Sentinel Point

Distance:  12.6 miles
Ascent:  5,418 feet
Top Elevation: 12,527 feet
Directions: H24 from Colorado Springs to Woodland Park H24/H67 then to Divide, left on H67 to the Horsethief Falls trail-head located at the caged Midland tunnel.

Route: Horsethief Falls trailhead to the fork leading north on the RTP trail.  Turned north-east on 704C and followed the trail until it disappeared.  Summited Sentinel, walked the length of the ridge toward Pancake Rock, looked for a place to descend but then just retraced our path back down.

Description: Intense is how I would best describe this one.  Knew that it would be tough, but did not realize that this is one of the highest trails in our region until after we got down.  Pretty much sums up the problem we ran into, not enough research on this one prior to launching into it.

We started in familiar territory, having hiked the Horsethief Falls area, mostly in the winter, for a couple years now.  Initially thought this hike just to be an extension of that, so felt pretty comfortable doing this as a last minute decision.  We had a good start, leaving the house before the sun was up and were set on being the first to what could only be expected to be a packed parking lot over the holiday weekend.  Ended up second, but passed their campsite fairly early on.  We turned north on the Ring the Peak trail and headed for 704C.

When looking at the trail start for 704C there is a discrepancy between the Nat Geo map 137 and the Pikes Peak Atlas.  The PPA marks it as "Cairned Trail" and is seen as a "Y" fork with an acute split between two creeks.  National Geographic on the other hand does indicate it as 704C, but visually displays it as more of a 90 degree turn to the east.  In reality its a combination of the two, the Atlas does a better job of visually displaying the arc of the trail start, but the trail is now officially marked as 704C.  Besides having become a trail geek, I mention this because I way-pointed the crossing using Nat Geo Topo software and the turn came quite a bit earlier than that.

The trail itself starts in great condition and cairns do in fact start appearing, perhaps a bit prematurely, but along with some flagging become quite helpful once the ascent begins. The trail gets spotty and frequently merges with drainage run off. There starts to be cairns indicating multiple paths, but they all criss cross for the most part and together lead up to a larger boulder field as you approach tree line.  The cairns and flagging can be easy to lose here, but if you walk the north edge of the rocks and not actually cross or climb straight through the boulder field you will find the easiest route up.  The markings stop shy of reaching the ridge, but the route from here is obvious.  At the very top, we did find two different paths on the north east and east side of the summit that can make the final climb a bit easier, but it does still involve some scrambling to the very top.

Being up this high is always a strange feeling.  Beyond quiet, despite how open it is, and odd elements of peacefulness mixed with danger.  The video clip above looks west, turns north, then east showing the back of Pikes Peak, and then south.

We grabbed the two caches here and headed south on the backside of the ridge, avoiding the wind, to get another down the line.  Easy enough stroll and not a difficult find.  The intention from here was to drop down toward pancake rock and reconnect with the established trail.  Unfortunately the drop just looked really steep, and the routes we explored looked like they might end up on top of a cliff requiring climbs back up.  Alternatively we decided to see if we could find the trail running down Oil Creek on the east side of the ridge.  We dropped down that side from the saddle to the creek but were not able to locate the trail.  Finally we decided to simply return the way we came.  Frustrating for sure, but since both of us were tired it seemed the safest thing to do.  We started the crawl back up the elevation and dropped back down the draw we had initially climbed.

It was comforting to reach the flags and cairns again and just follow the known path home.  Can't help but compare this hike to last months Antero trip.  A couple miles short on distance and 1500 feet or so of elevation, but pretty close in overall ascent.  As I finish writing this a few days later, my eyes are still slightly burnt despite wearing sunglasses the entire time and I still have not been able to completely hydrate.  If we do this again I will reduce my water carry and take a filter as there were a couple spots near the top to resupply.  Goggles might also be nice.  After the fact, looked into the suggested loop and how others drop down the west side of the saddle and shoot for the falls, oh well maybe next time.