Wilson Peak – 14,017 ft
Mt Sneffels – 14,150 ft
Uncompahgre Peak – 14,309 ft

Wilson Peak – 14,017 ft

Date:  7-1-2006

Climbers: George Barnes, MarkDB, James J., Matt S.

Route: West Face via Silver Pick Basin, Class 3

RT time:  ~7 hours

RT distance:  7.0 miles

Elevation gain: 3,650 feet

First, a note about access.  Wilson Peak has some access issues that apparently aren't going to be resolved any time soon.  The Silver Pick Basin's west face route (described on SummitPost, 14ers.com, and in other recent reports)  was supposed to avoid all private property, but we spoke with the landowner on our way out and he suggests that this route is also off limits.  If you want to cough up $100 he'll let you climb the standard route over the Rock of Ages Saddle.  For the latest access info, you can see the land owner's website at www.wilsonpeakaccess.com.

To avoid afternoon storms we left the Silver Pick TH a little after 3:30 AM.  We followed directions for the west face route that was supposed to skirt all of the private property in the basin.  This skirting often meant walking on loose, steep talus, sometimes only a few hundred feet away from a private gravel road.  Ridiculous.

The west face route became more appealing higher up, as snow covers all of the loose talus.  The route climbs up a large snowfield, and then joins the standard route when it detours around the ridge crux.  We noted *many* climbers ascending the standard west ridge route from the Navajo Basin side.

We made the summit around 8:15 and spent about half an hour taking in the views.  On our way down, only a couple hundred feet from the summit, we ran into one of the Navajo Basin-side climbers, who asked if we'd already been to the summit.  "Nope, we turned at 13,900.  Here's your sign."

Mt. Wilson-El Diente Traverse

Class 3 scrambling near the summit

Mt. Wilson                      El Diente

Mt Sneffels – 14,150 ft

Date:  7-2-2006

Climbers: George Barnes, James J., Matt S.

Route: Southwest Ridge, Class 3

RT time:  ~4 hours 30 minutes

RT distance:  4.0 miles

Elevation gain: 2,200 feet

After pizza at the Goldbelt in Ouray, our trio headed up the Camp Bird Road to the Yankee Boy Basin.  The basin was crawling with jeeps and ATVs, but we managed to snag the last available campsite at the Atlas Mine.

The next morning we drove up the 4WD road to about 11,900 ft and started hiking around 5 AM.  Sunrise from Blue Lakes Pass was pretty spectacular, especially the views of Teakettle, Dallas, and Gilpin.  The SW ridge was a fun, easy scramble and much more enjoyable than the scree slog up the standard Lavender Col route.

SW Ridge detail

Sunrise from Blue Lakes Pass at 12,980 ft

Looking south from the summit

Wrights Lake at 12,180 ft

Uncompahgre Peak – 14,309 ft

Date:  7-3-2006

Climbers: George Barnes and Matt S.

Route: East Slopes, Class 2

RT time:  4 hours 30 minutes

RT distance:  7.6 miles

Elevation gain: 2,900 feet

On Monday, Matt and I enjoyed a quick trip up Uncompahgre from the Nellie Creek 4WD trailhead.  The easy class 1 trail was a nice change after the past two days of scree sliding.

Early morning along Nellie Creek Trail

Views from 13,300 ft

Looking down the vertical north face

Matt and Wetterhorn