Hiking in the Tenmile Range

Quandary Peak is the reason most people come. Its East Ridge is a Class 1 trail with 3,450 feet of gain, and it draws several hundred climbers on a summer Saturday. Since 2021 Summit County has required paid parking reservations at the Quandary and McCullough Gulch trailheads from summer into fall, with a shuttle from the Airport Road lot in Breckenridge ($7 round trip for visitors, free for Summit County residents) as the alternative. Book before you drive; the lots are enforced. The Quandary Peak guide covers the route, and the McCullough Gulch guide covers the waterfall and lakes below it.

The rest of the range is quieter. Spruce Creek Road, south of Breckenridge, serves the Mohawk Lakes trail past Continental Falls, the Spruce Creek trail, and the long day up Crystal Peak. Mayflower Gulch, off Highway 91 between Copper and Fremont Pass, is a short walk to the Boston Mine ruins and one of the most popular snowshoe routes in the county in winter. Wheeler Lakes climbs from the Copper Mountain side of I-70, and the Wheeler Trail crosses the range between Copper and Breckenridge.

Trailheads sit between 10,000 and 11,000 feet, higher than most of Colorado, so altitude arrives on the first switchback. Sleeping a night in Breckenridge or Frisco before a big day helps. The high lakes and Quandary are in condition from late June through early October; the lower gulches open a few weeks earlier and close a few weeks later. Afternoon storms are daily from June through August.

Summit County is compact, so a rained-out morning still leaves an afternoon for the Frisco and Breckenridge trail systems, Dillon Reservoir, and the free Summit Stage bus that connects all of it.