Mt. Sopris, Carbondale, CO

A new flower we names Jester's Hat

Trail of loose Rocks

More loose Rocks

Fake Summit just above the snowfield

Summit of Sopris is a piles of rocks

Real Summit

One of the Thomas Lakes 

Skinny ridge where Kathi's pole got stuck and she fell down

Summit Carin

Tip of the Summit

Fake summit with the Flag

Simply put Mount Sopris is one heck of a mountain! At 12,953 feet in elevation, however, the peak barely makes it onto the list of the highest 800 peaks in the state. The trail is 14 miles round-trip in distance and 4,400 feet of elevation which are sufficient numbers to make me think that once up this sucker will be enough for me.  I'm not sure this was ever on my bucket list, more like close to the bucket... Well, truth be told I did read in one of my past blogs from this area, that I would like to summit Mt. Sopris, lol, I must have been much younger! If anyone asks me if I would go with them again, I would say without hesitating, nooooo. When you drive past the mountain on Hwy 82 Mt Sopris dominates the space.  A huge two peaked mountain sitting all by its self.  You think, hmm wonder if I can climb that thing.

As a bit of history, The mountain is named after Captain Richard Sopris who prospected in the Roaring Fork Valley in 1860 and later became the Mayor of Denver. Mount Sopris was first climbed by Hayden Survey party members in 1873. The mountain is just shy of being a 13,000 footer, but it climbs every bit like a 14'er for sure.

The mountain is one big piled collection of tumbling rocks.  Even when standing on the top I  found myself wondering where the heck did all of theses rocks come from?  So I looked up on the internet about all of these rocks on Mount Sopris. Geologically speaking the mountain is made of an intrusion of quartz monzonite a type of granite that welled up through a weakness in the surrounding softer rock.  Can you just see rocks squirting up and out....Well that explains why the whole trail is one rock after another.

We started our hike this morning at 6 am.  The trail is shared at the beginning with bikes, horses, hikers and cows. We have to open and close the cow gate to make sure no cows get out.  We never saw any cows, but there was a very large section of land the cows could be hiding in.  I was most inwardly happy that I would never be in charge of counting the cattle in this pasture.  I think it would take three weeks just to find the cattle, then you have to hope that they are not on the move so you can count them!  We make it up to the two large Thomas Lakes in two hours.  These two lakes sit side by side and are very clear and pretty.  We stop and filter some water for the the hike up.  The mosquitoes were terrible!  This was the first time all week we had to use bug spray.

The easy part of the hike is over and the next 6 hours we were working hard, very hard.  The path switchbacks up the side shoulder of the eastern slope of Sopris .  Along the way you get many views of the two lakes.  Upon reaching the upper slopes the grade of the trail reaches about a 45 degree angle and the trail becomes rather primitive.  Sometimes we had to stop and visually search to find the trail.  We make it to the last tree and then the climb really begins.  
The mountain is really just a huge pile of large tippy talus.  We have to pick our hand holds and steps all the way up to the top.  In the climbers world they call this part "scrambling.  There really is no trail, path or suggested route.  There are at times preferred paths.  While we were going up a steep section of talus, we had lost the preferred path and were at a stand still studying the rocks.  There was a group of two men just behind us so we decided to let them lead so they could look for the trail.  Ha, that lasted about two minutes.  One of the gentlemen decided the talus climbing was too difficult for him and turned back.  The billy goat guy was most likely thankful for his slower friend to turn back, because he slammed it into high gear and scrambled quickly upward.  Kathi and I just kept moving upward.  At on point the guy in front yells down that the top of the section we are working on has alpine tundra at the top. Yeah... He lied.  The alpine tundra lasted all of 13 feet, then it was back to piled loose talus. 

Mt. Sopris from the free range cow pasture

All of Mt. Sopris  We climbed to the top of the middle hump.

Once you get to the top of this first fake summit you have to go across a skinny narrows of talus before you get to another pile of talus which seems like it will be the summit.  Faked us out again!  At the top of this false summit there is a new US flag, but the summit lies further on.  More tippy talus, you will need to watch each step for another third of a mile and you need to gain another 500 feet.  Finally we make the summit of the eastern Sopris mountain.  This hike really knocked my socks off.  I felt sick to my stomach as every step seemed like it was critical.  A mistake up here meant falling,  falling was not an option.  Kathi did get her pole caught once and it threw her balance off which caused her to tip over.  Where she tipped over she had a foot of space to spare on both sides of her as she was on a skinny ridge line. Not a very ideal spot to fall.  Good thing she landed just like she did, almost side saddle like lady's on an old England ride horse.

Most of the information we read on this summit was all about how long the hike was and the difficultly of the steep elevation gain.  No one seems to mention the talus climbing that is necessary.  This mountain is not for sissy's!  It was as hard to climb as a 14'er.

It took a total of 10 hours to do the 14 miles.
Total miles 68.4