We hiked Isolation Peak & Mahana Peak in the Rocky Mountain National Park on August 3rd, 2024 GPS Data 13 hours and 22 minutes 18 miles 5438 ft of Elevation Gain
I can see why it's called Isolation Peak cuz it's way out there. The fact that you added on Mahana Peak is some amazing endurance. Cool view of Mt. Meeker and Long's Peak and Chief's Head and Mt. Alice at 10:27. I have to live vicariously through your videos and others I follow: I was in metro Denver a couple of weeks ago and the best I could do was hike Colorado Mines Peak, 2 miles and 1000' up in 2 hours, huffing and puffing all the way.
It was a very long day indeed and it tested our endurance big time. We have been hiking and training in the RMNP for several years now just to try to make these harder RMNP hikes more doable. All that we have left on our RMNP hike list are the most difficult ones now and they are all testing our resolve.
We are still recovering from both the Hagues Peak and Isolation Peak hikes. The reason we keep trying these long difficult hikes in RMNP here lately is because the hard hikes are the only ones we have left to put in the books there.
Since you're doing these longer ones, I'm going to recommend Elk Tooth via Pear Lake as an idea. Similar mileage as this with slightly lower elevation gain. The ridge leading to the summit is mostly easy class 2 on solid rock, which makes it less of a slog than Isolation/Mahana.
@@alquinn8576 I have wondered about hiking to Elk Tooth before, but since Lisa Foster's book labeled it as a Class 3 approach I have not considered it yet. If it is mostly a Class 2 on solid rock like you say then it may be doable! We have also considered trying to get Ogalalla Peak from going up over the Junco Lake area. I read a hiking report of that route on a random website a while back and they thought that route going up/down near Junco Lake is way easier than trying Cony Pass which is a Class 3 from my understanding.
