Rio Grande Pyramid

Route: Up Opal Skyline / Down CDT
Posted On: 6/28/2025, By: Thmpsn_
Info: 100% summer conditions! Opal Skyline has some downed trees and a couple sections of willowbashing, but all good. Lots of fun 

Route: Up Opal Skyline trail, down CDT
Posted On: 6/15/2025, By: cloudkicker
Info: Dayhiked RGP from the thirty mile CG backpackers parking area yesterday. Opal Skyline trail is in full summer conditions. Pro tip: Gaia app’s free version basemap shows the Opal Skyline trail which makes the deadfall section less of a maze. I found the trail quickly on the other side and overall was able to follow Opal Skyline 99% of the way. I spent 5-10min on snow after Opal Skyline to the summit, everything is either avoidable or easy low angle. Brought spikes, did not use. No summit register found on top. Coming down, the CDT had a few more snow crossings including a snow bridge over a rushing creek at 11,850ft which will probably collapse in a week or so if this heat keeps doing its thing. Bugs are awake and thriving between TH and treeline. They are small and not swarming yet but definitely enough to need anti bug measures. 

Route: CDT
Posted On: 9/23/2024, By: gcook33
Info: 22.5 RT, ~5000 elevation. Cruiser miles for the first 9.5 miles. Muddy in spots but easy otherwise. At that point you veer off up into the basin with willows and link up with the Skyline/Opal Lake trail after .5 miles roughly. Snow starts at 11.5k and theres consistent amount (3-5in.) up to the summit. Rocks were definitely slick up high but to be expected. Fall colors were some of the best Ive ever seen in Colorado. Wonderful day trip. 

Route: 30 Mile Trailhead
Posted On: 7/6/2024, By: Ssgustafson
Info: I departed the 30 Mile Campground and hit the Weminuche trail at 230AM. Arrived at the Skyline / Rincon la Vaca (RLV) junction at 430AM and decided to take the long way since it was still dark and I was wary of navigating Skyline in the dark. The RLV, like the Weminuche trail, is in excellent condition and I made good time up to the cross-over up to the Skyline trail. There is discernable use trail leading up a steep incline at the start of the crossover, but it fades quickly and its a choose your own adventure after that. I veered too far to hikers left into the basin before correcting right to the shortest path to join the upper trail at about 12.2k'. Staying hiker's right definitely minimizes time in the willows. From there, the trail to the summit was easy to follow and I summitted at 8AM. On the descent I opted for the Skyline trail and found it to be straightforward and easy enough to follow. There was a well established path through the long willows section which thankfully ended up being no big deal. There was some deadfall to deal with in the subsequent forest section, but nothing too troublesome. The descent took just over 4 hours. The Skyline trail is pretty faint for ~100 yards or so at the Weminuche junction, but if you're ascending via that route and have a GPS track to initially guide you, the trail will quickly become apparent. Overall, I clocked the RLV route at ~11.1 miles, whereas the return via the Skyline was ~9.9 miles. 

Route: East Slopes
Posted On: 6/13/2024, By: ndomke
Info: Nearly summer conditions on Rio Grande Pyramid. Started from 30 Mile Campground and took the East slopes up RGP. There were a few small patches of snow, but none of them were steep or required traction. I added the Window and returned on the CDT back to Weminuche pass. 22.75 miles and 5,500 feet of elevation. 

Route: Standard
Posted On: 7/5/2023, By: eskermo
Info: Took Weminuche Trail to Skyline/Opal Lake Trail and up standard route. Plenty of water running in Weminuche Creek, then just enough of a snowmelt trickle to filter a short ways before the RGP turn off. I chatted with a solo hiker that climbed RGP the day prior. He could not find Skyline Trail on his way up but it was easy enough to follow down, so he added another cairn and wrote "Skyline" on a piece of wood at the top of Weminuche Pass. There is no obvious trail at the start but if you look uphill, stay on climbers right side of the meadow, you will pick up the worn trail after about 200 feet. Deadfall exists but is not too awful, even with a heavy pack. Plenty of game trails spur off Skyline trail gaining no elevation- don't get fooled into these like me ;) Nice camp site at 11,400' off the Skyline Trail I made home for the night. Appeared to be one more decent camping spot around 11,800' off the trail, not much after that. Finding a site safe from beatle kill trees was tricky but possible. Snow drifts near camp meant ravenous mosquitos at dinner time. I would not have continued above Wemi pass if the solo hiker had not reported being able to fill up in a small trickle farther up the trail. Willows were not as bad as some report, but one did rip my favorite sun shirt :( RGP Turnoff from Skyline Trail is obvious enough, but is quickly obscured by snow down low. I picked my way due west up drier, steeper slopes managing to avoid all but a few short snow crossings. Did not bring traction and was fine. The final steep 700' climb was dry and not as loose as it is hyped up to. Helmet territory IMO. Could not find a summit register. Road to Thirtymile was in great shape and plenty of parking at the backpacker lot. ~20.6 miles, 5,300' roundtrip (added on Fools Pyramid after RGP) 

Route: East face
Posted On: 5/1/2023, By: dcruz654
Info: Gate is still closed so expect an extra 5 miles each way. Traversing across/above the reservoir was probably the single worst mile of skining I have ever done. Camped around 10300. I was feeling very sluggish after hauling that much weight 10 miles the day before, so I took about 6 hours to summit RGP. Wind was howling all morning from the north east. Skiing was pretty bad, I dropped after noon and the face never softened. Skiers right was firm, skiers left looked softer but also slightly wind deposited. I tested some of the deposited snow up high and ended up chosing the safer, albeit shittier skiing, option. Skied all the way to the base of Fool's sw ridge, quick climb up that. Snow was a lot better off of Fool's, but I didn't want to get sucked into the flat area below the peak so I traversed a lot to the right while heading down. Not too bad, and much quicker heading down the wem creek drainage back to camp. Don't judge my terrible snowboard turns :/ Advice, take a bicycle for the road. That shit sucked. Or better yet, wait until the gate is open and there is no snow just above the Rio Grande Reservoir. It's really not worth the effort/struggle. And there looks to be plenty of snow up high. 

Route: Thirty mile
Posted On: 8/13/2022, By: zootloopz
Info: Attempted the FKT yesterday. Was on pace until I blew up around mile 17. 3:43 ascent / 8:04 RT Stats came out to 21mi / 5k gain RT using the skyline trail. Ran into a momma moose and cub in the willows. Stay alert around there. No flowing water above Wemi Pass. Only the small lake a bit off the trail in the willows above. 

Route: Wemi to Skyline Trail
Posted On: 7/10/2022, By: LetsGoMets
Info: Daytripped RGP via Weminuche and Skyline /Opal Lake Trail. Weminuche Trail in good shape. Skyline trail also surprisingly in good shape and would highly recommend for the approach. Start of the trail took a couple minutes to find in the dark but after that was solid for the vast majority and had no problems following it in the dark. There is a blowdown section a few miles up that does obscure the trail but I found it pretty easy to relocate. All in all it really obscures the trail for about 20 yards or so - if you just keep heading in the direction you were going you will find it. At the willows, trail is solid the entire way, weaving through the willows for almost a mile. One quick section as you descend to Opal Lake required walking around a 20 foot section. Wear pants since it's tight and they will rub against you, but zero bashing. From there some scree and then some quasi loose talus to the summit. Did not find a register. Saw nobody else up there or in the area save for one other guy hiking the Skyline trail on my way down. I registered 19.5 miles, took me around 9.5 hours. Amazing peak and a special place. Will upload my GPX to the library, not a lot of them in there dedicated to this route. 

Route: Weminuche
Posted On: 6/1/2022, By: nickm
Info: RGP, 13248, 13261, Simpson Mtn. Full summer conditions, no snow! Started at Thirtymile Campground. I took the Weminuche Trail to the CDT and ended up bushwhacking my way thru willows to get to where I could see the trail below RGP. If I had to do it over I would strongly consider the Skyline Trail instead of the CDT. The CDT would make sense if you were looking to tag Window, or 13,017 first. I'm sure there are some thoughts on that? From RGP it is an easy walk up 13,248. From 13,248 over to 13,261 I bypassed the nasty looking hump to the south and regained the ridge. It was easier than it looked. After dropping off of 13,261 I enjoyed the easy tundra stroll over to Simpson Mtn. After Simpson I continued to the next hump and followed the ridge back toward the Weminuche Trail. Once I entered the MAZE of deadfall I aimed for the drainage to the right of a visible tree covered hump. It was nice finding a water source to refill. I followed the drainage back to the Weminuche. It took a little over 13 hours. 

Route: Rio Grande Super Slam
Posted On: 5/22/2022, By: Geckser
Info: Perfect day on Rio Grande Pyramid with near summer conditions. The snow that fell on Friday night was largely gone making for easy travel. A little wind and overcast skies but not enough to provide significant resistance. We managed to tag RGP's 4 13er brothers in a very long 9 hour 15 minute day. The ridge between all these peaks was quite dry. Some downed trees from this winter but nothing shocking. A couple persistent snow patches but they were easily traversed or avoided. Flows in rivers, etc still high but probably not for long due to the strong meltout. Get bent Tad. 

Route: Skyline to CDT
Posted On: 12/24/2021, By: blazintoes
Info: Tough conditions on RGP. 7pm summit After Midnight return Solo trenching the entire day. It's kinda depressing to be back there alone and nothing to look forward to for hours. But I was in a good mental space. There was a lot more snow than expected. Snowshoes mandatory from start to finish. Snow was mid shin deep. There is no water to refill except at the first small stream crossing and of course over the bridge. I brought and used my jet boil. There is a lot of tree fall and one difficult big tree crossing at 2 miles. There was whomping in the trees from 11,000-11,300 about 6 times on the southeast aspect of the Skyline trail that becomes very annoying sidehilling all the way to the CDT intersection. The early sunset was so pretty to see through the Window and it was such a beautiful peaceful warm day. Saw many elk, bunny and bobcat tracks but never saw any animals. I came back the long way via CDT to avoid sidehilling and retrenched but at least it was downhill. It was so cold! -4 The icing on top. They locked the gate and on my way out the next morning I was trapped. I slept at the gate til 0600 then hopped it with my bike and was going to ride 30 miles to sleepy Creed but there was a number to call on the gate so I left a message. A park ranger finally showed up at 0900 and said he didn't think anyone was down at the camp ground and now it's closed for the season. I asked him if he drove all the way in because I did. He said no. The road was challenging to drive and I saw his 3 point turn at the last curve before you enter the camp ground so obviously he didn't see my car. Now RGP becomes a 30 mile endeavor. So glad to get this done! 

Route: East Slopes (Standard)
Posted On: 10/18/2021, By: Anima
Info: We backpacked in from the Thirty-Mile campground on the Weminuche trail to the beginning of the Opal Lake trail. We set up camp at a beautiful campsite just beyond this intersection. There was an inch of snow from the trailhead all along the trail while it followed the Rio Grande Reservoir. Once the trail turned and began following Weminuche Creek it became incredibly muddy. There were almost no sections of dry trail. The Opal lake trail is snow-covered for the first mile or so until it turns onto southwest-facing slopes which are dry. There is a decent amount of snow above 12,500 on most aspects. Beautiful mountain and lots of hunters. 

Route: CDT
Posted On: 9/6/2021, By: madmattd
Info: Backpacked in Saturday afternoon ~9mi to ~11.3k on the CDT. Not a ton of campsite options due to all the deadfall/beetle kill but there are some scattered around. Plenty of camping options down lower by Weminuche Pass. There are many smaller side streams along the CDT are running fine, ample water options to treeline. Where we camped a doe came out around dusk and spent several hours grazing nearby. We chased her off several times only for her to return immediately. She was back at sunrise for more of the same. From camp we ascended the steep stretch of trail to treeline. Where the trail makes a hard left at the main stream crossing, we turned slightly right then stayed just left of a small but prominent knob (visible on topos at ~12,040'). We cut up the other side of the small gully from there and quickly picked up the Skyline Trail. No willow-whacking of any consequence needed. From there we more or less followed the standard route. There is a somewhat stable talus option alongside the second loose gully, and the upper ridge is reasonably stable talus all the way. On the way down we tried to follow the Skyline/Opal Lake trail to the CDT junction but lost it after a bit. We cut over to the CDT, followed it up to where maps indicate the Opal Lake Trail meets it, but found no sign of the trail on that end. Nice views of the window from there though. There are plenty of blowdowns along the CDT as others have mentioned, though mostly in 3-4 small areas. Most are simple step-overs, a few have well-established bypasses. Pay attention at the junctions, most of the signs are broken, missing, or located well past the junctions, but there are sticks sticking up at every junction. 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 7/26/2021, By: JakeByk
Info: The Pyramid did not disappoint. 22 miles and 5,000 feet of gain from the Rio Grande Reservoir TH. No water above the stream crossing near the junction of the Skyline Trail before the lake below Window Peak. Willow bashing was less than pleasant, but overall an amazing and mellow trip. We took the Weminche Creek Trail to the Skyline Trail, then followed a climber's trail to the upper plateau. From there we went straight up the steep west side to a small saddle with a high point. Talus isn't as bad as it looks.