UN13471 and Browns Peak - July, 2025

A group of preachers from our church plus James wanted to do a climb of 14er Huron Peak this summer.  I had climbed Huron twice before and wanted to do an alternate (Lulu gulch) route that included three 13ers as well as Huron.  I assumed the guys would be cool with me just hiking alone and then meeting them on the Huron summit, but turns out most of them wanted to just do all 4 with me.  Then, when we found that only one of them just wanted to do Huron and not the other peaks, we changed plans and decided to hike most of the trip together.  This way, I could split off and do Browns and UN 13,471 while the rest summited Huron.  That ended up being a better choice because we got to have some good bonding time during the hike debating denominational issues and telling dad jokes.  

Markos has a cool rooftop tent setup that we used.  It says it's for 5 people, but the 4 of us were pretty packed in there.  Usually the number of people a tent says it can sleep is a generous number and you should subtract one or two if you want to be comfortable.

About as close as four straight men can get

We started at sunrise the next morning and made good time up the switchbacks. Once we reached what looked like a good branching point I left the trail and headed up the talus slope toward Browns.  The terrain was not as steep as it looked and the hike was fairly pleasant.  It was quick work to the unnamed peak from Browns and back.  Then I descended back to a pond that we said we would meet at thinking the guys would be down there waiting on me.  Turns out they took their sweet time on the Huron summit and I actually waited for an hour and a half for them to return.  Were we able to communicate somehow, I might have just climbed up to meet them on Huron's summit.  Oh well.  It's always nice to get a few hours of solitude in the mountains.

Those 3 Apostles are so picturesque!

Huron and pond

Heading up to Browns

Missouri Mountain I believe

Looking over at Huron from the saddle

La Plata Peak at center

Huron form UN 13,471

That feeling when you get back to the parking lot...

My 100th 13er/14er summit - Clinton/McNamee/Traver Peaks - July 2024

 Starting on Longs Peak in college, it's taken me about 20 years to reach 100 differently named summits of peaks over 13,000 ft.  The hiking partner that I've done the most mountains with is my good buddy Brad.  He and I went for a hazy day triple this time up by Breckenridge.  All the haziness was due to the wildfires  from Canada.  We hiked a few miles up to Wheeler lake.  From that point on, it was all off trail on tundra and talus.  The steep climb up Clinton was work, but the rest of the loop was pretty easy going. 

Mt. Democrat

Heading up Clinton

Quandary Peak from Clinton's summit

Looking down on Climax Mine from Clinton's summit

McNamee (right) and Trevor (left)

100th Summit - McNamee Peak

Traver Peak

Old junk left all over the place on these peaks from mining activity

Once we reached the summit of our third and final peak of the loop hike, I realized I forgot my camera on the McNamee peak's summit.  Doh!  Guess we have to repeat that one!  

There it is!

Not excited to hike to the top of Traver again for our 5th summit, we figured out a way to bail between the saddle between Traver and McNamee.  Then the long talus stroll back to Wheeler lake. 

Looking back

Wheeler Lake

Near the lake, there are some falls that we decided to call "Paradise Falls".  They may have an official name, but we don't care.  We will forever call them by our renamed name. 

5 Miles in the Wrong Direction - Mt. Adams - 2024

 

Brad and I originally planned to do a backpack into the Weminuche this past week, but there were forecasts of heavy rains so we called and audible and instead headed down to Willow Lake in the Sangre de Cristo mountains for a shorter hike that would take less time.  Mt. Adams was on both of our lists, and was highly recommended by other hikers.  We started on the trail completely engulfed by mosquitos.  Wow.  I'd never experienced such thick clouds of these vampires.  They were so numerous that we would accidentally inhale them and gag every so often.  It made for a miserable 5 miles and 3000ft. of elevation gain to the lake.  Relieved to arrive at the lake, we looked around to enjoy the majestic mountain scenery.  Only...wait...none of this looks like Willow Lake.  Where was the massive waterfall and the views of Kit Carson Peak?  Another hiker noticed that we looked confused and told us that we were 5 miles in the wrong direction! This was actually South Crestone Lake, not Willow Lake.  

Bighorn Sheep

Brad's Karate Mobile

"This doesn't look right."

We had a good laugh (either that or cry) and sat down to think bout our options and look at a map. We figured out that we were looking up at Unnamed 13,159 to the east and Unnamed 13,552 to the south.  Both of these were connected to Adams via their ridge so we decided to try and create our own route from here and see if the terrain would let us summit Mt. Adams.  We did some scouting of the route that evening to see if we could gain the ridge of UN13,159.  Once we realized we could do that, we had high hopes that we'd have a good shot to summit Adams the next morning.  We built a campfire and enjoyed a mosquito-less night once the temperatures dropped.    

Sunset over UN 13,552

The next morning we trailblazer our way to the top of UN13,159.  It was another beautiful sunrise in the Sangre de Cristos.  It's always a special experience to hike in places where you know very few others have traveled and experience the solitude.  From the top of our first 13er, we looked at the route up Mt. Adams and had some serious doubts weather or not we'd be able to summit from here.  The slope turned out to be much more doable that it looked from a distance.  Once we reached the saddle, it was over 1000 ft. of type 2 fun climbing on steep loose talus.  At the top was the summit blocks that we weren't sure we'd be able to safely climb, but hoped that the ridge would offer some doable options on the back side.  Our hopes came true at the top and we had some quick fun scrambling to reach the summit.  Brad and I agreed that Mt. Adams must be one of the best summit views in this mountain range.  You could see a clear angle on all 5 of the Crestone 14er group.  

Approximate Route up UN 13,159

Jagged Spires - Prints available

Approximate route up Mt. Adams

Horn Lake

Approximate route to summit from the saddle

14ers Crestone Needle,Cestone Peak, Columbia Point (13er), Kit Carson, and Challenger

The way back was grueling, but uneventful.  Burgers in Buena Vista! 

Approximate Route from South Crestone Lake