Uncompahgre Peak

Typically we work four ten hour days and have three day weekends to play, clean house, do homework, search for lost people, etc. The weekend of August 23rd we requested another day so that we could do something fun (out of town) before Brian started classes again. Therefore we decided to climb four fourteeners in the San Juan Range: Uncompahgre Peak, Redcloud Peak, Sunshine Peak, and Handies Peak. Here we start off with Uncompahgre Peak early morning as we broke away from treeline.

Here's our goal, it was kind of a cylindrical shaped mountain, very different than those in the Sawatch Range. Uncompahgre is the sixth highest and stands at 14,309 feet. Uncompahgre means "hot water spring" and is named after a river.

When we looked West toward Wetterhorn Peak (a fourteener)& Matterhorn Peak in the distance pictured two above. We heard what we thought might be ATVs buzzing around the Alpine Loop 4WD road. To our suprise we realized it was a huge flock of sheep! They were just munching away to their hearts content and "baaing" like crazy.

This is Redcloud Peak and Sunshine Peak in the distance as seen from the top of Uncompahgre. Redcloud is on the left and Sunshine to it's right. Our next day's adventure!

Looking back down the drainage we hiked up. This area just south of Lake City is very colorful lots of old mining.

Brian and Toby taking in some incredible views from a sketchy lookout point. Although he grew up playing around the Mississippi River bluffs it's still a very very long way down.

This is on the way down we just passed a preserved area to my left. We were thinking it was for a butterfly study maybe? We saw so many in the area, but it's something we need to research. Back to the ole' Land Cruiser to take us to our next campsite at the Redcloud/Sunshine Trailhead!