Cookes Peak

We parked at the corral and walked the road, passing by the old cemetery. Instead of continuing on the main road into the old mining camp/ghost town, we decided to take the old jeep road up, generally following the drainage that runs in a NE-SW direction. The road makes a switchback to the east at an apparent campground, and instead of following our better instincts and hiking up the drainage itself, we stayed on the road and followed it up a few switchbacks to its terminus at a scree slope. From there, it was a treacherous and at times dicey bushwhack to top of the ridge lying to the NE of the main peak. Once on top of the ridge, walking in the direction of the main peak, we finally picked up the faint summit trail just to the SE of the main peak. The summit is achieved by following cairns and red yarn (crossing an old fence several times) to the slab (south face), then up a series of cairns to the top. Great views abound. On the way back down, we followed the faint trail down into the drainage and met up with the infamous jeep road at the campground (as it turns out, there are numerous cairns within the drainage and we built up the cairn at the junction with the jeep road).