Mount of the Holy Cross is a “14er” located just south of Vail, Colorado. Although the trek to the summit is not extremely difficult, there is a significant gain and loss of elevation before you eventually work your way up to Mount of the Holy Cross summit. Once on top, the views that Mount of the Holy Cross provide are spectacular. The biggest positive about this hike is the variety of terrain along the way (dirt trail, rock scrambling, forest, wide open valleys).
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Mount of the Holy Cross Quick Facts
Mount of the Holy Cross Trail Rating: ★★★★ (⅘ Stars)
Getting Here: From I-70 (coming from northeast or northwest), take exit 171 and follow US 24 into the small town of Minturn. Once in Minturn, continue south through the town (about 5 miles from I-70) and take a right on Tigiwon Road (707). If you begin going up the mountain pass, you have gone too far. Once on Tigiwon Road (707), drive about 8.1 miles on the well maintained (but narrow) dirt road to the trailhead. Tigiwon Road is generally in good condition and I made it up with my Subaru Legacy no problem. Multiple trails start from the parking area, so be sure to start from the end of the parking lot (south from restroom). You can enter Halfmoon Campground into your favorite navigational device to help get you to the trailhead.
Parking: Free parking is available with a non-plumbing bathroom. The parking lot can only fit about 40 or so cars but typically does not fill up, even on busy weekends.
Dogs: Mount of the Holy Cross is dog friendly until the last ½ mile were it is not so pup friendly anymore. The trail disappears at this point and the remaining distance to the summit is a giant boulder field. If you have a small dog, you could easily carry it through this section since it is not nothing over class 1 or 2. However, if you have a larger dog, keep an eye on their paws because the rock is pretty sharp and there is almost no solid ground until you reach the summit.
Summary
Camping: A few spots are available along 707 on the way to the trailhead. The spots are not massive, but there are about 10 or so available. There are also about 10-12 spots 3 miles into the hike at designated areas. These spots are pretty beautiful. They are located in the valley that sits to the north of Mount of the Holy Cross and an active stream runs right by many of them. If neither of those areas work, there is Halfmoon Campground located nearby the trail was well.
Make it a Loop: Mount of the Holy Cross is an out and back hike. If you wanted to, you could take the Halo Ridge variation to make this hike more of a loop.
Trail X Factors: Elevation Gain & Loss, Trail Near Summit
The typical trail up a summit involves gaining elevation and losing it on the way down. Mount of the Holy Cross however, does both before you even get to the summit of the mountain. The first few miles of the hike involve about 2,000 feet of elevation gain. The next mile or two do the exact opposite and the last couple of miles are straight uphill. This trail will test all of your leg muscles both ascending and descending Mount of the Holy Cross.
The second big X Factor to this hike, is the final section of the trail towards the summit of Mount of the Holy Cross. This part of the hike involves some scrambling (Class 2 at the highest) but the trail can be rather hard to follow. I choose to take a direct route up to the summit, but you can work your way over to the right (South/East) of the final ridge to have a slightly easier ascent.
Hike Tip(s): If you want to extend your tip to Mount of the Holy Cross into an overnight adventure, snag a camp spot at the 3 mile mark. There are 10-12 official camp spots right off of the trail. Each spot is pretty spacious and close to a water source. This section of the trail is located after the elevation loss portion of the hike, so your trek to the summit in the morning will be all uphill. Camping here is first come, first serve.
Best Views: Due to the significant amount of elevation gain and loss on this trail, I would try to pack light in the photography department. Luckily (or unluckily) for me, my DSLR was in the repair shop for my hike up Mount of the Holy Cross, so I was able to save that weight in my pack. Views from the summit and along the trail (north), offer great views of nearby Gore Range whose jagged peaks can look spectacular in the rising or setting sun.
My Trip to Mount of the Holy Cross: September 2016
My body is getting used to these early mornings. On the “day” of my hike to Mount of Holy Cross I set my alarm for 3:45AM. I figured I would get to the trailhead around 6 and have plenty of time to summit and get back down before the afternoon storms rolled in.
2:30 AM struck on my Subaru car clock and I find myself on I-70 heading up towards Vail. I was not sure why, but my body and mind were ready to rip and I did not feel like disagreeing with them. I was particularly excited for Mount of Holy Cross because I knew that I only had a few more weekends of beautiful weather in the season before snow hit the Rocky Mountains and my summer hiking season would be over.
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I reached the dirt road that provided access to the trailhead around 4:15. The remaining drive to the trailhead took a lot longer than I expected. The road itself was in good condition, but driving over 20 MPH was out of the question, especially in the pitch black. When I did eventually reach the trailhead, I was shocked to see that most of the spots were already full with cars. I ended up snagging one of the last spots in the official lot.
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The night before the hike, I had made a deep dish pizza (trying but failing to replicate Pequods in Chicago – my favorite pizza in the world). When I reached the parking area for Mount of the Holy Cross, nature called, so I hit the trailhead bathroom. To keep this hike review “PG,” let’s just say that nature calling would become the unfortunate theme for the first several hours of this hike. To put it another way, for the first few miles of the hike, I would have done mean and nasty things to be on the plastic, elevated, boxed seat, of the non-plumbing bathroom at the trailhead parking lot.
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Even though I am sure many of my readers are here to learn the details about my bathroom habits, lets switch gears. The first few miles of my hike up Mount of Holy Cross were like hiking under a black sheet of construction paper with holes poked in it, held to a desk lamp. In other words, the stars were immaculate. I was so sad that my camera was being repaired because spoiler alert, an iPhone 5 camera is not capable of shooting the stars…crazy right?!!?
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After a few miles of hiking, a peak appeared in front of me and I thought it might be Mount of the Holy Cross, but I was only about 2 miles into the hike and knew I had many more to go before reaching the summit. The trail worked its way up a valley and continued down the other side of it. The sun was slowly rising at this point and the trail lead me into a stunning wide open space. You could see for miles but the beautiful view was ruined by my stomach which had been churning away and I could no longer ignore it. The crappy part (pun intended) about having to go to the bathroom in the middle of a trail, is that you have no idea when people are coming so you have to find a very secluded spot if you value your privacy.
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I continued hiking after taking care of business and hoped that my body would right itself before leaving the forest and entering into the privacy free ridge of Mount of the Holy Cross. At around 3 miles, the trail crossed a stream and passed about 10 camping spots along the trail. This was the last flat section of the hike before the trail started to climb again and this time for good. The trail “switchbacked” its way up the valley and eventually onto the ridge of Mount of the Holy Cross. Once the trail left the tree line, it became very rocky and in some spots, undefined. I hiked up the ridge to a false summit and continued along the saddle of the mountain.
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About a half mile from the summit the trail became very steep and harder to follow. I ended up spotting two hikers in front of me and mirrored their path up the final stretch of Mount of the Holy Cross. This small section of the trail was extremely rocky and involved some minor class 2 scrambling.
The summit seemed to appear out of nowhere and was somewhat anticlimactic when I did reach the top of Mount of the Holy Cross. The summit of the mountain was pretty flat and had a decent amount of space to get away from other hikers and enjoy my own piece of serenity. I did my best to snap some “decent” quality photos and headed down the trail a short time later.
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Normally a hike back to the car is all downhill, not Mount of the Holy Cross. This was somewhat annoying because my legs were not in the mood to go uphill after already doing it for about 5 hours. Luckily, once I worked my way out of the valley in front of Mount of the Holy Cross, the trail leveled off a bit and was a fairly short trip back to the trailhead.
I would recommend Mount of the Holy Cross to a beginner hiker who is looking for a more challenging hike because the scenery is beautiful and the trail was not super crowded.
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