In October, 2021 I purchased a house in Ridgway. Why Ridgway? Primarily for the views of the Sneffels Range and Cimarron. Ouray is cool but too enclosed, and Telluride too expensive. It took about a year for the stars to align on the purchase, and I had made multiple offers prior to landing the house I'm at now (and forever). I hadn't even finished pulling into the driveway before I knew I had to have it. I mean, it's hard to say no when this is the view from my dining room.

Now what does one do with a view such as this? Well, sigh whimsically, spend inordinate amounts of time gawking, and grit their teeth when the property tax bill comes. But I also like to look out and say I've climbed every peak I can see from my house, which is true with the exception of three peaks in the Cimarron (at the time of writing), Dunsinane Mountain, Chimney Rock and the foreboding Turret Ridge. They'll be mine eventually. The Sneffels Range is the real draw to Ridgway though, I think, and I can point at it and say I've climbed everything the sun touches, kind of like Mufasa from the Lion King. But that's not enough. Besides the peaks themselves there are obvious routes to the peaks that I can see, and climbing those too just made sense. What's the point of having the view if you merely look at it? You have to climb the view too, my friends.

The first line I chose was on a peak I'd already climbed twice, "Corbett Ridge". The standard route on "Corbett" ascends the north-northwest ridge and it's your typical Sneffels Range pile of crap (the mountains are pretty to look at, not so much to climb in many cases), ascending a steep bushwhack to treeline and then a rather irritating never ending field of rounded, somewhat unstable talus to the foresummit named "Son of Corbett", before dropping down to a small saddle and traversing an exposed ledge to the plateau which the aptly named "Corbett Ridge" itself rises out of. It's a quick, half-day climb but there are better climbs in the Sneffels Range. When I spied a couloir to the aforementioned saddle between "Son" and "Corbett" I knew I had to climb it. Here's what it looks like from my place.

How could one look at that and not want to climb it? I figured it'd be a beautiful line if it went from top to bottom, since not many couloirs start below treeline. It's also not a line many people would even know about. The neighboring peaks don't see too many visitors and the entire north side of the Sneffels Range is owned by fashion magnate Ralph Lauren, so really the only vantage points are from State Highway 62 or in the area between the highway and Loghill Mesa northwest of Ridgway. I couldn't find any beta on the couloir at all, so I was flying blind with the planning and my crew - Heather, Vera, and Patrick - were OK with that. We'd give it our best shot, see if it did indeed go, and maybe climb a fun couloir. Maybe we'd get skunked. Who cares, we'd have a good time regardless.

We all met up at my place and made final preparations. I'd be on snowshoes, Heather on splitboard, and Vera and Patrick on skis. If we could get to the couloir we all surmised it'd be a good ski, I just suck too much at skiing to give something like that a shot. But I'd damn sure climb it and lope along behind on the downhill. We planned to just drive there in the morning from my house and have boots on the ground at 5am. Since I'd been up the standard route twice before I knew the general area we'd be starting from towards the southern end of Ouray County Road 5. The county road eventually turns into a network of Forest Service roads. Instead of starting a little further east, as we would have if we'd gone up the standard route, we decided to start at the Wilson Creek trailhead at end of the county road and ascend the most minor of multiple northwest ridges in an area carved into deep drainages and try and find our way into the couloir from there. This would be the ridge west of the couloir, just to viewer's right of the lower arrow in the photo above. The route finding at the bottom would be the most difficult since we had to get on the right ridge, but then it would be obvious where to go, since the drainages would likely keep us bound on land.

From our early morning parking spot just into Forest land we groggily began picking our way to the ridge. We were walking just before our planned 5am start time so it was still dark for about 55 minutes and thus we were relatively slow even though terrain early on was gentle and easy. Once we determined we were on the ridge we made our best attempt to stay on the rounded crest. Bushwhacking was pretty ugly here, especially on the lower parts, with copious deadfall (note the horrific beetle kill in later photos) and a heavy mix of dry ground and soft snow.

I had an easier time with the bushwhacking than my skiing companions did. It wasn't yet snowy enough for us to put on our flotation, and they struggled with both ends of their skis getting stuck in the trees and branches.

I quickly pulled ahead of my friends since my snowshoes were much less likely to get caught on everything, and actually found a somewhat decent animal trail up the ridge. We all assumed humans had been up here, but not frequently, so the trail was nice even if it was still somewhat of a mess. We were high enough, and the ridge was narrow enough, that there was nowhere else to reasonably go, so the trail helped us out considerably.

All good things must come to an end and eventually the trail became too snowy for us to navigate, and that snow became too soft for us to continue without flotation. We all put on our respective floaty footwear and continued up through the forest. At this point we were all able to stay roughly together, since the Skrio (the ski trio. Just go with it.) weren't catching on all the trees. Route finding was still easy owing to the constraints of the ridge.

Most of the middle and upper ridge was pretty unremarkable, and unfortunately we never found a good way into the below treeline part of the couloir, since the flanks dropped away too steeply for us to find an obvious way down into the couloir. This ended up being to our benefit despite our desire to climb the whole thing. In any case, there wasn't much to do except continue the steep forest 'schwack, which paid off once we got to treeline, whereupon we could see all the way to Dallas Divide and up the couloir's entrance and upper section.

Here it was time to switch from skis and snowshoes to crampons and ice axes. We sheltered at a little stand of trees to transition, partake of the views, and refuel. Since this little expedition had been my idea my compatriots were kind enough to let me go first - thank you guys! The initial traversing section off our pit stop was the steepest of the entire route, though nothing that a single axe couldn't handle, and was over quickly. The snow was solidly frozen and absolutely perfect for cramponing.

This gamble had so far paid off and I was grateful to be back on my favorite type of climb. My heart soared. I hadn't felt this good in many months, after one of the darkest and most cruel winters of my life, and to be back where I belonged was almost more than I could handle. I will never take for granted the blessing of having this kind of terrain available, these kinds of mountains nearby (quite literally in my backyard now), and these kinds of friends. Lives like this are for living, and that's exactly what the four of us did this day.

After the steep traverse came more moderate traversing until we were in the middle of the couloir's dogleg. Above us stretched snow to the saddle, and below and away from us more snow and views.

As we cramponed our way upwards we entered the shadow of the mountain. We'd have to wait a little for this to soften on descent, but for climbing we had no reason to delay.

Rounding the dogleg revealed the remainder of the couloir all the way to the saddle. Though it split into three branches we stayed in the middle branch. The lefthand branch ended in a mess of awful looking Sneffels scree and we weren't sure where the righthand branch would lead us exactly, though based on distant views it probably ended fruitlessly at the walls of the summit block.

Rockfall became a problem the higher we went into the now-narrowing couloir. The upper part was no doubt getting baked, and the "rock" that makes up "Corbett" is barely held together so we spent the remainder of the climb keeping our eyes up and dodging rockfall - hence the name Kidney Stone couloir, kidney stones flying all around us through the slim passage. Most rocks were pebbles but some fist sized and larger rocks did come down and were large enough to injure or kill if they hit the right spot. Rockfall was nearly constant, so we made our way up carefully.

As far as couloirs go this one's about as straightforward as it gets, and tops out at maybe a cool 40 degrees. At the end of the dogleg all we had to do was climb straight up and dodge an infinite rain of kidney stones. We made sure to stay hydrated, so as to avoid our own.

Upon reaching the saddle we had a view both down the couloir and across the ledge we'd need to traverse to reach easy enough ground to summit. The ledge, which is a simple and exposed walk when dry, was covered in high angle snow. Nothing like some fun to add to your fun!

From the saddle we made the quick jaunt up "Son of Corbett" (typically ascended and re-ascended on the standard route) to get a wider angle on the remaining route and nearby peaks.

We returned to the saddle, dropped our packs, and tunneled through an enormous, overhanging cornice that threatened the eastern side of the saddle, opposite the way we came up, before carefully climbing down to the ledge.

The snow on the ledge, being east facing, had been baking in the sun all morning. Heather led across, first going up and over the broken corner of the ledge, then back down to the edge of the snow, which was incredibly soft. She'd been postholing up to waist deep and we figured the drier edge, regardless of the exposure mere feet away, would be safer than trying to brute force a trench through mush with sloping trash we couldn't see underneath. Being that close to the edge demanded attention, since a fall over the side would probably be fatal, so we didn't take any photos on our first crossing. Once past the initial overhead cliffs we got back on the snow and made the quick, wet snow climb to the summit.

Being that it was about 10:30 when we summitted, we didn't want to linger getting back across the ledge since we were worried about the snow becoming even junkier. We quickly down climbed the steep snow back to the ledge, which we once again picked carefully across.

By the time we'd returned to the saddle an hour had elapsed since we'd first arrived. Kidney Stone couloir was now in full sun and probably getting corned up, so I began down while the Skrio got their skis and splitboard ready. The snow was indeed almost ready, and I raced down trying to get away from the rockfall and the ski route.

I went down past the dogleg before the skiers began down. I assumed they were waiting for the snow to soften a little more, so I continued down further, hoping to meet them down lower and not waste time catching up to them.

I caught some footage of them skiing down, then booked ahead. I wanted to check out what looked like it could be a cliff, and stop them early in case we had to climb back up a bit to escape back to the ridge.

It turns out that yup, there was a cliff in the middle of the couloir. It was below treeline so we hadn't seen it on our ascent. I descended down to the top of it at about 11,375 feet before ascending back another 150 or so feet in an effort to catch them. They took off their ski gear and we all climbed back partway up the ridge, traversed the flank past the cliff, and returned to the couloir below, where they put their ski gear back on and sped ahead. I'd catch up to them later down where the Coal Creek drainage we were in became too steep and inset to continue further.

I arrived just in time for the Skrio to finish packing, then we made our way back to our ascent path and quickly returned to the cars, bushwhacking happily all the way. We packed up and chatted excitedly about the route, which had worked surprisingly well for only seeing it from a distance and just going for it. Vera had to get going but Heather, Patrick and I hung out for a bit before going back home. It feels good to be able to say that. If "Corbett" is on your list then consider trying to pass the Kidney Stone couloir. It's a fun, scenic way to meet "Corbett" and make a new friend.

Statistics

Climbers: Ben Feinstein (myself), Heather R., Vera U., Patrick M.
Trailhead: Wilson Creek Trailhead

Total distance: 7.92 miles miles
Total elevation gain: 4,397 feet
Total time: 9:00:56
Peaks: One ranked thirteener, one unranked thirteener

• "Son of Corbett", 13,084' (LiDAR)
• "Corbett Ridge", 13,107' (LiDAR)

Splits: