Coney Island (11580 ft), 06/03/2006
Coney Island (11,580 ft) is ranked number 34 in Gerry Roach's Boulder County Peaks list. You can't buy any hot dogs here, but the views from the top are better than from the top of any ferris wheel. Note that on the topo maps, this is an unnamed peak east of the divide between Sawtooth Mtn and Mt Audubon, at position 40.1220/105.6169.
We parked on the north side of Beaver Reservoir where the 4WD road to Coney Flats begins. The 4WD road was still closed for the winter to vehicular traffic. We began hiking at 8:39 down the Coney Flats Road, and reached the Coney Flats Trailhead, which is at the Indian Peaks Boundary, at 9:56. Up to here, there were only occasional patches of snow on the ground, but by the time we reached point 3 (see point list below), which was our designated place to leave the trail and gain the Coney Island Ridge, there was enough snow so that we couldn't follow the trail anyway. From point 3 to point 2, we walked over lots of snow, but most of it was fortunately hard enough so that we didn't sink through. Then as we got above treeline, the snow vanished entirely. The terrain is pretty rough with lots of rocks and very little meadow, until just below the summit where it gets smoother.
We reached the Coney Island Summit at 11:39. The views of Sawtooth Mountain, Paiute Peak, Mount Audubon, and the Coney Lakes are spectacular. There was no summit register, and we didn't have one to deposit either. The GPS showed 6.0 miles to the summit of Coney Island from our parking place. We started descending from the summit at 12:26, going back the way we had come, and returned to our parking place at 16:23.
Elevation difference from lowest (Beaver Reservoir) to highest (Coney Island) point = 11634 - 9208 = 2426 feet
Total trip time = 7 hrs, 44 minutes.
Total trip distance is about 12 miles.
| Number | Description | Lat/Lon |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Coney Island Summit (11,580 ft) | 40.1220/105.6169 |
| 2 | Coney Ridge (10,800 ft) | 40.1267/105.6023 |
| 3 | Leave Trail (10,200 ft) | 40.1320/105.5963 |
| Place name | Elev [ft] | Accuracy [ft] | Lat/Lon |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beaver Reservoir Parking | 9208 | 18 | 40.12122/105.52374 |
| Coney Island Summit | 11634 | 6 | 40.12227/105.61629 |