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Feb 15, 2021 — Peerless Peak and Ute Mountain are two peaks are adjacent to Boundary Cone, but neither are as interesting. In fact, both are pretty much rubble heaps with only a few redeeming qualities. We nicknamed Peak 3318 "Ute Mountain" because it's the most stunning of the peaks in the small Ute Mountain range after Boundary Cone.
Whiley and I followed a dirt road and headed up toward Peerless Peak first. The peak looks steep, or simply sheer, on all angles. The most reasonable-looking approach was from the west ridge, but getting there involved an awful scree slog on loose rock. The ridge became more interesting the higher it went, scree fading into Class 2 rock, though still not solid enough to be considered fun scrambling. We reached a false summit and continued on a Class 3 move with some exposure along a small knife edge to the summit. I should note we also ascended this peak from the north slopes on Class 2/3 loose awful terrain and I don't recommend going that way, though it is possible.
We backtracked from Peerless Peak and headed south toward Ute Mountain. To approach the peak, we headed along a mining road into the most obvious gulch, taking a break at the road's terminus to check out an open mine shaft. We continued past the mine shaft, sticking pretty much directly to the gully, our goal being a saddle higher up. It was unclear from down here what the best option for ascending would be, and at the time it felt like the right way to go. We weren't sure if the ridgeline would be doable since it looks pretty nutty on a topo map, which ended up being the case. Instead, from this saddle we side-hilled along an animal trail that traversed below the ridge crest and took us up some loose scree to a viewpoint just below the summit. An easy Class 3 move and some quite fun scrambling brought us to the summit. The view toward Boundary Cone was pretty crazy.
On our descent, we decided to try headed directly down the loose scree slope to get back to the mine shaft (the northern line on the attached map leading down from Ute Mountain). You could ascend our descent, but it would be pretty unpleasant in comparison to our ascent. It did make for a quick descent though, the scree aiding in getting down faster.
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