A blustery Sunday in the mountains to be sure! I got to Monte Cristo Campground and tried to open the door of the car and as I let go of the handle it slammed shut from the force of the wind, I could tell what I was up against.
This area only opened up recently from the fire closure and is getting some pent up activity from all the HPSers who need it for their weird list thingamajig. I noticed in the register a group that must have had close to twenty hiking this route, a couple of weeks ago, I on the other hand met no one. With the fire an already minimal bushy area is even more sparse so you can pick your choice on a lot of routes. I am a proponent of the counter clockwise route which is short but steep. This allows for a more moderate descent as well.
I left from the point where the fire road starts and started up the steep ridge which once it gets over the campground levels out and then has a small dip before it climbs to the fire road used for Iron. I then followed the road to the southern ridge spur and found a way up from the road onto that ridge and took it to the top. This route took me only 50 minutes.
From there I joined the main route coming from the north spur down to the fire road and up on to the ridge that heads to Round Top. This section has the most sustained steep climbing with some areas unburned by the fire. After the initial steep climb the ridge mellows and slowly makes its way to the apex and ugly Round Top peak which is the end of an old fire road coming from the Pacifico road. The view however is the best of the peaks as to the south you have a clear vantage point of the front range. It is still too low however to see beyond that. I got here a little over a hour after leaving Iron.
From here you follow the fire road north towards Granite. This section was cold and the windiest, quite unpleasant. You leave the fire road and head up the southern ridge to a large pile of rocks to the west. The wind on the summit and the initial heading towards Rabbit was something fierce indeed. The route to Rabbit is primarily moderate drops down the ridge. Just before Rabbit you drop down steeply to a shallow saddle and have to climb up steeply to get to Rabbit. All the peaks had registers which I've never seen before but not all had writing instruments so I only left my signature in two of them. Most hikers seemed to have done the loop. From the top of Rabbit you can either drop steeply down the south ridge and find a spot to connect to the fire road as the cut makes that problematic in most place or try and take the old route down the west side. I backtracked about 100 yards where there was a big duck to see if there was a route going down and couldn't find it so just went for it and found my way back to the fire road.
From there you can either follow the fire road the whole way or once again connect to a south ridge that will drop you more directly albeit steeper and slower to a lower place in the canyon. I chose to walk briskly and shuffle down the fire road as the gradient was much more pleasant. Once I got in the canyon I finally had the wind abate which was a relief. The whole hike took 4:30 and was about 4,200 elevation gain in 11 miles. A great hike for this time of year.