July 21, 2021

By Tim Briese

After our arduous climb yesterday and my close call with an errant boulder I was ready for something easier on my body and spirit today, and Brian was on board with that. We made a leisurely start this morning and headed down to the Cochetopa Pass area from Gunnison to climb some ranked 10ers.

Unnamed 10655: 1.1 miles, 350’ elevation gain, 0:48 roundtrip time

We found road NN14 to Cochetopa Pass to be a nice graded road in excellent condition, and a couple of miles before the pass we turned left onto FR 805. This road is little more than a two wheel track and we missed it at first but once we got on it we found it to be pretty smooth and easy to drive. We soon reached an unlocked gate that we opened and went through. About a mile and a half from NN14 we parked at a road junction in the forest at about 10,300 feet.

we parked here and headed right into the woods behind the truck

From the parking spot we bushwhacked southeast about a half mile up through the woods to the cairned summit, which took a bit over 20 minutes. There was a little deadfall on the hike but it wasn’t bad.

the summit area of the peak

In short order we returned to the vehicles. This was a fun little climb.

Unnamed 10556: 1.3 miles, 500’ elevation gain, 1:32 roundtrip time

We returned to NN14 and drove up to Cochetopa Pass (10,067’) and parked. There were some mountain bikers who had camped there and were just packing up and leaving. A nearby sign said this road is the location of an historic stage route.

sign at cochetopa pass

we parked here at the pass and hiked into the woods beyond the vehicles

We headed south up the slope from the pass and found a little undergrowth to deal with and a short stiff climb up to an open spot on a ridge with nice views to the southwest. From there we followed an easy curving ridge up to the summit.

a nice view of the la garita mountains from the ridge

we followed the ridge at the left around up to the summit, at the right

This ascent took about 35 minutes. It was peaceful sitting on top, with the sound of the breeze blowing through the trees, and some broken views, and we sat and relaxed for about half an hour before retracing our steps back down to the pass.

a peaceful moment on top of unnamed 10556

Unnamed 10389: 1.3 miles, 400’ elevation gain, 1:10 roundtrip time

From Cochetopa Pass we continued down the road to the east about a mile and parked along the road at about 10,000’. We hiked up through the woods to the south a little over a half mile to the summit. This was an easy climb with little deadfall and it only took about 25 minutes to reach the top.

on the summit of unnamed 10389

Upon returning to the vehicles we rested with a Coke for a few minutes before driving down to Saguache for ice cream bars, then I headed for home. This was a fun day.