Redcloud
Peak
Routed from OpenStreetMap · elevations USGS 3DEP
Hayden Survey topographers Franklin Rhoda and A.D. Wilson hoped to add the peak to their 1874 circuit but got only as far as neighboring Sunshine Peak, turned back by a lightning storm before they could continue. Early maps labeled the mountain Red Mountain, for the iron-red rock across its upper slopes. J.C. Spiller, chief topographer of the rival Wheeler Survey, made the first recorded ascent later that year and gave the peak its present name, Redcloud; the U.S. Board on Geographic Names made it official in 1906.
The peak's high country lies within the 38,495-acre Redcloud Peak Wilderness Study Area, managed by the Bureau of Land Management since 1980, protected in practice but never formally designated wilderness by Congress. The study area spans the country west of Lake City and takes in Sunshine Peak as well. Redcloud and Sunshine, the summit Rhoda and Wilson had reached before the storm turned them back, sit barely a mile apart across the ridge the two surveyors never finished crossing.
~16 mi on CR 30 (Cinnamon Pass road) from CO 149 near Lake City; rough with a shelf road after mile 12.5 but managed by careful passenger cars in dry conditions (14ers.com redc1).
No fee or permit; BLM land on the seasonal Alpine Loop (cleared each spring; Cinnamon side open by mid-June 2026 — alpineloop.info). Shares its parking with the Grizzly Gulch TH for Handies' east side. // Handies side: No fee or permit; BLM Handies Peak Wilderness Study Area on the seasonal Alpine Loop — passes cleared each spring, Engineer Pass closed first two weeks of June 2026, Cinnamon side open by mid-June (alpineloop.info; blm.gov Alpine Loop).
Peak data: Redcloud Peak — Wikipedia