6 Most Dangerous Colorado Mountains

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Teresa Gergen
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Re: 6 Most Dangerous Colorado Mountains

Post by Teresa Gergen »

Turret Ridge
Rabbit Ears
9854 in Hinsdale County
Others are probably lower than 10k.
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LURE
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Re: 6 Most Dangerous Colorado Mountains

Post by LURE »

samjaffe wrote:Can any of you geologists on this thread identify the type of rock on North Eolus. It is noticably different from Eolus and it felt to me like I suddenly had gecko hands and feet. To my untrained eye, it appeared to be some form of sandstone. I would love to figure out what kind and why it feels and looks so completely different from another connected mountain that's only a few hundred feet away.
I know next to nothing about those mountains and have never been up there. However I just looked up the geologic map to see if there were any differing units around eolus and north eolus. On those mountains it's just the Eolus Granite which is a "massive" granite, meaning it would essentially look "fine grained" and could resemble a sand stone for those that don't know. But you can have a lot of local variation within a unit in terms of it's composition and texture - there is a lot of hydrothermal activity in the san juans which can drastically alter a rock. But I'm assuming by gecko you mean you felt like it gripped better? Hydrothermal activity would have the opposite effect.

Anyone with a geologic eye been up there and looked at the rocks on the Eolus and North Eolus? Seeing it is the only way to know.

How is it noticeably different? Colors? Textures? Eolus should be pretty pinkish red, how did north eolus differ?
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Re: 6 Most Dangerous Colorado Mountains

Post by spiderman »

Teresa Gergen wrote:Turret Ridge
Rabbit Ears
9854 in Hinsdale County
Others are probably lower than 10k.
There are only a couple people in the state who could offer nearly as definitive of an answer. Might as well lock this thread...
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Re: 6 Most Dangerous Colorado Mountains

Post by Teresa Gergen »

Pawnee Buttes

Actually, they're probably all lower than 10k.
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Scott P
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Re: 6 Most Dangerous Colorado Mountains

Post by Scott P »

I don't know if Devils Thumb (the one by Delta and Montrose) would qualify as a mountain, but it would certainly be a dangerous summit. It's basically made of dirt (Mancos Shale).

Image

The Sword of Democles is a very dangerous summit (dirt with a rock cap), but it wouldn't qualify as a mountain:

Image

It's "protected" by nails hammered into the dirt:

Image
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Monster5
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Re: 6 Most Dangerous Colorado Mountains

Post by Monster5 »

Would Pawnee Buttes qualify as dangerous? People can and have hiked a ladder on over to it, so I wouldn't exactly call it committing and the hazard unmanageable.

Yeah, I'd have a hard time calling Sword of Damocles and Bug Eyed Monster types "mountains" and I'm not even a 300-ft adherent.

Some of those unclimbed sandstone peaks out west - more tedious than dangerous once someone eventually throws in a bolt ladder or flies a drone over it? Those techniques might not work on say Turret Ridge.
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Re: 6 Most Dangerous Colorado Mountains

Post by Scott P »

Some of those unclimbed sandstone peaks out west - more tedious than dangerous once someone eventually throws in a bolt ladder or flies a drone over it?
A lot of them are too big to use a drone over them. I assume you mean the thin towers. 6799 (499' feet of prominence) for example, is a big bulky peak or butte. It has been attempted, but (at least as far as I know), no one has made the summit. The crew attempting it has successfully climbed Turret Ridge and Lizard Head.

In April 2016, some 14ers.com members and I attempted 6140, just barely across the border, but I seriously underestimated the difficulty of the (presumably) crux pitch. Wishful thinking by me was that it would be low to mid-5th class, but it turned out to be much harder than that (we didn't make it). Tom has climbed Lizard Head, but I don't know if he has done Turret Ridge. The rock on 6140 is loose, but I don't think it would be extremely dangerous, just hard.

There are a lot of such peaks in Dinosaur National Monument, but I only know the difficulty ratings of the ones that have been climbed.
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Brian C
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Re: 6 Most Dangerous Colorado Mountains

Post by Brian C »

Monster5 wrote:Would Pawnee Buttes qualify as dangerous? ...
Yes they would. But count as a mountain in the sense of this type of list? Nope.
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Sean Nunn
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Re: 6 Most Dangerous Colorado Mountains

Post by Sean Nunn »

spiderman wrote:
Teresa Gergen wrote:Turret Ridge
Rabbit Ears
9854 in Hinsdale County
Others are probably lower than 10k.
There are only a couple people in the state who could offer nearly as definitive of an answer. Might as well lock this thread...
+1. Funny that Teresa only has 130 posts and about one million climbs, whereas lots of people like me are just the opposite.
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