Storm Peak A 13,495'

Colorado Rank #261

2.90 Miles RT, ~2100’ Gain

Storm Peak has a reputation as quite the big bad outside of Silverton, Kiefer and I hiked East Storm from Velocity Basin a few weeks ago, and Storm certainly looked menacing looming over the basin. The ridge between East Storm and Storm does not go, so even though we could see the summit cairn so close, we had to make a separate trip for Storm Peak.

After reading trip reports for Storm Peak, every trip report mentioned climbing a nasty steep scree gully from Boulder Gulch Trail… NO THANK YOU. There had to be a better way.

I thought about the option of climbing the Grande Couloir in the spring, but we didn’t want to wait another 9 months to summit such a cool looking peak. FINALLY I located a trip report on Lists of John where Bob Burd made a loop by ascending the “god awful pile of choss swimming uphill” scree gully but had descended down Hancock Gulch, meeting a road at 11,200’. I found a GPX track where Whiley had ascended and descended Storm that way as well. Jackpot!

This trip report serves to provide a route description for our route that I feel was MUCH safer for a seasoned scrambler. Our route had 6 towers of class 2+ to 3 terrain, so make sure you are comfortable with this terrain before taking our route up. There was only one problem, our truck was held hostage another week due to paperwork delays and Hancock Gulch (San Juan County Road 70) is not Subaruable. To reach the Hancock Gulch Trailhead take county road 110 north out of Silverton towards Silverton mountain. County road 70 up Hancock Gulch leaves the road .9 miles after the pavement ends. The road climbs steeply straight up the hillside, before doglegging to the right to someone’s home. There is parking for 2 cars prior to the road doglegging right. You cannot turn around due to a closed gate, so stop here.

My birthday is 08/20 and right in the middle of monsoon season, Kiefer and I had planned a trip into Endlich Mesa, but when the shop called and said we could pick up our truck, I quickly changed plans. Storm Peak, and Kendall Peak from Silver Lake have been at the top of my list since last year, and we finally had the car to get to the trailheads for both. Let’s do those instead. Kendall Peak would be my actual birthday summit, as that day had the best weather for the longer hike, and Storm would kick off the weekend.

Once we reached the trailhead at ~11,300 in Hancock gulch we saw a trail switchbacking up the grassy slope, and started up the trail. The trail was short-lived, after leaving the trail the goal was to gain the grassy slope to the left of the skunk cabbage, and STEEPLY hike up the tundra to the ridge.

We passed two mine tailing piles and then Kiefer smartly continued ascending a brief talus field that gained the mellower grassy plateau on the ridge. I saw a continuing grassy slope that gained the ridge higher and traversed below the talus pile to the left. 10/10 do not recommend. I ended up doing some fun class 3 scramble reminiscent of the upper part of “East Storm”. Oh well, once I joined Kiefer on the ridge I joked that I just wanted to get ready for the class 3 higher up on the mountain. I took Kiefer’s grass and talus route down, and can say it is MUCH preferable to my chossy gully route.

After gaining the grassy ridge plateau the travel was much easier and soon, we were taking a break on the last piece of tundra prior to beginning the traverse across the 6 towers to the summit.

The towers were some of the most fun scrambling I have ever done. The first tower we traversed to the left, second to the right, and the 3^rd tower we took head on. It was a steep class 3 scramble to climb it directly, though not overly exposed.

Tower 4 looked like it had overhanging rock on the other side, so on the way up we took a somewhat exposed traverse around the left side. A fall here would have quite possibly been your last. On the way back, we realized that tower 4 could also be climbed directly, and was much more fun and less exposed.

The 5^th tower we also scrambled directly, with no real difficulty. Between tower 5 and 6 the ”god awful pile of choss” scree gully joins the ridge. Kiefer and I both looked down it and our reaction was a unified “oh hell no”. The final summit tower was also a steep class 3 scramble and upon reaching the top of the tower a few steps of class 2 talus had us on the summit proper.

We both agreed that the class 3 terrain reminded us of Wilson Peak’s final summit scramble (times 6). There was loose rock on all the pitches, however there was plenty of solid rock to use for hand and foot holds that the loose rock was not of particular concern, however if you take this route, still test all your hand and foot holds, this is the San Juans after all. The summit has great views of the Wemi, and the surrounding San Juan Peaks

We reversed our route for the descent, the descent across the 6 towers was equally as fun as the climb to the summit, and the descent down the grassy ridge was gorgeous with views all around us.

Dropping down the tundra slope back to the truck on the road below was harder than the ascent. The steepness of that slope is no joke, so our quads were burning by the time we reached the truck. After reaching the truck we headed into Silverton for some wings and beers at Avalanche brewing.

I loved this mountain, I thought the scrambling over the towers was an absolute blast, and no scree to be found. I would highly recommend this route to anyone who is comfortable with sustained scrambling looking to summit Storm Peak ESPECIALLY over the dangerous loose gully route. If you are not comfortable scrambling, I would suggest working up to Storm Peak, and taking this route once you feel prepared. It is one of the more difficult peaks in the Silverton area, but can be an extremely enjoyable route if you have the skills to tackle the tower ridge.