I Like Big Buttresses and I Cannot Lie

Snowdon Peak - 13,090'

CO Rank: 574

Date Climbed: 08/02/2026

Route: West Buttress West Buttress Route Description and GPX From Boggy B

“Oh my God Kiefer, look at this route… it looks SOOO fun!!” I was killing time by reading trip reports and routes and came across Mike’s (Boggy’s) route description for the West Buttress on Snowdon Peak. I had admired the route on an attempt of N2 a few years ago, but I assumed it went at class 5, plus we had the dog with us that day and there was no way she could have done the route, had we poked around. The West Buttress promises ~900 feet of mostly solid 3^rd and 4^th class terrain, depending on your route choice. I want my routes real steep and rocky, and this one promised exactly that.

We first headed up the Crater Lake trail from Andrews Lake Trailhead just south of Molas Pass on July 4^th, but a late start plus heavy smoke in the air from the Ferris Fire and the Gold Mountain Fire resulted in us making an early exit from the upper basin, and heading back to Silverton. The next few weekends we spent hiking some low hanging fruit in the Sawatch, while the fires raged on and soon I was beginning to get impatient to hike something more challenging again.

Lucky for us we were blessed with a good weather forecast, and we headed back over the passes to Andrews Lake and once again hiked up the familiar trail. The switchbacks in the forest passed by quickly and soon we were admiring the view of the BIG buttress (I cannot lie) from the first meadow. At the first meadow, the buttress looks unclimbable and quite intimidating, however we knew from our earlier trek that it wasn’t nearly as vertical as it looked from a distance (most things aren’t).

After taking in the views and a few remarks, “look Kiefer that buttress it’s just so big, and I can’t believe it’s just so solid, and out there… Gneiss”. On that note we continued on our way, up the steepening trail enjoying the views of the buttress peeking out periodically through the trees. I was hooked and I couldn’t stop staring.

Prior to the trail beginning its steep ascent to the saddle between Snowdon and N1, and the standard route, there is a faint social trail leading into the quartzite talus field below the buttress entrance. We crossed the awkwardly placed talus, scrambled up an optional slab feature, and reached the steeper tundra slope above. After making quick work of the tundra slope we were deposited on a plateau. We enjoyed our first break of the day at the picturesque plateau and remarked on the views that kept opening up around us.

After securing our helmets, we headed towards the toe of the decidedly not flat butt. Flat butts aren’t the thing. We noted that there was a party of three ahead of us, we were surprised, Kiefer even thought it might be a guided group (it wasn’t). We methodically began climbing up the solid quartzite and soon enough we came across the party of 3. The ongoing exposure and heights had unnerved them as the buttress continued rearing up into the sky. We offered to have them join us, but they elected to reverse course and continue back down to the safety of the tundra below. After wishing them well, we continued on our way, relishing the delightfully solid rock and consistent scrambling. Of course, this is the San Juans, so there were loose rocks to be found, test your holds, but the loose rocks were few and far between, making for a thoroughly enjoyable climb.

We even got to hang out with a curious marmot hanging out with us during the scramble. Unlike on 13,544, we did not bring this marmot home in our engine compartment.

We found we were able to keep the climbing to solid class 3 by sticking close to the ridge crest or slightly to the left. We did complete a few class 4 moves and sequences, but had we tried harder to avoid them, we could have found easier terrain lurking nearby. We both enjoy scrambling, especially when it is solid so we took on the class 4 moves with excitement, truly not wanting the scrambling to end. We never entered the gully to the right of the buttress, it looks like it would go, but it looked like horrendously loose rock, and this was a case where sometimes the harder grade is safer. The summit was looming closer and we were sad that our time with the big buttress was almost over. The final moves to the summit plateau involved scrambling up a few class 3 slabs and soon we were back on loose talus and walking to the high point.

We were excited to take our second break, and enjoy the summit views, but unfortunately a hoarde of flying ants had other ideas and swarmed us as soon as we arrived. We quickly snapped a summit selfie and embarked on our descent down the standard Northeast ridge, making a nice Tour De’ Snowdon.

Little did we know, it would be longer than expected until our next break, since we hadn’t ascended this route, the descent was a confusing maze of ledges and playing connect the cairns. Due to us both being parched and also now starving, the ledges seemed to go on forever. The single tundra patch that marked the end of the ridge seemed equally close, and far away.

Eventually we exited the ledges, crossed some more loose talus and rejoined the ridge. A few short steps later, we reached the elusive tundra patch and plopped down to enjoy our well-earned second break of the day, both of us no worse for the wear. Only my pants had some collateral damage from scrambling down the sharp class 3 ledges. The perfect weather forecast held true, so we took our time guzzling fluids and devouring the snacks in our packs. Looking back up at the descent it was next to impossible to even see the route amongst the jumble of ledges. If I were to hike Snowdon again, I would descend the buttress, it was solid and much less convoluted.

By this time, the statewide heatwave had made its presence known, and I was ready to head down to the spur social trail we took earlier to cross the talus. Kiefer scared a coyote, jaunted up N1 and I headed down the steep trail. I reached the junction where I agreed to wait for Kiefer, feeling lucky I had not even slid on the slick gravel descent, and shortly after liberally applying bug spray Kiefer came running down the trail to join me. After enjoying the sounds of the pikas barking and squinting to see them gathering hay for winter, we made our way down the established trail, passed through the upper meadow, and soon we were at the Crater Lake trail junction. We took a last break in the shade, before making short work of the remaining switchbacks, returning to Andrews Lake Trailhead, where our sandals, and a cooler with ice cold beer was waiting for us.

We enjoyed our stay at the lake, taking in the views of the Weminuche around us and our nice big buttress we had scaled, but we couldn’t stay long. Maggie’s in Ouray was calling to us and nothing sounded better than one of their burgers. One slow but uneventful drive over Red Mountain Pass later, we enjoyed messy sandwiches and some of the best fries on the Western Slope ending a wonderful day on a high note.