ColoradoCool Apparel featured hike: Uncompahgre Peak
Alright, alright. This is a submission from one of our ColoradoCool Apparel OG's, Nick Gendill. Shout out to our boy Nick for trekking up Uncompahgre, the sixth highest summit in the Rocky Mountains and the highest the San Juan Mountains has to offer. Appreciate the submission brother!
"So it started at about 5:00 in the morning on Saturday, July 23rd when I woke up in the back of my Trailblazer at the Nellie Creek trailhead outside of Lake City, Colorado. Ate a couple granola bars and some jerky, and met up with some other rad hikers at 5:30. From there we drove up 4 miles of a pretty muddy, intense 4WD road... took about 45 minutes to jossle us all awake, and we hit the trail by around 6:30. After pushing through switchbacks for a good solid hour, we approached the base of the base of the peak; it would take us about another hour and half and about 2000 more feet of elevation gain to reach the summit.
After a short class 3 scramble as the trail wraps around the southwest part of the mountain, it leveled out to where the summit was in view... and there were definitely views an exposure! The San Juan mountain range is definitely one of the most lush and unique mountain ranges to hike in. You can get everything from smooth rivers and waterfalls, lush grassy slopes, to gnarly boulders, and extreme crags and arêtes. From the top of the 14309 foot Uncompahgre Peak, I saw roughly another 10 14ers. All together made for a fun adventure, and Lake City isn't too shabby of a mountain town to stop and get a burger and beer afterwards before a long drive back."
Cheers Nick!!! Thanks for the DOPE ColoCool photos and submission!!
