Kendall Peak

Route: Traverse from Kendall Mountain
Posted On: 9/10/2023, By: HikerGuy
Info: Scary loose. Not sure what I was thinking (I should probably read trip reports more closely, everyone avoids the notch). It goes, but it is not fun. I started by dropping down the north side, navigated some short very sketchy gullies, crossed back to the south side, traversed some scree, then climbed up a class 3 wall. Test every hold, microwaves ready to fall. On another note, I was able to drive my Hyundai Santa Fe up CR 33. Definitely Subaru-able, but I wouldn't want to do it without all-terrain tires. 

Route: South Ridge From Silver Lake
Posted On: 8/20/2023, By: ReginaThomas
Info: Summer conditions. We did a loop around Silver Lake. Going left on the way up would be easier but we wanted to see all of arrasta so we went right of the lake up and completed the loop by staying right of the lake on the way down. Beautiful hike. Definitely preferable to the scree gully from the road, though much longer with more gain. 

Route: Deer Park
Posted On: 7/13/2023, By: 9patrickmurphy
Info: Parked at the Montana Mine in Deer Park. This road is decently rough and at the limits of what I'll do in my Subaru. From town, it is quite rough for the first mile or two before smoothing out considerably. After the junction with the Kendall Gulch road, it stays smooth until Deer Park except for one switchback after the first meadow: there is a pretty big washout here and it took me a few attempts and linespotting to get through it. Once at upper Deer Park, the road towards the Montana Mine is quite rough and I wish I had just stayed at the junction where there's a nice camp spot. If you continue to the Montana Mine, there is an easy creek crossing followed by some very rocky sections and then a really deep puddle immediately before the mine. Room for maybe four cars at the mine. We followed the Whitehead trail to PT12,829's SW ridge and then road that all the way to Mountaineer Peak. A couple catwalky sections but nothing exceeded class 2. Mountaineer to Kendall Peak is where things get dumb. I was aware that the standard way to connect these is to follow an old mine trail that traverses PT13,409's north face, but eyes on this face from LittleGiant a couple days ago informed me it is caked in snow. I brought an axe and spikes, but decided I'd rather try something else instead of tedious snow traversing. A local who lives in Deer Park informed me that he runs this ridge often and that the ridge direct from PT13,409 to KendallPk goes with some difficulty. Don't believe this, just traverse the snow or wait for it to dry out. I won't describe my misadventure here in detail, but just don't attempt to do anything with PT13,409's East face unless you're a true choss connoisseur. Kendall Peak is a walkup with stellar views. I descended into the drainage south of the peak and picked up a trail that spits out right into Deer Park not far from the Montana Mine. -- Sidenote, the next day I did Kendall No 2 BM and Kendall Mountain from Kendall Gulch. Marmots everywhere along the road, bring protection. Easy peaks with the requisite amount of class 2 choss. 

Route: West gully
Posted On: 7/10/2023, By: Scott Conro
Info: The three Kendalls are in summer condition. One small snow crossing around 12,600ft, before the gully. The west gully climb is loose, but the difficulty is mostly going uphill. If you're experienced with loose gullies, it goes fairly easily on the downhill. 

Route: Kendall BM to 13109 Traverse
Posted On: 8/26/2022, By: JasonKline
Info: Have you ever had the ridiculous idea of soloing the Kendall Benchmark to Pt. 13109 traverse when you only have a low-clearance sedan? Not only can you not set up the car caravan between the Titusville site and Deer Park as per bergsteigen's report, but you also have to park almost all the way down near Silverton because the road requires higher-clearance pretty early on? If you ever decide to engage in such foolishness, it took me about 16.2 miles and 7,300'. Also, the gully you ascend to reach Kendall Peak really is as soul-sucking as everybody says. At least it's still summer conditions. 

Route: Deer Park Trail
Posted On: 6/16/2022, By: osprey
Info: I wanted the training mileage so, even though I could have driven up to Deer Park, I parked in downtown Silverton and hiked up the road going to Kendall Gulch and after 3 miles turned right onto the road leading into Deer Park. After about another mile I left the road and followed a trail that led to the saddle between Kendall Peak and Point 13,409. Follow the ridge from the saddle to the summit. The Kendall Peak summit has probably the smallest summit cairn of any peak and has a summit register in a glass jar. I was the first person to sign in this year so I signed twice for extra credit. I recognized three names from last summer: Yusuf Pathan, Snow Alien ( although there was probably no snow when she did it), and Randy Mack who wrote he was quite enthusiastic about a certain gully. 

Route: South Gully from Titusville Mine
Posted On: 9/1/2020, By: supranihilest
Info: I hiked the road to Titusville Mine and then went up a left angling scree gully to the ridge crest. There are a few different gullies, the one I took is the largest and is right of the old mine entrance. This thing was steep and typical super loose San Juan garbage, and was often two steps forward one step back. The surface scree seemed better than the hardpack. About halfway up it got steep and firm enough that my footing was insecure so I grabbed a couple of dagger-shaped rocks and used them as primitive ice axes to gain a modest amount of traction. Microspikes may be helpful otherwise. Exposure, while somewhat high, likely wouldn't be an issue as a fall probably wouldn't go very far (unless you fell backwards, in which case God help you). From the top of the gully it's a simple hike to the summit.