7-30-14

Me: Mt. Sneffels. 14,150 ft.

July 30, 2014

Hike report below with many photos…

Click on any photo to enlarge. You can scroll through the pics this way 2.

After two days of rain we lucked out and had perfect weather for our 14'er hike.

Highly, Bob & I left the house at 5:30am & drove 1.5 hrs to the Mt. Sneffels trailhead.

From the start of our hike at 11,000 ft we were in awe of the lush green grass carpeting the mountains. Colorful wildflowers were plentiful and the hills seemed alive with the sound of music! :-)

Mile 1 of our trek was on a rocky jeep road. Bob & Highly with the sun on their backs.

Then on the winding single track (see the guys?). Perfect temps to hike a mountain!

For the first part of our hike we thought that was Mt. Sneffels. It's not.

Walking along Wright Lake.

Then up, up, up.

Love this pic of our shadows in the snow. The 3 of us trudging up the mountain. 

L to R: Highly, Bob, Me

At mile 3 we reached Blue Lakes Pass. This was the view of Blue Lakes from the saddle (looking west).

This is the view from the saddle to the southeast.

This is the view looking north and there's the top of Mt. Sneffels (the distant high point). Things got a bit harder from here with those jagged rocks to climb over!

Once on the rock scramble there wasn't much of a trail to follow. We looked for cairns (which weren't always visible) and carefully picked our route to the top. We were cautious and took our time.

Interesting rock formations along the way. Angry dog?

Not the most friendly route looking up.

We made good progress and not far from the top we got another view of Blue Lakes. I wonder why they named the lakes that? ;-) Beautiful.

Just shy of the summit with Wright Lake in the background. We walked along that lake early in our hike.

Wahoo! Made it!! Our first 14'er of 2014.

Highly on the top of Mt. Sneffels. 14,150 ft. 

Holding our summit sign & heart rock. Bob found a perfectly shaped heart rock on the climb up. LOVE!

The clouds started to roll in so we snapped 1 more pic & headed down a different way.

This route (though easier) had it's challenges: a pretty steep snow slope near the top to navigate.

The snow was soft so we could dig our heels in for stability. Fun actually!

Past the snow and now a section of loose scree.

Standing in a boulder field. Notice the jagged rock ridge behind is. That's the route we climbed up to the summit. Blue Lakes Pass (the saddle) is on the far left and we hiked north (right) up the ridge to the top of Mt. Sneffels (not shown in the photo).

Past the brown rocks we reach the green grass and eventually the car again.

4 hrs 45 min round trip. 3,150 ft elevation gain.

What an AWESOME hike! It ranks up there as one of my favorite 14'ers.

 Mt. Sneffles was my 10th Colorado 14,000 ft peak and Bob's 4th. 

Thanks so much to Highly for leading us on this grand adventure!