Jagged alpine peak featuring a rugged ascent, dramatic volcanic rock formations, and expansive high-mountain views across surrounding basins and wilderness.
General Information
Elevation Gain: ~3,000 feet
Difficulty: Difficult (Class 2–3 with loose rock near summit)
Early starts strongly recommended due to weather and exposure
Ridgway (25 mi)
Montrose (45 mi)
How to Get There
From Ouray (10 mi): Take CO-550 south briefly, turn onto County Road 7 (Camp Bird Road), and follow it to Yankee Boy Basin and the upper trailhead parking areas.
Overview
Mount Sneffels is the highest summit of the Sneffels Range in the Rocky Mountains. The prominent 14,158-foot (4315.4 m) fourteener is located in the Mount Sneffels Wilderness of Uncompahgre National Forest, 6.7 miles (10.8 km) west by south of Ouray, Colorado.
Mount Sneffels is notable for its great vertical relief, as it rises 7,200 feet above the town of Ridgway, Colorado 6 miles to the northeast.
The primary route to the summit follows a creek bed up from Yankee Boy Basin. A secondary route follows a ridge line to the summit from the saddle of Blue Lakes Pass.
Mount Sneffels was named after the volcano Snæfell, which is located on the tip of the Snæfellsnes peninsula in Iceland. An area on the western flank of Mount Sneffels gives the appearance of volcanic crater.
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Mount Sneffels", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0
Featured Trail
Jeff P from Berkeley, CA, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Image Size Adjusted
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North Mount Elbert Trail
10.4 miles roundtrip, 4,468 feet elevation gain
