Wetterhorn Peak (Southeast Ridge)

chris — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 14:55:35 +0000

I enjoyed my time in the San Juan’s and on Uncompahgre so much that I decided to knock out Wetterhorn the same day. The week before I put up a post on 14ers.com looking for a hiking partner for the pair and was happy to find a cool dude to join me for Wetterhorn Peak. Looking back it was really nice having a partner for this climb as this was one of more technical and exposed 14ers I have been on.

Wetterhorn Peak(left) and Matterhorn Peak(Right)

The approach to Wetterhorn Peak was similar to Uncompahgre, you will follow well marked single track up to the ridge taking you up and around to the back side of Wetterhorn. This where the climb becomes more difficult but fun! Route finding was a little tricky as there seemed to be multiple marked paths. Luckily my 14ers.com friend had studied the route and he had it down pretty well.
Eric getting ready to start the fun part of the climb.
Eric making his way up the 1st class 3 section.
We followed a well marked fairly wide ridge to the back side of Wetterhorn, eventually this ridge stops and you just turn and start the class 3 climbing up to the summit. The rock was fairly stable in most places, but we gave each other plenty of room to avoid showering rocks down on each other. It was a class 3 grind all the way up to the summit and was a lot of fun!
A look back at Uncompahgre from Wetterhorn.
We were very lucky with the weather on the summit, it was 60 degrees with 0 wind and barley a cloud in the sky. After some summit pictures and a few snacks we started making our way back down. Climbing back down the class 3 route we had just came up seemed harder than going up. We just took it slow and managed to work our way back to the easy flowing single track back to the car. Over all this was one of my favorite 14ers this year and Is a definite repeat in my book.

The post Wetterhorn Peak (Southeast Ridge) appeared first on iLikeTrails.

Uncompahgre Peak (South Ridge Route)

chris — Mon, 22 Sep 2014 18:23:49 +0000

Going to start this off by saying how much I love the San Juan mountain range! I have been neglecting 14ers in the San Juan’s this year though because its such a long drive to get to any of them! I picked these 2 solely off of how awesome Uncompahgre looked in pictures, its such a unique looking 14er, it towers above everything else around it and has a very distinguished volcano-esque look. The Wetterhorn TH is only about 20-30 minutes from the Uncompahgre TH which was a huge selling point for me as I was trying to stick with my multiple peaks per day trend.
Once again fueled by a mountain sunrise.

Uncompahgre sunrise!
I ended up parking on the 2wd road so the RT for me was about 16 miles. In hindsight I could have easily drove all the way to the Nellie Creek TH cutting that trip in half. As soon as you turn onto the Nellie Creek 4wd road there is a really sketchy section that I was not sure I could make it over with my Forrester. But that little section of roughness was probably the hardest part of the road. After the 4 mile grind up the road I hopped on the only standard route there is up Uncompahgre. The trail zig zags through a valley below the summit until you eventually gain the ridge to start the final push to the summit. You get a tiny bit of class 3 scrambling along the back side of Uncompahgre which was a nice change from the beaten path.
Mix it up with a little class 3
Vertigo inducing cliff!
Don’t Look down!
Once on the summit you are presented with vertigo inducing views of the surrounding valley. If I had the balls to parasail this would be the 14er to do it on! I did not spend a ton of time on the summit as I had plans to meet up with a fellow 14ers.com forum member to tackle Wetterhorn Peak. If I had to recommend a 14 to someone who has never done one before Uncompahgre would be it, it has the classic 14er feel, you get a little bit of class 3, an awesome summit, and its not an extremely long distance if you park at the 4wd TH.

The post Uncompahgre Peak (South Ridge Route) appeared first on iLikeTrails.

San Juan Range – iLikeTrails

Wetterhorn Peak (Southeast Ridge)

Uncompahgre Peak (South Ridge Route)