Intro

In nearly every photo of me mountaineering, climbing, or really just going about daily life, I’m wearing my favorite Cotopaxi blue sun hoodie. It’s basically my identity at this point (@Bill M, in fact, if you can change my handle to bluesunhoodie, that would be much appreciated!). If I’m bluesunhoodie, then my good friend and climbing partner, Michael, is BSHIT….blue sun hoodie in training.

His rock climbing ability is rivaled only by his extremely high EQ and corny, repetitive, catchphrases. Although he’s still pretty new when it comes to scaling the high peaks of Colorado, he’s been working hard to get in mountain climbing shape the last 2-3 months (while recovering from a fractured ankle from a lead climbing fall at Shelf Road back in February!!). We had originally planned to climb the SW Ridge on Sneffles together for his birthday this week, but I’ve been going hard on the centennials recently and Michael LOVES his gourmet teas and coffees (no, really, he’s a complete snob about them). With little convincing, after explaining 13ers Teakettle and Coffeepot to him, and being 100% transparent about how miserable the scree and loose rock would be, he was sold and the updated itinerary was set!

The final step was Michael calling out “sick” from work for the next day…he caught a bad case of mountain fever!

Teakettle

With the monsoon playing a weird game of hide-and-seek this summer, we had a beautiful weather forecast for the day - mostly sunny, a little breezy, mid 60s. This gave us the ability to get some real sleep. The alarm rang at 4:45am, by 5:00 we were on our way from our car camping spot lower on YBB road, and by 5:30 we were boots on the ground from the Sneffles road outhouses.

Using Bludwig’s GPX file as reference, we picked a good ascent line, staying mostly on grassy ledge systems for the first roughly 1000ft of gain. The routefinding was made way easier by only needing headlamps for the first 20 minutes, another benefit of the favorable weather. Soon enough, however, the inevitable ocean of loose scree and talus presented itself. It’s not pleasant, but, is definitely manageable and we both found it to be better than our very low expectations.

Soon enough, we gained the ridge a bit vertically shy and climber’s left of Coffeepot. A quick little jaunt to the left revealed the remaining route to Teakettle’s summit. The established path leading to the black gully was in good shape and we soon found ourselves at the base, staring up the “poop chute” (a nickname for the gully proposed and imo erroneously vetoed in yaktoleft13's 2019 trip report). There was enough solid rock on both walls of the gully that ascending it’s ~100 vertical feet went quickly. Both Michael and I were eager to get the rock climbing started early and exited the black gully by shimmying up low 5th(?) class chimney systems on the left wall, a bit shy of the top of the gully itself (while it was fun to pull a few extra moves, there’s no doubt that it was a 100% unnecessary little addition with crumbly holds).

A short traverse later, we arrived at the base of the summit block. We soaked in the uniqueness of the formation and snapped dozens of obligatory pictures in the Teakettle handle (including Michael “Honnold” Calabrese scrambling on top of the arch - not recommended, but he was well tuned into his ability level and executed it safely and confidently). We were both wearing TX approach shoes and the climbing up to the true summit was smooth sailing.

Pro tip: Make sure your pack is secured well if you take it off on the tiny summit - mine nearly rolled off into the abyss.

After tiptoeing around up there for about 15 minutes we set up to rappel down. Although it’s a bit awkward to reach/manauever around, the anchor itself is in good shape. A 30m rope worked nicely, and we made it back down to the base without a hitch (well, unless you count the clove hitch Michael used to extend his rappel from his Petzl connect PAS). We both agreed that rappelling isn’t strictly necessary if you’re a decent scrambler/climber and comfortable downclimbing, but YMMV given conditions and individual comfort levels.

Coffeepot and Descent

With our first source of caffeine completed, we kept our harnesses on and retraced our steps from Teakettle back towards Coffeepot. From here, we eyeballed a few lines and agreed that they all definitely go at a higher grade than Teakettle. Michael was eager to climb and although he was soloing, tied in to bring the rope up. As he climbed, we worked together to keep him on a good line. For the final 10ft or so before the summit, he opted to get into the chimney system to the right of the face and graded it 5.5. Afterwards, we agreed that visually, the chimney off to the left looked like the easier option, but was a bit more awkward to access from his position. I followed on TR, which allowed me to play around with different variations, though I ultimately stayed on mostly the same line as Michael.

The anchor on Coffeepot is also in good shape overall, though the red webbing specifically, while still fine, was starting to show some early light signs of wear (no photo, unfortunately). Eyeballing the rappel, we wondered if the 30m rope was long enough to reach the base. After throwing the rope, it was clear that it was about 5-10 ft too short – so make sure to tie your ends if you use a 30m! With some care, downclimbing the last few moves to solid ground was no problem.

The real excitement came when I finished rappelling first and realized my phone was no longer in my pocket. It’s part of my routine to zip it up before rappelling. I didn’t this time and nearly paid the price. Luckily, after a few minutes of me looking around the base and Michael checking around the summit, I spotted it amongst the rocks, undamaged, a few meters away.

Once we were both back at the base of the summit block, we decided against adding on Potosi. It certainly is doable enough, but after accomplishing our main goals and being in the sun hour after hour, we chose to just head back to the car.

To put it kindly, the descent back down the slope to the trailhead was quite irritating. Lots of slippage on the crumbling terrain meant several new scrapes and cuts added to the collection. Looking away from the slope, we ended up a bit left of our ascent line, requiring some careful reading of the terrain to avoid some of the cliff bands along the way. Ultimately, we found a line that went and slogged our way back to the Subie.

Final Thoughts

Tired and dirty, but proud and high on type 2 fun, we downed some Chex Mix and headed down into Ouray for a proper meal. Reflecting, I was stoked to spend a good day in the mountains with great company, and summit centennial #74. And BSHIT? His list of peaks climbed over 13k ft is now Longs, Teakettle, and Coffeepot….talk about an incredibly unique start!