Chipeta Mountain is an oft-overlooked thirteener near its much higher Centennial thirteener neighbor Mount Ouray. It makes for a reasonable addition to Mount Ouray's west ridge, or simply on its own on a half day. Whiley and I had already done Ouray and the weather predictions were for a 90% chance of afternoon thunderstorms, so we decided to just do Chipeta by itself (and maybe some nearby twelvers, if we could). We did get a bit wet on the way down so it's good we didn't try for our usual big day kind of climb.

We drove up to Marshall Pass the night before and Whiley went for a run (yes, after doing a thirteener and some twelvers just a few hours earlier) and I setup my tent. I was tired of sleeping in my car. Since we knew rain was coming early we also got to bed and started early at 6am, which was super generous given our usual pace but hey, lightning ain't nothin' to mess with. While things were dry when we woke up there was already a layer of low hanging clouds ringing Ouray.

The route up Chipeta takes the Continental Divide Trail north on an old road from Marshall Pass. Until this day I had no idea there were sections of the CDT that allowed motorized transport. The hiking on the road was easy, of course, and the views west were gorgeous, with thick forest blanketing the rolling hills of the southern Sawatch.

There were some snow drifts we could avoid on the road, and a couple of tenths of a mile from the 4WD trailhead we came across some fresh downed trees blocking the road. There was nowhere to park nearby so until these get cleaned up the 4WD trailhead will be nigh unusable.

A few minutes later and we were at said 4WD trailhead. I'd barely call this a usable trailhead, as it's tiny, with room for maybe 3-4 cars if you squeeze in tightly, and one entire half of the road is a rotting rock wall you wouldn't want to look at funny for fear if it collapsing on you, let alone park your vehicle next to.

We continued hiking along the increasingly snowy trail, taking advantage of the postholes (which were pretty soggy) and a single track left by a dirtbiker through the drifts. The trail was super easy to follow and we eventually found ourselves below a large talus field that led all the way to the ridge between Ouray and Chipeta. Considering this was dry we hopped on it, glad to be off the snow and mud. Ahead of us was a father and his two young kids, who had come up from the Monarch side of Marshall Pass before we had started.

As we ascended the talus gave way to tundra, and we neared then entered the low hanging clouds that had settled over everything.

Visibility became lower and lower until we could barely see 50 feet in front of us. It was good that this route was dead simple and non-technical, the fog might have added some spice. We caught up to the hiking family on the ridge and quickly passed them.

While the ridge was easy, there were some weird rocks along the way and the fog continued to make things look way cooler than they actually were.

We were now racing along the ridge and soon topped out on South Chipeta Mountain, an unranked 12,850-foot sub-summit of Chipeta.

From South Chipeta's summit the true summit didn't look too far away, and the clouds were doing all kinds of weird things. We pressed on thinking that it'd be a quick stroll to the top.

For some reason the final summit push up Chipeta seemed a lot longer than it should have; Whiley and I both agreed on that. We weren't sure why, since it's mostly just a Class 2 talus and tundra hop, but it felt like it took us forever.

We topped out in blue skies, the fog having mostly lifted.

We were surprised by the now good weather, and happy, since now we could do more! We hung out for a few minutes and scoped out our route over to Point 12,195. We would add more twelvers if we had the weather for it.

Whiley and I began down back to the South Chipeta/Chipeta saddle, then down into the trees. Rarely have I done a route that goes all the way below treeline before returning above.

As we neared treeline we took our last looks back at Chipeta; clouds were forming, rolling over the summit, and dissipating within seconds. All day the clouds would be doing cool stuff.

The forest was rather thick, and there was still a ton of snow, far more than was visible from the summit. We tried to avoid it as best as we could but ended up with soaked feet in a few minutes.

We came out on top of a small bump that we then had to descend again to begin ascending to 12,195's ridge.

The ridge had a huge cornice along its southern side, and was snowy along its entire eastern side, so we'd have to find a way to get on top. There was a nearby trail but it went up into steeper snow than we wanted.

I gave Whiley a pointy rock to use as an improvised axe, then I started kicking steps up the slope. The snow was soft and kind of steep, but overall made for easy climbing.

We topped out on the ridge and had an easy walk to the summit of 12,195.

Along the way we'd been discussing our next moves. We really didn't want to orphan Pahlone, but had already decided that was probably as far as we'd get with 1pm storms. The only problem is Pahlone was two miles farther along the ridge, and with 1,000 vert to boot.

In the few minutes we hung out on 12,195's summit the clouds began to noticeably build to our west and southwest, towering white puffs which quickly grew dark on their bottoms. There was no way we'd get to Pahlone and back quick enough to beat the weather, and our descent was a bit questionable and very likely snowy, so we began making our way back towards the end of the ridge and then the CDT.

In the maybe 15 minutes it took us to once again reach our steps up the snow the clouds had gotten much worse, and a stack of lenticular clouds had built up.

We raced down and around the hump in between us and Chipeta, crossing over a rock rib so we wouldn't have to go all the way over it.

We decided to descend into a small drainage and out the other side, then take a strip of dry ground back to the CDT closer to the Ouray/Chipeta connecting ridge.

When we got to the trail we went along it for maybe a couple hundred feet, all snow, and realized this would take us forever. Our only other option was to ascend high enough to either gain the ridge or sidehill along it; we chose the former, since we at least knew it was dry, and sidehilling is so slow.

Now, gaining a ton of elevation was not what we wanted to do. This would put us higher up and at more risk of lightning, as well as be tiring, but it'd be better than slogging through the snow. We made an ascending traverse to the ridge top, then when we were on the tundra, we began running.

As soon as we reached a good place to drop back down to the trail near where we'd came up Chipeta earlier in the day we did, and not a moment too soon; it began raining as we descended, and after we got on the trail the thunder rolled.

We were relieved to be back in the trees and the relative safety they offered. We of course were still exposed to the elements, but better in the trees than on the top of a ridge. We ran through the final open section of the trail, then slowed down to catch our breath. I wish we had been able to have a relaxing descent, but the storms kept us huffing and puffing the whole time. The remaining hike back to our cars was uneventful minus the rain and nearly constant thunder, some of which was quite loud. We never actually saw any lightning with all of it being contained in the clouds, but still a pretty exciting afternoon for sure. And hey, we still got something done on a less than favorable weekend! Not bad!

Statistics

Climbers: Ben Feinstein (myself), Whiley H.
Trailhead: Marshall Pass (2WD)
Total distance: 13.12 miles
Total elevation gain: 5,116 feet
Total time: 6:48:28
Peaks: One ranked thirteener, one ranked twelver, one unranked twelver

• Chipeta Mountain, 13,472'
• South Chipeta Mountain, 12,850'
• Point 12,195

Splits: