Uncompahgre's 3 Children

Distance: 11.5 miles

Vertical Gain: 4,400 feet

Time Elapsed: 6 hours, 45 minutes

Date: September 28, 2024

These three peaks are often dismissed as nothing more than class 2 blobs, overshadowed both literally and figuratively by their line parent, Uncompahgre Peak. In fact, Uncompahgre was such a neglectful guardian that it didn’t even bother giving them names before casting them out into the world. The lack of proper titles hasn’t done much for their popularity. All I really knew going in was that they were close to Lake City, which made them a natural target for my annual fall pilgrimage to the area. Bill (climbingcue) and Steve (sbenfield) were easy recruits and it took very little charisma score to persuade Eric (yaktoleft13), who was also hiking in the area that weekend, to abandon his solo plans and join the three of us instead.

We met at the base of Nellie Creek Road in the dark the next morning and piled into Steve's 4Runner for the drive up. Our chosen route only required us to travel half the length of the bumpy 4WD road to a junction at 2.3 miles. There, the main road switchbacked sharply and continued upward toward the Nellie Creek Trailhead, but we stayed straight along the other fork. A few feet in, Steve spotted a likely parking spot in the forest on the right and expertly wedged his 4Runner between two aspen trees, leaving maybe a foot of clearance on either side.

Naturally, 0.1 miles farther, the spur road ended in a wide-open and obviously superior parking area. Oh well.

Directly across Nellie Creek, an old defunct mining road continued up on a carpet of gold. The views from the road were unexpectedly stunning, and we stopped often to take pictures.

The road paralleled the east side of Nellie Creek, crossing over and back once. It narrowed to overgrown single track near the crossings, but with a little care we were able to stay on course. About a mile in, the road turned east and climbed away from the creek in a series of switchbacks. We zigzagged up to a small saddle above treeline, then followed the ridge northeast to a high point between 13,108 and Crystal Peak (a 12er). A Culebra-esque cairn festooned this high point, and we took a break downhill of it to apply sunscreen and snacks to our faces.

The night before this hike, a friend told me that each of these peaks had a unique feature. That unexpected tidbit added an element of intrigue to the otherwise unassuming trio, and I was curious to see what secrets they held. The first one came unexpectedly in the shape of... a foot?

Yep. A pile of white hoodoos protruded from the sandy ridge between us and 13,108, and one of them very distinctly featured five toes.

A lot of feet jokes and some completely superfluous scrambling later, we passed the hoodoos. The summit of 13,108 was a wide plateau, its edges slowly crumbling into the talus field below, and we aimed for a chink in its chossy armor.

From the summit, we turned our eyes west. A long, grassy slope sprawled out between us and 13,110, which seemed to trade our current plateau for another one - just two feet higher. Presumably, these two peaks were locked in some kind of petty altitude contest.

We dropped 500 feet to the gently downsloping saddle, curving around to the north to preserve elevation and stay on grass. The climb up 13,110’s east slope was steep but straightforward. To our surprise, the “plateau” at the top narrowed into a rocky ridge. We wove through scattered boulders and puzzle pieces of rock to reach the summit. Second secret: unlocked.

From there, we descended the west shoulder of 13,110 to intersect the Big Blue Creek Trail at the saddle. We stayed on the trail for all of two switchbacks before leaving it to cut cross-country. We could have followed it down to connect with the Uncompahgre Trail, but that would have involved losing and regaining 200 feet of elevation - a detour our legs weren't interested in. From below, 13,110 revealed its final surprise: it wasn't flat at all, but a massive pyramid.

Someone was angry we had collected the second horcrux and sent an unexpected storm barreling in. With our third summit in jeopardy, we hustled south across rolling terrain in the Uncompahgre Basin. A steep, loose, north-facing slope delivered us to the ridge of 13,155. The north face dropped away dramatically, even as talus offered us easy passage to the top.

The summit of 13,155 served up some of the best views of the day. To the northwest, Uncompahgre loomed large, though a jagged spine of rock on the far side of the saddle we’d just come up ruled out easy passage to the behemoth. To the west, the sun kissed the faces of Wetterhorn and Coxcomb. And to the south, a talus slope led down to stands of gorgeous sunlit aspens. We followed the south slope down, then turned east and picked up the El Paso Creek Trail.

Despite being poorly aligned with its location on the map, the El Paso Creek Trail was easy to follow - though surprisingly swampy for late September. We squelched downhill until it disgorged us onto Nellie Creek Road one mile above Steve’s 4Runner. It was time for the leaf spectacular to continue. The fall foliage transformed the otherwise mundane road walk into a bright and colorful finale.

I have shown great restraint in not spamming you with every leaf picture I took, so allow me to send you off with just three more.