Pennsylvania Mountain — the easiest kind of 13er, above Placer Valley (Class 2)¶
Other climbers: Emily Sharpe — ✓ climbed · Shawn D Keil — ✓ climbed
At a glance — recommended day
5.6 mi · 1,647 ft gain · Class 2 · 1 peak · ~3.31 h drive
NOAA weather link: Pennsylvania Mountain Weather
Drive from Boulder: ~3h 20m via Google Maps
CalTopo research map: https://caltopo.com/m/QVV7LVG
Researched: 2026-08-06
Status in Peak Checklist: unclimbed — and one of the lowest-cost unclimbed ranked 13ers on the list: a half-day tundra walk from an 11,500' passenger-car trailhead, 3⅓ hours from home.
Note: the recommended route was distilled from 12 recorded GPS tracks of real trips (14ers.com · ListsofJohn · peakbagger) — all layered on the interactive CalTopo research map.
Peaks covered¶
One Class 2 peak in the northern Mosquito Range, on the ridge system south of Mosquito Pass. Pike NF; no permits or fees.
| Peak | Elev | Class | CO rank | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pennsylvania Mtn | 13,013' (LiDAR; pre-LiDAR 13,006') | 2 | 629 | unclimbed |
Recommended route — SE Ridge from the Pika Trail Head ⭐¶
~5.6 mi · ~1,647 ft round trip, Class 2 (beta says the ridge itself is Class 1) — the standard SE-ridge line, taken verbatim from a July 2024 recording that starts 15 ft from the trailhead marker. Nine of the twelve recorded parties used this exact start, with round trips of 5.4–6.0 mi; the beta figure (5.3 mi / 1,550') agrees.
From the TH kiosk area, an old road track heads NW ~100 yards, then a cairn-marked trail peels off through sparse trees and willows onto open tundra. From there the SE ridge is a pleasant tundra stroll — no exposure, no routefinding, very little rock — to the 13,013' summit. Return the same way.
This is the family-hike end of the 13er spectrum: short mileage, gentle grade, an 11,500' start. The one standing hazard in the Mosquito Range applies — wind — and the tundra is completely open the whole way.
Route sequence¶
- From the Pennsylvania Mtn TH / Pika Trail Head (11,500'), walk the old road NW ~100 yds.
- Take the cairned trail through the last trees onto tundra.
- Follow the broad SE ridge — Class 1–2 tundra — to the 13,013' summit.
- Return the same way (~2–3 hours car-to-car at a walking pace).
Getting there — Pennsylvania Mtn TH (11,500')¶
| Drive from Boulder | ~3h 20m via Google Maps — via Fairplay |
| Trailhead | Pika Trail Head, 39.25519, −106.10720, ~11,500' (OSM-mapped TH marker + unpaved parking, access=yes, no fee) |
| Road | Passenger car — a few miles of maintained, graded dirt through the Placer Valley subdivision out of Fairplay (climb13ers). No clearance question. |
| Land | Pike NF beyond the subdivision edge; no permits/fees. |
Gear & season¶
- Best window: June through October — 7 of the 12 recordings are summer, and the low commitment makes shoulder-season attempts easy to call off. Winter works too (4 recorded winter/spring days) but that's a different, snow-covered outing.
- Terrain: Class 1–2 tundra. Trail runners are fine; no helmet, no scramble.
- Wind: the Mosquito Range standard warning — there is no shelter anywhere on this route.
- Storms: short approach means you can time a weather window tightly; the whole route is exposed to sky, so don't linger past noon buildup.
- Cell: decent over South Park; still carry the InReach out of habit.
Other considerations¶
Nothing to combine at ridge level. The next ranked neighbors (London Mountain and the Mosquito Pass area peaks) are climbed from other starts — recorded one-way link-ups exist (a 15.7 mi Mosquito-Pass loop recording touches Pennsylvania), but the natural shape here is the short standalone day, possibly paired with another short Mosquito/Tenmile objective the same day given the 3⅓-hour drive.
Why this peak is worth the drive anyway: it's about the cheapest remaining tick on the unclimbed list — a genuine 13er summit for an afternoon's effort, and a good bad-weather-week or short-day option to keep in the back pocket.
Trip reports & GPX (all three sources)¶
Sources confirmed logged in: 14ers.com ("Basin"), listsofjohn.com ("letsgocu"), peakbagger.com ("Kyle Knutson"). All three swept fresh for this rebuild (the sweep's new login gate caught an expired 14ers session and refused a false-empty before re-sweeping), plus the mapped OSM trails in the bbox — all layered on the research map.
- 14ers.com: peak page 10275 — 2 GPX-library tracks (an Aug 2018 Mosquito-side day and an Apr 2014 ski recording) plus the formal SE Ridge route description.
- listsofjohn.com: peak 812 — Class 2 rating; 8 trip reports seen, 6 member tracks harvested (2014–2025) plus 1 duplicate; LoJ cross-verified the peakbagger pid (5800).
- peakbagger.com: peak 5800 — 4 ascent tracks with GPS plus 1 duplicate, incl. the July 2024 recording the route follows.
Sources checked: 14ers.com ✓ (logged in, "Basin") · listsofjohn.com ✓ (logged in, "letsgocu") · peakbagger.com ✓ (logged in, "Kyle Knutson")