay, the slope looks to be a steady climb, but a close look reveals undulations in the ridge. For us the undulations made for false summits and occasional steep sections, but for the most part it was an easy climb.

The trees by Brown’s Pass were a mix of bristlecone and foxtail pine, aspen, fir and spruce. As we climbed, all but the spruce and bristlecone pine disappeared, and those shrank and became twisted by the harsh high-altitude conditions. We reached timberline just before a false summit; mounting that summit we found more trees. Egad! a false summit and a false timberline.

Broken rock covers most of Sheep Mountain above the trees. The rock on the ridge was fist-size, and not very loose, so the hiking was not hard. Still, one had to watch one’s step to avoid tripping. It struck me that prospecting above timberline would be a natural occupation: You have to be looking at the rocks as you walk anyway, so you may as well look for interesting minerals as you go.

Above timberline, Sheep Mountain offers wonderful views that spread out as you climb. She’s east of most of the Mosquito Range, so you have views of her sisters north, south and west. She’s on the edge of South Park, so there are dramatic views down and east over the plains, stretching to Mount Evans and Pike’s Peak. Fairplay appears as a sprinkling of confetti on the lower slopes of Mount Silverheels. To the south there is a wonderful view where the land slides away down into Sheep Park and Twelvemile Creek
valley, then rises up to the rounded tops of Buffalo Peaks. Beaver ponds dot Sheep Park, Forest Service roads crisscross the terrain, and aspen groves, meadows, and rock fields cover the mountain slope in colors.

Approaching the summit the trail becomes less steep, and the western and northern Mosquitoes come into view. Horseshoe Mountain is dramatic, and the shack on its summit is easy to see. Far below, the Leavick Mill sits on Four mile Creek road, which leads to the mines that dot Horseshoe and Peerless Mountains, and Mounts Sherman and Sheridan.

The summit break gave us time to survey our return trip. We had planned to go down to a saddle on the west, then up to the lower Lamb Mountain. On the map, it looked like a short detour, although a little steeper than the ridge behind us. From Sheep Mountain’s summit, it looked like a dang cliff down and a tough climb up. We decided to travel back towards Brown’s Pass but stay west of the top of the ridge in order to get a better view of the approach to Lamb Mountain.

Another of our goals was to do some scouting for the Mosquito Range Heritage Initiative. MRHI is trying to reduce tensions between land owners and recreationists in the Mosquito Range. There are mines and privately owned lands on both Sheep and Lamb Mountains. We found signs of mining activity on Sheep Mountain, but all was long abandoned. We made close inspection of one mine where the entrance was still supported by bristlecone pine timbers, but the tunnel behind had collapsed.

Going farther down the slope, we got a good view of the saddle between Sheep and Lamb Mountains. It looked like a long traverse to the saddle across loose and broken rock, then a steep ascent to Lamb Mountain. We decided that a stroll through the bristlecone forest between us and Brown’s Pass was in our better interest.The forest once had large trees, but apparently had burned, years ago. Big, dead bristlecone stand among the smaller live trees, making for dramatic frames for pictures of Buffalo Peaks and the valleys before them.

We wandered back to the top of the ridge through the trees,toward Brown’s Pass and the vehicles. Soon we found road 176A, and along it the start of the trail we were going to take on our way up. The trail has been marked by rocks placed on a 2-and-a-halffoot- high stump. How we missed it, I’ll never know.

This is a moderate climb with extreme views. The hardest part is getting to Brown’s Pass: If your vehicle can’t make it but you’ve got the time, drive as far as you can, then walk the road and continue up the ridge. An alternative route is Forest Service Trail 691, which goes up the east side of Sheep Mountain from Horseshoe Campground on Fourmile Road, Park County Road 18.