- Date: September 23, 2018
- Distance: 9.3 miles round trip, 3,462 ft elevation gain – 8 hours – half of this was walking up a 4 wheel drive road from where I parked – from the trailhead the hike is 3 miles round trip
- Rating: Moderate (one exposed section near the top)
- Wildlife: pika, marmots, Moose family (near Silverton on the drive there)
Getting there
Take highway 550 to Ouray, which is 75 miles north of Durango, CO. Above town, take the left onto Camp Bird Mine Road. This is also the ice climbing park area. This is a gravel road and will pass a campground (with a bathroom). 
Keep going and stay to the right at the first fork. About 7 miles in you will come to the ghost town of Sneffels and the remnants of a mining mill on the left. There is some parking here if you don’t have high clearance or four wheel drive.
The road continues up, staying to the right again, into Yankee Boy Basin. There will be another parking area and warning sign that the road is becoming more difficult. There is another bathroom along the way! (Sorry, but I found this exciting) And it was a composting toilet. There is a nice waterfall along the way and views of Blue Lake Pass.
Just a little further to the trailhead. The trail winds uphill and then passes Blue Lake (one of 3 Blue Lakes in the area). From here you can continue to the left marked “trail” or to the right along the road, passing the parking area closest to the trailhead.
The left trail climbs to a flat meadow with views of the first couloir to be climbed. From here, an alternate route is to continue straight (south) on the trail towards Blue Lakes Pass. I heard it was a little more technical and exposed on the ridge. So I went downhill to the right along the main trail. It was about 50/50 on the summit of who went each way.
From here it’s a deceivingly short distance to the summit. It will be slow going up and down as it is scree and tallus from here on up.
I found that staying off the center of the worn trail and using the larger rocks to step on helped lessen the slipping when it got steep.
Take a break at the saddle and enoy the view!
The second couloir, I found a littler easier than the first. It is shorter and there are large rocks to scramble over.
Until this section (shown below) near the top of the couloir on the left. Apparently there used to be some rock steps which are now gone. So it requires a little bit of wedging yourself in, using holds (which are plenty) and not looking back down. Guidebook ratings may have been based on those steps being there before. This was the only section of the trail where we weren’t quite sure where to go.
After that it’s a very short scramble to the summit.
And check out the views from the top!
Step carefully on the way down with those rubber legs!
A few more images from the day
And more moose!
Getting there is ALL the Fun 