In late summer 2023, I went into the Gore with the intention of trying to bag as many alphabet peaks as possible in one outing in ‘fastpack’ style. I do think a linkup of all 26 alphabet peaks would be incredible, and warrants being done in late summer/early fall if ever, but I knew that this summer I didn’t have the extra masochistic instinct that has helped me persevere through difficult outings in the past, and so I’d been happy walking at a slower pace and enjoying the views and sleeping in a bit the previous several weeks, and I didn’t really see that style changing much. So I figured a good fun outing where I enjoyed the traverses and the fantastic scrambling of the Gore would be more than enough.
I chose to enter via Pitkin Creek, sleeping at Pitkin Lake my first night. Without going into too much detail, my route over the next 3 days included East Partner (Peak V), Peak W, Peak X, Peak Y, Peak T, Peak S, Peak R, Peak K, Peak G. My favorite part of this adventure, and an objective one could achieve during an overnighter, was the traverse over Peaks T, S, and R. (or reverse depending on direction). Peak T’s summit block is phenomenal and airy, the scrambling on the R-S ridgeline is rather fun, and Peak R offers fantastic position. I ascended Peak T via its south slopes, traversed over to R, and descended R via it’s NW slopes (normal route). Route-finding was a blast, and the terrain is wonderful fun. Have fun and be safe out there!
