The Indian Peaks Wilderness is an area that I (surprisingly) just haven’t spent much time in during my mountaineering wanderings. This is in spite of the fact that I, A) Went to CU, a mere stone’s throw away, and B) Lived in Westminster for years. I guess I always had other objectives in mind during both other phases of life. Go figure. Keep Reading…
The La Plata Mountains are a small subrange of the San Juans that reside in the far southwest corner of Colorado northeast of Mancos. A handful of craggy peaks make up the bulk of this small range, a majority of which can be explored in just a few days time. The mountains are named after the silver deposits discovered there by the Spanish exploration of the region in the mid-1700’s. As one of the farthest away sets of thirteeners from my house, I’d always wanted to get down there to check them out but it’d been a long time coming. Finally this year was the year, and I found myself making the long drive down there from the Vail Valley over the 4th of July weekend. Read more…
A couple weeks after our Sunlight Basin pack-in, Steve and I headed back down to the Weminuche to try for a few more peaks at the tail end of summer. The destination this time around was Stormy Gulch via Trinity Creek. From there we ended up hitting Peaks Two and Three to the northeast of Vestal Basin, and Peak Eight to the west of Silex Lake. Keep Reading…
Sometimes climbing these mountains can be a massive logistical undertaking. But other times the trips just write themselves. That was the case for me on a random weekend in the autumn of 2025. I was feeling pretty burned out with the relentless responsibilities of life. As such, mountains have been hard to come by this year. A trip to the hills was long overdue. I was originally planning on working on my centennial list via the apostles group. But an early dusting of snow made me reconsider. As I did, I settled on the Mt. Solitude group. Keep Reading…