14er Climb : Mt. Sneffels

Submitted by monty on Mon, 2006-09-04 22:13

We headed WAY out into the hills to hike Mt. Sneffels. Here are the photos.

Here are some stats for Mt. Sneffels:
Rank: 27 of 53
Elevation: 14,150'
Range: San Juan
Location: In the Uncompahgre National Forest - 7 miles west of the town of Ouray, 4.5 miles north of Telluride.
Nearby Towns: Ridgway, Ouray, Telluride
History: Named for Snaefell, a summit in Iceland, which was referenced in Jules Verne's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" as the entrance to the earth's core.

We took a non standard approach by coming in from the Blue Lakes Trailhead. We camped the first night at the second Blue Lake. This is a very beautiful spot to hang out! First thing in the morning we left camp to climb to the top of Blue Lakes Pass. From there we left the main trail (towards Yankee Boy Basin) and followed the climbers trail to the peak.

The Southwest Ridge route is a classic Class 3 scramble. We climbed past the first group of jagged pinacles low on the ridge. Once past the pinacles we had a bit of a steep trough to get through to the first notch at 13,500'. From there we had to down climb about 40' to get into the south-facing gully which led to the final summit ridge. The summit ridge was exciting. It had extreme exposure on the West side and was pretty open to the right also. It was all "hands and feet" for the last few hundred feet to the top. We made our descent on the 'standard South Slopes' route. This was pretty tricky also. There were several scary sections and we really should have worn our helmets.

Look for the red spot near the upper end of the second Blue lake in the photos. That was our camping spot.