At the time of publication for this report there's only one other report on this site for Dolores Peak and none for Middle Peak; this report aims to change that and provide alternative beta for these two mountains. The other trip report didn't talk much about route finding challenges on these peaks and Whiley and I believe the route we took is both a better and safer way to do them, so here goes.

The San Miguel Mountains, a western sub-range of the San Juan Mountains, are known for their incredibly loose and rotten rock. The only peaks probably 99% of all readers here have heard of are the Wilson group of 14ers: Mount Wilson, Wilson Peak, and El Diente Peak. They've been "cleaned up" by gazillions of climbers and have copious beta, photos, etc. to help. No such luck for the 13ers Middle Peak and Dolores Peak, two behemoths in the middle of nowhere straddling the San Miguel and Dolores county borders. These peaks are not of any technical difficulty, they're just massive piles of incredibly loose and often unstable rock. The biggest challenge is thus just how awfully chossy these things are, though Whiley and I had trouble finding what we thought was a good route, trying multiple different options until we finally found an easier way both up and down.

Our "trailhead" wasn't a trailhead in the normal sense of the word. The south side of these peaks is really the only approachable side; the north and east sides are incredibly steep and loose and the west side has no nearby roads. The south side has roads up from Dunton and is also lower angled. From Dunton we drove several miles up Dolores County Road 52 to a hairpin curve and parked there. The coordinates for the hairpin are 37.824137, -108.119925. There was a short spur from the hairpin to a small parking area but this was occupied by what we assumed to be a hunter's truck and trailer. We spent the night on the road and started at about 8am the next morning.

From the very start the peaks were, well, prominent. Middle, Dolores, and 12er Dunn Peak stand apart from the rest of the San Juan and the next closest high peaks, the Wilson group of 14ers, are many miles to the east.

There's no trail at all from the "trailhead", but the route through the forest was largely obvious: hike towards the enormous mountains. The creek (Fish Creek) could be used as a guide for those times when the forest was thick enough to block the views. We obviously had snow on our approach, just an inch or two in patches. We were able to avoid most of it. We crossed the creek several times as we hiked up the drainage. In the spring the creek crossings would be more difficult and potentially more numerous. Elevation gain in the first couple of miles was minimal and the drainage slowly constricted into a steep-walled canyon. A cliff covered in ice and running water blocked passage. The easy part was over.

We had read in the other trip report that they had climbed up the eastern side of the drainage to a shoulder below Dolores Peak. We thus headed directly up the steep slope to our right (to the east) which was covered in a thin layer of snow. This initial part from the bottom of the drainage was sketchy and didn't get any better as we ascended through the forest on a rib and then and into a broad, shallow gully.

Once the rib merged into the gully the terrain steepened more and gave way to hard packed dirt with scree on top. There were chossy towers directly above us that funneled us left (north) into the easiest looking gully; several of the gullies nearer to the towers had small cliffs that were obviously extremely rotten.

The views of Dunn Peak from the gully were stunning and we likely would not have gotten them if we were on a good route; they still were not worth it as the sketch factor in the gully increased.

We attempted to stay on vegetated terrain and use the trees sprinkled throughout the slope to aid us up the scree and dirt. The trees proved to be the most useful and we actually would pull ourselves up with them. I always tried to keep a tree directly below me should I fall, so I could potentially grab it as a fall would probably otherwise be totally uncontrollable. There was some Class 2+ to Class 3 scrambling on rotten but short outcrops here and there, and this was somehow preferable to the scree.

All in all we ascended several hundred feet up the southwest slopes of Dolores before calling it quits. We had both noticed the angle creeping up ever so slightly as we gained elevation, almost imperceptible until we realized we were probably at 40 or 45 degrees with hundreds of feet of chip rock below us. Whiley had her microspikes on to provide some traction and I had one trekking pole for balance; we deemed the risk not worth it as we didn't want to get into terrain so steep we couldn't down climb it. Discouraged we descended back towards Fish Creek slowly so as to not slip.

I cannot recommend this route up the southwest slopes. It was incredibly dangerous in the condition we found it in, and some form of traction and an ice axe would have helped in all honesty, even in dry conditions. Perhaps if the entire slope were caked in a thick layer of snow one could turn it into a nice snow climb but due to its southwest aspect it likely never gets enough snow for that. In any case, avoid it when dry.

We descended back to the rib and crossed the snowfield shown earlier. Here's a refresher of that.

This snowfield crossing planted us directly back on the creek, but above the first frozen waterfall we encountered. The next obstacle was a set of steps cut into the shale by the flowing water, which of course meant smooth rock made slick by water and ice.

Whiley still had her microspikes on so she crossed the creek here and then traversed on its west side on steep and loose dirt. Starting to sound familiar, isn't it? I wasn't about to get my feet anywhere near such slick rock without some kind of traction so I walked across the creek on a downed tree and then up my own steep and loose dirt slope into a large talus field below Middle Peak. I was now also on the west side of the creek. Whiley and I lost visual contact for several minutes and I called down to her from above that I'd found a way up; she ascended her own way upstream, but still steep and loose.

We reunited in the talus field and surveyed the route we had attempted to go up. We both expressed our relief that we weren't on the eastern side of the creek attempting to climb the heinous and dangerous slopes up Dolores. The talus field we were on didn't look like fun but we'll take not-fun over dangerous any day.

The talus field was the key to making this route safer and easier. If you come out for a climb of these peaks make sure to take note of what the talus field looks like both up and down. The best way to approach it is from the western side of the creek; if you're climbing either east/northeast, on any kind of steep terrain, or attempting to navigate around cliffs and waterfalls in the drainage prior to hitting the talus field you'll likely find yourself in more difficult terrain than is necessary.

Whiley and I took a break here for a couple of minutes and discussed what our plans were. We'd wasted quite a bit of time with our adventure up Dolores and were both in a bad mood because of it. We agreed to hike to the top of the next bench and see what things looked like, and then make another judgement call from there. We began up the talus which was a heck of a lot better than the scree across the creek and made quick progress up to the next area.

While we couldn't see the route up either peak we liked the look of the route from this point and decided to continue until we could once again see another big section of the route.

More talus slogging up past what we assumed to be the Middle/Dolores saddle dumped us in yet another talus filled basin.

The saddle in the photo is actually one of two minor saddles, with the bump stuck between them. We slogged our way up the basin and headed for Middle Peak first, since it was the higher of the two (by only a few feet, but still). Middle Peak would also be the easier of the two as its east slopes were less steep than Dolores' northwest slopes.

The views of the Wilson 14ers as we ascended Middle were mindblowing, rising out of the earth in a singular, massive uplift.

The rock went through several changes as we ascended, some of which have been visible in the photos thus far. From blocky talus to yellow scree and then to exceptionally rotten red rock banded with white, granitic rock. The summit ridge itself shifted between different types of rock several times.

The hike up from the basin to the summit ridge had lifted our spirits but the summit ridge caused them to soar. Narrow, exposed, and covered in snow, the out-and-back to the point on the ridge that marks the true summit was the last of the spice we'd get for the day and made the troubles we had earlier worth it.

The ridge wasn't difficult, nothing more than Class 2+, but it required care due to the exposure on both sides and snow on top.

Expansive views awaited us on the summit in every direction. The majority of the San Juan lie to our north, east, and south, and the vast Utah desert to our west.

The summit ridge had pepped us right now. We both agreed that our moods had done a complete 180 in about ten minutes due to how much fun and how visually satisfying the final climb up Middle had been. With smiles on our faces we turned around and retraced our steps back to Middle's east slopes and down towards the flats in the basin.

We hadn't paid much attention to the route up Dolores but it seemed straightforward enough: climb the massive pile of loose junk that's almost identical to the massive pile of loose junk we just climbed.

We ran/skated down the slope and up onto the bump between the twin saddles to take photos before moving along to collect Dolores.

Dolores didn't look like a particularly difficult peak from the vantage below its northwest slopes, but it was steeper than Middle. Whereas Middle had no trails Dolores had some trail segments. We intermittently used them and walked directly up the talus when no trail was available.

We grunted up Dolores without much difficulty, reaching its summit about an hour and ten minutes after leaving Middle. It was colder and windier on Dolores but still nearly t-shirt weather, and in November no less! Dolores had two summit register canisters for some reason, so I signed one while we lounged. Middle looked incredible from Dolores, far better than the reverse.

After ten or so minutes of drinking it all in we began our long descent down the talus to the basin and thence towards the creek and our cars. The going was just as tedious down as up but onward we must go.

We picked our way through the endless rock and eventually into the forest where we meandered a different path than the one we'd come up. Near to the road I found a wallet which had been dropped recently; I took it back with me and dropped it off with the police to return to its owner. We quickly packed up and ate dinner in Ridgway before making our respective long drives home while thoughts of the Wilsons danced in our heads.

Statistics

Climbers: Ben Feinstein (myself), Whiley H. (whileyh)
Trailhead: Hairpin curve on Dolores County Road 52 (37.824137, -108.119925)
Total distance: 9.54 miles
Total elevation gain: 4,690 feet
Total time: 7:49:40
Peaks: Two ranked thirteeners

• Middle Peak, 13,300'
• Dolores Peak, 13,290'

Splits:

GPX users please note: I marked a point on the track that says "DO NOT GO THIS WAY" that obviously corresponds with an ascent up Dolores' dangerous southwest slopes. Take heed of that warning! Do NOTgo that way. Download has been disabled because I do not want anyone making the same mistake we did despite the numerous warnings in this report. Once again, heed the warning and stay away from Dolores' southwest slopes!