Weminuche Peak – 13,240

RT Length: 4.16 miles

Elevation Gain: 1550’

From my base camp at Rock Lake, I was up and on the trail at 6:30am, headed for the pass that leads towards Moon Lake. There’s a nice trail that will lead you all the way from the left side of the lake to the pass.

Once at the top of the pass, I looked left, and found the route I wanted to take to get to the gully. I aimed for the white strip of rock in the middle, staying on tundra and solid rock most of the way. This was all class 2.

Once in the gully, I followed it east towards a saddle. There was a lot of loose rock in this area, but it was all class 2.

Once at the top of the gully, I turned left and headed north up to the ridge. The rocks here were large, loose, and easy class 3 terrain. The rest of the route to the summit would be rocky.

I could now see Weminuche Peak to the east. To get there, I’d need to gain another saddle. This is choose your own adventure, but this is the route I took to the next saddle. Very rocky terrain here.

Once at the next saddle, I followed the rocky ridge east to the summit. This is class 2+. The rocks are the size of microwaves, and many of them are loose, or surrounded by talus. There are no game trails here.

I summited Weminuche Peak at 8:20am

Weminuche Peak:

This was an out an back hike for me, so I turned around and retraced my steps back to Rock Lake. Here’s my overall view of the route back down.

First, heading west down the ridge to the saddle

And then heading southwest towards the next saddle

Back down the short but mighty rocky section

And then northwest down the gully until I could see the pass to my right that would lead me to Rock Lake.

I headed towards the pass, staying mostly on rocky tundra.

Once at the pass, I picked up the cairned trail that would lead me back to Rock Lake

I made to Rock Lake at 10am, making this a 4.16 mile hike with 1550’ of elevation gain in 3.5 hours. I decided to make this an easy day for me, so I spent the rest of the afternoon lounging by the lake, doing camp chores (washing clothes, filtering water, etc.) and just basically enjoying the good weather.

On to the next trailhead!