Little Scraggy Peak 9,192' and Redskin Mountain 8,783' 11/20/05

I got a relatively early start and parked on the shoulder of the highway northeast of the Kelsey Campground to assault the peak from the southwest ridge. The outhouse fortunately was not locked. I flanked the peak on its south side, avoiding snow but engaging the bursh and thorns prevalent in the area. Reaching the ridge was straight-forward enough, and I found some good clearings to ascend the sople before the rocks dominated. The scrambling was pretty easy to the somewhat flat summit ramparts (photo below shows the summit block in the middle). There was still a fair bit of walking to the summit block itself, and in the snow were tracks from what had to be a very recent visitor. The 4" of snow was not unpleasant on the traverse north. A superb view of Green Mountain (shown on the right), Thunder Butte, and Long Scraggy greets the eyes on the blocky summit.

With hopes of Baldy Peak destroyed upon viewing local landowners only signage at the Buffalo Creek Road previous to my Little Scraggy Peak attempt, I thought I'd try out access to Redskin Mountain from FR 504 (Wellington Lake Road). Driving was a little tricky on the icy road, but eventually I made it to the Miller Gulch TH. This is .9 miles from Redskin's summit, and there is a trail of sorts heading in the right direction for a couple hundred yards . The hike was uneventful with exception to a few brief but unnecessary scrambles. The summit is hidden well from its western subsummits. There was not really a view, at least in comparison to what was available on Little Scraggy. I made my way out quickly and made it home prior to lunch.