Koppen Mountain

A beautiful day today with the lots of snow melt in the Teanaways, so we drove up to hike up Koppen Mountain. (7.2 miles with 2,300 ft of elevation gain). We didn't see another hikers on the trail today.

Trail stars along the DeRoux Trail and crosses the North Fork of the Teanaway River 0.2 miles in. Esmeralda Peaks in the background.

There were several downed trees on the trail, but they weren't too difficult to go over, under or around.

DeRoux Creek

We saw what looked like cougar tracks and, 

wolf tracks in the snow.

animal tracks heading up the switchbacks

Fresh snow with no prints as we continue up the switchbacks.

View from the pass to the southwest

View of Hawkins Mountain, Esmerelda Peaks and Mount Stuart along the ridge.

Pano to the north of the ridge including the above peaks, and towards the east: Teanaway Peak and Iron Peak

Mount Stuart as seen through a snag

Deeper snow going up the north slope of Koppen Mountain

Happy hiker on top of Koppen Mountain

Mt Daniel and other peaks in the distance to the northwest

pano to the south from Koppen Mountain

Heading back down from Koppen Mountain

We enjoyed the views to the north as we continued down from Koppen Mountain

Fungi along the trail today:

 

Koppen Mountain

We drove out to the De Roux Trailhead in the Teanaways to hike up to Kroppen Mountain a 7 mile roundtrip hike with 2,300 ft of gain. This is a mixed use trail. We only saw 2 hunters on horseback and no other people on this trail today.

We saw some lovely fall colors, especially along the forest floor.

After 0.2 miles the trail crosses the North Fork of the Teanaway River on this wooden bridge.

View of Esmerelda Peaks to the north  from the bridge.

The trail splits right after the bridge, we stayed straight on the De Roux Trail.

We continued on the De Roux Trail after the bridge crossing for 1.3 miles, here the trail only gains about 200 ft.

We took our time, soaking in the lovely fall colors as we went.

We saw this cat print on the trail.

Along the way the trail crosses De Roux Creek.

more fall colors

At the trail junction, we left the De Roux Trail and went left up the De Roux Spur Trail.

The spur trail is 1.2 miles of switchbacks going up to the saddle on Koppen Mountain.

View to the south from the saddle.

At the saddle to the east are a couple of campsites, the trail up Koppen Mountain goes through these campsites.

It is a mile up to the top of Koppen Mountain, the trail alternates between steep uphill and flat sections. there was some fall color here as well.

As we gained elevation, we started to see Mount Stuart beneath the clouds to the Northeast.

We also had a good view of Hawkins Mountain to the northeast.

There is a gorgeous view of the mountains to the north about 0.3 mile below the top of Koppen Mountain. 

View of the top of Koppen Mountain

Pano looking south from the top of Koppen Mountain

View to the north from the top of Koppen Mountain

zoom of Hawkins Mountain

zoom of Mount Daniel

zoom of Mount Stuart 

It was windy on the top of Koppen Mountain, so we took our lunch break at this beautiful view spot on our way back down. Beautiful views on a mostly cloudy fall day.