Mt. Sneffels

Mt. Sneffels is less than five miles north of Telluride, but it is totally inaccessible from that side. Ouray is less than 1 0 miles from Telluride as the crow flies, but a 50 mile drive around. The standard approach for climbing Mt. Sneffels is from Yankee Boy Basin on the peak's southeast side, about seven miles west of Ouray. I drove to Ouray and then took the road to Yankee Boy Basin in the dark. Several times I wondered what was outside the window—I could see nothing but blackness. I parked at the end of the 2WD road and camped in the car.

The upper 4WD trailhead is a little over a mile up the valley, but the road continues another mile past that point. After the road ends the trail begins for Blue Lakes Pass. After almost three miles of hiking I turn off the main trail and take the spur to the base of "Lavender Col." This gully of loose rock leads to the saddle 650' above.

Above the saddle is another gully of only slightly stabler rock that leads to an overlook and the crux of the climb—the notch. Unfortunately, the large rock that was the step into the notch was no longer there. A traffic jamb of climbers developed as groups took turns working their way up and down through the notch.

Once through the notch it was a quick scramble to the small summit. It was a bit crowded as other climbers had ascended the ridge from Blue Lakes Pass via Blue Lakes and Dallas Creek to the west. The southwest ridge route has a higher difficulty and many climbers who came up that way descended via Lavender Col and once down to Yankee Boy Basin then took the trail over Blue Lakes Pass to return to their campsite or trailhead.

I found this to be a fun and interesting climb, with really weird topography. All around were these landslide features where it looked like the ground turned to liquid and half the mountain slid down to the valley where it re-solidified. I later learned that these features are called rock glaciers. They are really the rock moraines left behind by melting glaciers. In some cases the original ice glacier is buried within the rock. This creates the unique situation where the rock glacier continues to behave and move like a traditional glacier.

Pictures

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