San Joaquin Ridge

Route: Oscar's > SJ > Silver from Swamp Canyon TH
Posted On: 6/1/2025, By: HikerGuy
Info: Sign in town says Ophir Pass gate is closed, it was open when I drove up to the Swamp Canyon TH. Note, it was closed when I drove down, but not locked fortunately. It will be sometime before the pass is open, still quite snowed in. I slept in my car at the trailhead. It was very warm overnight with poor to no freeze. No trouble until after I started my way from San Joaquin to Silver. So much postholing. I would give this route a little more time and/or make sure there is a hard freeze. Crampons needed for some sections of the ridge. Still a good day in the hills! 

Route: SilverB->JackassPt
Posted On: 9/29/2023, By: 9patrickmurphy
Info: Big ol' ridge run! I started from the Carhenge parking lot (free) in Telluride and rode the gondola to San Sophia Station. Hike up to the top of the Gold Hill stairs and a little past to "Flat Rock" (see lists of John). Then descending traverse to the lake in Lena Basin. To reach the summit of SilverB, I went up the obvious north-facing gully, sticking to the right side. This was very loose and no fun at all. Bob Burd and SupraNihilEst seem to have gone up the left side and it sounds like that might be better. Coming off of SilverB, I went over the next ridge bump before dropping down to a bench on the north side of the ridge. A bit of snow here, but fine without spikes. I sidehilled after this bench back to the ridge, and sidehilled another bump on its north side without issue. The next ugliness on the ridge I went around on the south side which was really really steep and loose, no fun at all. The ridge proper might go but looked steep and exposed, and I was more willing to do steep and tedious today. A summit register exists on San Joquin Ridge's former summit, the true summit (per LiDAR) is the next one to the east. Easy ridge walk to "Oscar's" - it's still talus, but it'll feel easy after all the crap before this point. Easy walk down "Oscar's", and two prominent subsummits on the way to Wasatch. The north ridge down Wasatch went by quickly, then I dropped scree and grass to a lake, then walked over to La Junta's south ridge, which was lots of scree and annoying at this point in the day. Finally some scree going downhill, there's plenty of it on the way to JackassPt (called PT 13,145 A on this site). Some trail on the way up Jackass, this was a delightful victory lap. To get down, one can go over to unranked 12er Ballard Mountain and take the trail down to Bear Creek from there, but I was keen to check out the trail down from La Junta Basin that I had heard of from Bob Burd's report. Grassy slopes down from Jackass, then found a mine road that led to the trail. This trail is impressively easy to follow given that it's not on any maps that I know of! It's even carved into the side of a cliff at one point, with an overhang and everything. Eventually you come to an easy creek crossing, then follow the Bear Creek trail back to town. 

Route: San Joaquin Couloir
Posted On: 5/1/2023, By: emtkhumbu
Info: Powder top to bottom. Crusty approach from Ophir. Had to self arrest after sliding off the skin track. Memorable ski. STEEP. Mandatory hop turns till the apron. Fun descent down Bear Creek Basin into Telluride . Miraculously filled in with snow the whole way. Can't miss if you're in the area! 

Route: South slopes from Ophir
Posted On: 6/27/2022, By: SnowAlien
Info: Heavy rain overnight and peaks got snow above 13k. I took the long mining road up SJR to avoid wet grass. Once the mining road ended, I was forced to take the snow covered scree, which was tedious. Summit has a tube, but no register. Weather was holding up, so I continued to Silver pk B. 

Route: West Ridge from Silver Mountain B
Posted On: 9/17/2021, By: supranihilest
Info: One of my least favorite peaks owing to the extremely junky nature of the rock. From Silver Mountain B head east to a saddle between a small ridge bump and a much larger ridge bump. On maps this larger bump is spot elevation 13,463. Don't ascend 13,463, it's eastern end is a sheer cliff. Instead drop north down steep, horrible talus (Class 2+) and scree onto a bench and take this bench as it curves east (Class 2). Don't ascend too high as the slopes are terrible. Stay low until you're at the saddle with spot elevation 13,446, which is San Joaquin's false summit. Climbing the ridge directly would entail some crappy scrambling on loose rock, so I went around to the south side and scrambled up some of the worst junk of my life. This stuff was only Class 2+ but loser than hell. The northern side of the ridge may be better, it looked like there was a small gap to sneak through atop the ridge, same crap rock though. Point 13,446 is NOT the summit! The summit marker and coordinates on this site are wrong! The actual summit is farther east at 37.8768°N, 107.8083°W. From Point 13,446 it's Class 2 to the true summit.