Matterhorn Creek TH: Southeast slopes of Uncompahgre?

[colincool]

Got some vacation time this week and we've been planning to sweep through the San Juans and bag as many peaks as possible in about 6 days.

First on the radar is Uncompahgre and Wetterhorn. After reading 14ers, Summitpost and Gerry Roach, seems like its more ideal to park at Matterhorn Creek TH and hike into the basin between the two peaks. Looking for anecdotal advice on hiking Uncompahgre along this route that offers better insight than "formal" route descriptions in the aforementioned resources. Seems like its going to be an epic tundra hike!

[ErikS]

I did this a couple of weeks ago with my 12 year old nephew. We camped along the Matterhorn Creek trail about a quarter mile short of the big switchback with great views of Wetterhorn. Up the trail past the switchback around 12,000 ft., there's a trail junction - left to Wetterhorn, right along the Ridge stock driveway trail. You'll slowly climb to about 12,450 to a flat area below Matterhorn (13er). The trail then winds around to the souteast. You'll pass a few well-marked trail junctions (3 total, I think - East Fork, El Paso and one other) as the trail goes up and down and up and down. If my memory is correct, you drop down just below 12,000 (still on Ridge Stock Driveway) before you climb a couple of brief loose dirt sections to get up and over the southern portion of the ridge coming off of Unc. You'll then steadily climb across some wide open tundra with great views of Handies, Sunshine and Redcloud to the south before a big switchback and you finally meet the standard Unc trail around 13,000. From there it's just a good, but steep trail all the way to the top.

The trail is easy to follow the entire way. Going just off of the map, we underestimated the mileage a bit. With my nephew, who's active and athletic, but not a super fast hiker, it took us about 4 hours from our camp to the summit of Unc. The next day it took about 2.5 hours to summit Wetterhorn.

I'm not sure what you drive, but My 2WD Mazda3 made it up the 2 miles of fairly rough road with some very careful driving in a few spots. No way it could've made it any higher toward the upper/main trailhead.

Hope that helps.

Erik

[cdgibbons]

Was part of a group there this past weekend. Nick's trip report is here: http://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=17278" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. We ascended one of the gullies on the west face of Uncompahgre and found it loose and unpleasant; I'd definitely recommend sticking with the trail route that Eric described and is in Nick's report. We found it easy to follow on the descent.

We also loved the views from Matterhorn.

[bdloftin77]

I did that approach last summer! It was one of my favorite hikes, and super super scenic. I loved the tundra between Wetterhorn and Uncompahgre. I did both in a day. The reason I chose the Matterhorn TH was because I only have a 2wd sedan, and you can get 1000 feet higher toward the Matterhorn TH than the Nellie TH.

Here's the time/distance breakdowns for me:

Mattherhorn TH to Uncompahgre: 7.25 mi, 5.25 hrs (hiking at an average/slower pace with my friend)

Uncompahgre to Wetterhorn: 5.5 mi, 2.25 hrs (jogging down Uncompahgre, stopping occasionally for pictures, jogging across the tundra, going fairly fast up Wetterhorn, by myself)

Wetterhorn to Matterhorn TH: 4.25 mi, 2 hrs (by myself, at a moderate pace)

Total, my gps said about 17 miles and 10.5 hours, including all breaks.

From Matterhorn to trail junction (Wetterhorn on left, Uncompahgre on right) is 2.4 mi. From the junction to Uncompahgre is 4.8 mi. Coming from Uncompahgre to Wetterhorn, I traversed above the junction... imagine a Y shaped junction, with me cutting across the top in a straight line. Coming down Wetterhorn to the junction was 1.75 mi

I loved this route so much. So pretty, and one of my favorites.

[bdloftin77]

I tried to upload my gps tracks, but were bigger than the max 350 kb. If you'd like me to email them to you (or if anyone else would like them), send me a PM and I'd be glad to.

[colincool]

What a community. This is just what we needed. I was hoping the route across that tundra walk was as straightforward as it seemed on the map.

Thanks so much for the input!

[Cav33]

I tried to upload my gps tracks, but were bigger than the max 350 kb. If you'd like me to email them to you (or if anyone else would like them), send me a PM and I'd be glad to.

Could you please email me the gps track for UNC from Matterhorn?
Cavanaugh33@hotmail.com

[cougar]

my stats from the 2wd Matterhorn Creek TH for the Wetterhorn/Unc combo:

~19-20 miles, 6800 ft gain
- lower TH to Wetterhorn summit - 2.5 hrs
- don't recall the split to Unc summit
- total time for the day was 10 hrs car-to-car with a bit of lounging on Unc's summit. A sizeable hailstorm hit around 5pm; I was back at my car well before then.

Roach's stats and others posted seemed a bit low. Without Wettehorn it's probably under 5000 ft gain since adding Wetterhorn would be 2k and + 4 miles or more.

It's really scenic as mentioned, but also wide open. There's some loss/gain over a 12500 pass below Matterhorn Peak on the trail.
It drops down to about 12000 ft before going up Uncompahgre again. So be prepared for some gradual uphill on the way back.
I found the trail to be rather sandy/loose in most of that stretch, but not too bad. Worst part was the section going up to gain Unc's south
ridge and standard route. That part took longer than expected - a bit of a 'false ridge'. Very few people in between the peaks as well.