The thirteeners of Endlich Mesa are little known. Despite being in the popular Weminuche Wilderness, they're overshadowed by their larger and oft more rugged counterparts to the north. They make up the southern wall of the Weminuche and from there south it's almost nothing but mesas and canyons all the way to New Mexico. Their unique position within the Weminuche offers great views of the rest of the wilderness area, and expansive views in all other directions. The peaks are easy, for the most part, and Endlich Mesa is an area I fell in love with on this visit, my first and thus far only visit.

Whiley and I rushed to do these peaks on a three-day weekend immediately prior to a snow storm that would likely keep us away until the next season. With so many peaks we could do in such short order, and in our favorite part of Colorado, it was a no brainer to go down there and get as much as we possibly could. The worst part of Endlich Mesa? If you said the approach, you'd be wrong. Unlike many of the other Weminuche peaks the Endlich approach is gorgeous and not brutal. What is brutal, however, is the drive to the trailhead. The road above Lemon Reservoir to the trailhead is long, rocky, and time consuming. It's not particularly difficult but it forces you to go slow or else risk a blown tire or body damage. It took Whiley and I two hours each way from Lemon Reservoir, to give an idea of how tedious the road is.

We got started the next morning at about 8:45am, a casual start for the Wemi. Our plan was to backpack in, setup camp near City Reservoir, do as many peaks as we could in the afternoon, and spend the night before finishing what we had left on day two. The Endlich Mesa trail is awesome. It's easy to follow, in great shape (little to no loose rock, braiding, etc.), and has views pretty much the entire way in both directions. It rises gently to well above 12,000 feet before dropping steeply towards City Reservoir, which is actually lower than the trailhead, meaning we'd have a fair chunk of gain on the way out.

The trail only gets a bit difficult dropping into the reservoir, since it's steep and the granite pebbles of the area make footing a bit shifty in spots. Before we knew it we were at the reservoir, which was exceptionally low. So low, in fact, that it was not even draining anymore. The upper reaches were filled with green pond scum and it quite honestly smelled terrible. The trail took us around the south side and then the western side. We found good, clear water flowing into the reservoir from elsewhere, so we went off trail and setup camp several hundred feet northeast of the reservoir in a forested area near a forked creek.

We quickly setup camp and refilled on water. It was quite hot and we had started with less water than normal, knowing we'd be at camp before we ran out. Then, at the now uber-casual time of 12:15pm, we set off to do six Weminuche thirteeners. Who needs a pre-dawn start in the Wemi? Not us. Forget that noise.

We made our way back to the trail and took it north into Crystal Valley, which separates Silver Mesa to the west and Endlich Mesa to the east, and drains Florida River. The granite walls of the valley stood in contrast to the flats, and we could tell this was going to be quite the beautiful hike.

Though there were peaks at the head of the valley we wanted, we instead stayed on the trail as it headed south then west up a steep set of ledges to the top of Silver Mesa.

Once on top of the mesa things started to get even cooler. Massive granite slabs littered the mesa, interspersed with trees and grass. Surprisingly enough the trail remained rather good through all of the rock, though we eventually left it to head towards Mount Kennedy; the trail continued towards Trimble Pass, which drops into Vallecito Basin and eventually to Columbine Pass, which gives access to Chicago Basin. The approach via Endlich Mesa would be a long and scenic alternative to the standard Needleton approach, and one I can say would really be a total joy for those so inclined.

Along our way up Silver Mesa we encountered some old mining ruins, including a wide-open mine shaft. I'd heard of open shafts before but somehow had never seen one. I peered into it but it was surprisingly dark. We have no idea how deep it actually is, but it was pretty neat to see one "in the wild," so to speak.

We continued our hike north up Silver Mesa, then crossed the head of Missouri Gulch (not the Missouri Gulch of Sawatch fourteener fame, obviously) under Aztec Mountain. Mount Kennedy was the farthest west peak on our trip, and we aimed to start with it and then bag Aztec Mountain, Bullion Mountain, Silver Mesa, Florida Mountain, and Mount Valois by running as much of the ridgeline as we could heading east. We figured that we could do those six before nightfall.

As we rounded the head of Missouri Gulch we had to begin taking our route more seriously. Aztec would be a steep and scrambly affair, and Kennedy a bob-and-weave up grass and around exposed granite blocks.

Kennedy's upper slopes gave way to grass and boulders instead of the giant blocks, and we decided to go to its western sub-summit since it was only a few minutes away.

We gawped at the peaks around us for a minute or two then headed to Kennedy's main summit.

The drops north into Chicago Basin are steep, eroded and impressive. We probably took way too many pictures down the north wall, but there was some seriously cool stuff along the way.

The ridge to the saddle contained some minor scrambling, but in general it was easier to simply skirt it all. Rock quality wasn't always top notch either.

As we approached Aztec we got to do some scrambling, pretty much the only good scrambling of the day.

The scrambling we encountered went at about Class 3, though from the southeast, and with better route finding, Aztec could be kept to Class 2+.

We summited Aztec and quickly left for Bullion. The views were better from Kennedy anyway, especially the western summit.

The ridge to Bullion looked rotten and time consuming. We could see its southern flank and guessed that would be easier and faster to drop back towards Missouri Gulch than try and traverse the ridge, even if it meant eating more elevation loss and re-gain.

We backtracked slightly to the west and dropped down steep Class 3 slabs, blocks, and gullies.

I didn't think the down climb off Aztec was as good as the climb up, and it felt a little harder. Again, it probably could have been easier but we mostly just took whatever option was right in front of us. From the transition between rock and grass in the gulch we headed due east towards Bullion.

Progress across the grassy flats was fast, certainly faster than the ridge would have been, and we quickly found ourselves below Bullion's hideous and smashed up southern side.

At least the views back to the west were pretty dope...

We made the climb up Bullion as short and fast as possible because it was the least pleasant of our six peaks. Overall the route went at a pretty rough Class 2+ with plenty of clamoring over the mess of broken rock that makes up the entire peak.

With three more peaks to go, and not much desire to remain on broken Bullion, we headed southeast towards Silver Mesa which, considering it has a whopping 120 feet of prominence, barely qualifies as a peak. That said, it's not about the peak itself - look at a topo map and Silver Mesa stretches in a north-south line for miles - this is simply the highest point of the landform.

Silver Mesa was pretty much not a thing, merely a bump along the ridge, so we continued on towards Trimble Pass and Florida Mountain, also really not a thing, merely the peak at the head of Crystal Valley.

All of the terrain between Silver Mesa and Florida was nice and easy. From Bullion all the way to Florida took us less than 30 minutes total.

From Florida Valois looked easy, though we couldn't see the whole ridge, and near the summit it looked like some scrambling may lurk. It was entirely talus all the way across, and afternoon was clearly upon us. We had to go fast to get down before dark.

The first two thirds of the ridge was indeed humdrum talus without a whole lot of quality to it, but the last third was where the money was. There wasn't a whole lot of scrambling, some Class 2+ and even then not much, but the rock on the upper reaches was spectacular, eye-popping geology.

The closer we got to the summit the more fun the ridge became, and the more solid the rock was.

The majority of the scrambling on the ridge to Valois came right at the end.

Eventually the ridge relented into a big, flat area carpeted in granite and then the pancake summit.

We drank in the shining views from Valois and then beat feet down its south ridge, a mix of grass and embedded granite talus. The eastern cirque was a sheer wall; the western slopes also ended in cliffs; in the middle the ridge narrowed almost to a catwalk, and re-expanded into a rounded bulb after.

Past the catwalk the ridge opened wide and the rock shifted slightly from the good white granite to slightly friable red granite. We weren't sure exactly where to descend to get down safely, and tried to descend directly west into Crystal Valley.

The slopes down seemed to terminate in cliffs, as best we could tell, and we didn't feel like picking our way down through them if such a thing were possible. We stuck close to the western edge of the ridge and continued south, slowly losing elevation in our search for a break to the valley. As we descended the broken rock melded into cohesive slabs and then big, exposed blocks. We never had to do any real scrambling but there was plenty of route finding to get down the ridge.

Eventually we were simply descending among huge, open expanses of granite occasionally cut with grassy passages, but overall the lower ridge was dominated by a sea of rock. It seemed improbable at the time but we twisted our way through the maze, hoping not to get cliffed out, and suddenly found ourselves in the forest at the bottom of the ridge. We were close to the trail through the valley, so we continued to Lake Marie and then the trail to camp.

Valois' south ridge was easily the highlight of the day. The entire ridge basically being one continuous piece of rock was pretty neat, and is always a treat and marvel of nature. Our return to camp at this point was easy and we arrived with a fair amount of daylight remaining. We filtered water, cooked dinner, and went to bed early for a second big day of mountains. Endlich Mesa was already a favorite, something I can usually say takes time to grow, and my dreams were full of peaks.

Statistics

Climbers: Ben Feinstein (myself), Whiley H.
Trailhead: Endlich Mesa

Total distance: 6.86 miles (approach) + 12.74 miles (peaks) = 19.6 miles
Total elevation gain: 1,238 feet (approach) + 4,955 feet (peaks) = 6,193 feet
Total time: 2:26:24 (approach) + 7:05:08 (peaks) = 9:31:32
Peaks: Two ranked thirteeners, four unranked thirteeners

• Mount Kennedy, 13,125' (unranked)
• Aztec Mountain, 13,310'
• Bullion Mountain, 13,182' (unranked)
• Silver Mesa, 13,060' (unranked)
• Florida Mountain, 13,076' (unranked)
• Mount Valois, 13,185'

Splits:

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