Middle Cimarron 13ers

After a nice and easy day climbing Stony, Emma, and Lookout, my dad and I turned our sights to the more infamous peaks of the Middle Cimarron. Reports often call these summits wildly loose and exposed and I honestly felt a little nervous about doing them. Nevertheless, we left the Middle Cimarron Trailhead at the leisurely hour of 7:15 and continued to the Porphyry Basin trail (which was in pleasantly good shape!). This trail gives way to the expansive Porphyry Basin which we ascended until 13222 B came into sight.

Gaining the ridge up to 13222 B was anything but pleasant. A exciting mix of loose dirt, hardpan, and loose scree resulted in a long and tedious accent. I opted to take a snowfield up while my dad stuck to a slightly less loose rib. Once on the ridge, we began our accent up 13222 using beta from Furthermore. We traversed on class 3 ledges diagonally across the west face of the peak until we reached the short and solid class 4 crux chimney. From the top of the chimney, the summit was only a short class 2 stroll to the summit. In terms of looseness this was really quite solid and not particularly exposed.

After descending back the way we came, we began the long sidehill traverse to 13340 A. While this was rather unpleasant, the dirt under foot was on the softer side, lending to relatively quick progress.

After 30-40 minutes of traversing, we arrived in the gully we would take to the summit ridge of 13340. Gaining the ridge was more loose class 2 excitement. Once there, we traversed to the north around a horn on the ridge to the overhung diving board of a summit of 13340.

From 13340, we traveled along the grass slopes of the the ridge to "El Punto". This was relatively uneventful. One cool aspect of this section however was how "El Punto" disappears behind the ridge and then abruptly reappears right in front of you!

Once at the cliff of "El Punto" we traversed around the corner from the north side to the south. We then climbed a rotten class 2+ gully to reach the summit block. Once at the summit block we ditched our packs, donned our helmets, began to climb. We found the rock once again rather solid. This made the dreaded exposed class 3 traverse rather uneventful. We also removed the false register on the false summit right before the final traverse ledge.

We descended "El Punto", skreed down the loose class 2 gully, and trekked off to the "El Punto" - "Heisshorn" saddle. Climbing "Heisshorn" was the highlight of the day. Solid class 3 along a very dramatic ridge all the way to the summit!

After descending "Heisshorn back down the ridge. We glissaded down to the scree benches to the east of the "Heisshorn" - 13377 ridge. Initially planning to traverse all the way to the Wetterhorn - 13377 saddle, we changed plans and decided to climb up 13377's east face. This was some more class 2+/class 3 and much more solid than we feared. The summit was a precariously perched boulder that looks like it'll fall sometime in the next 100 years.

From 13377, 13206 was a short class 2 stroll and offered some of the best views of the day.

From 13206 we glissaded back down into the valley (I'm a sucker for a good glissade) and hiked back to the trailhead, utilizing a cool runnel!

Final Thoughts!
This was an awesome (but long) day! We were pleasantly surprised by how solid all the rock was, particularly when it counted. The loose sections were always on the approaches to the summit blocks. As my dad joked on "Heisshorn" this would "probably all be Sierra class 2." That being said, this day certainly isn't for the inexperienced scrambler; getting off route would be disastrous. It also could certainly be broken into 2 or 3 separate days if a long day isn't appealing (it took us 13 hours!). It should also be noted that both my dad and I have been climbing in the San Juans all summer, which likely has changed our perception of loose. So TLDR: are these peaks a little overhyped in terms of danger/looseness? Probably. Should you do them if you aren't an experienced scrambler? Probably not. Was it an awesome day? Most certainly!