Hike Coxcomb Peak Uncompahgre National Forest, CO

Aug 08, 2020 — Coxcomb Peak is one of the few technical 13ers in Colorado. Fortunately, Ben was willing to lead it (thanks again, Ben!). He, Whiley, Marisa, and I set out from the trailhead along the very pretty Wetterhorn Basin Trail. We were able to drive to the upper trailhead using Marisa and Whiley's beast trucks, but my trip report stats assume you don't have a gnarly vehicle and could only make it to the lower 2WD trailhead (access is great for any car). The trail was easy to follow except for a short time through a small talus field, where cairns help in staying on the route. Coxcomb Peak looked quite fun and a little daunting as we ascended the trail. The approach required us to wrap around to the opposite side of the peak to ascend via the standard route.

Once at the saddle to the west of Coxcomb Peak, the trail descends to the south as Wetterhorn Peak comes into view, the green tundra of the San Juan Mountains always an incredible sight. The trail continued toward the southwest side of Coxcomb Peak, and as soon as the peak was fully in view and we were sick of descending (knowing we'd have to re-ascend all that we lost), we headed northeast on a grassy slope toward Coxcomb Peak. I'm not sure what the best approach from here would be, but ours worked well. Probably only Class 2 for most of it, the ascent did take some time due to the steepness of the slope. Although there were some sections of talus, we found we could stick to the grass for the most part. At a certain point we reached a cliff face, which we hugged until a Class 3 weakness in the cliff allowed access to higher ground. From here, it was only Class 2 somehwhat loose talus for a few hundred vertical feet. The standard Coxcomb Peak route came into view, and we beelined to it through the talus. The start of the route is marked by a massive boulder at its base.

I don't know what kind of crazy people call this section Class 4, but my breakdown of the technical section is as follows:

Pitch 1: Class 5
A big crack leads up 15 feet of solid rock, uncommon for the San Juan Mountains. A couple of us chose to squeeze into the crack as much as possible, while a couple of others stayed out of the crack and used the relatively big holds to get a high foot on either side to gain the lip.

Pitch 2: Class 3
Once above the lip, an easy Class 3 scramble on somewhat loose slabby rock. Note a chockstone high on the left next to a large pinnacle that will later be used for rappeling on the descent. At the top of the Class 3, Ben pulled a Class 3+ move at the start of a narrow gully (the start of pitch 3) in order to build an anchor.

Pitch 3: Class 4+
The narrow gully is a very fun section, and includes mostly just body-smushing to get through it. Shortly after starting the gully is a Class 4 set of moves that requires stemming (or beach whaling) over a chockstone. Farther up is a Class 4+ set of moves on good holds, requiring a pull at the very top. I only call this Class 4 because everyone else said it seemed like it. I would say Class 5, really. It was a stiff move with some exposure and I wouldn't have wanted to do it without a rope.

Once at the top of the pitches, a short Class 3 scramble leads to safer ground. A social trail leads along the ridgeline, and if not for one major exception, would continue casually all the way to the summit. This exception is a notch which requires a 20-foot rappel that would later be a 5.6 climb on the way back. We took turns rappelling to the notch as storm clouds rolled in. A Class 3+ move took us out of the notch and onto a ledge with a small cave. Wrapping around to the left required a step-across with lots of exposure, but it's only a Class 2 move. A short Class 3 gully led back to the ridgeline, where we continued to the summit.

Oh, I hope you didn't pull your rope. On the way back, we took turns climbing back out of the notch using the rope we had rappelled on earlier. The crux was about 10 feet up. Once back across the ridge, we returned to the top of Pitch 3, where some webbing allowed us to rappeling back down the same narrow gully we climbed up. We noted at least three other rap anchor stations higher on the ridge, but chose to just go down the route we already knew. We then scrambled halfway down the Class 3 Pitch 2 to locate a very nice, Class 2+ scramble to get up to the rap station previously mentioned. We used this to rap down Pitch 1.

On the way back, we followed the ridge heading south from the base of the technical section, but I didn't even include this in my attached map. Athough there was a social trail for the first half, the second half was very steep, loose scree/talus and I recommend just returning the general way we ascended.