Wetterhorn Peak (Southeast Ridge)

I enjoyed my time in the San Juan’s and on Uncompahgre so much that I decided to knock out Wetterhorn the same day.  The week before I put up a post on 14ers.com looking for a hiking partner for the pair and was happy to find a cool dude to join me for Wetterhorn Peak.  Looking back it was really nice having a partner for this climb as this was one of more technical and exposed 14ers I have been on.
Wetterhorn
Wetterhorn Peak(left) and Matterhorn Peak(Right)

The approach to Wetterhorn Peak was similar to Uncompahgre, you will follow well marked single track up to the ridge taking you up and around to the back side of Wetterhorn.  This where the climb becomes more difficult but fun!  Route finding was a little tricky as there seemed to be multiple marked paths. Luckily my 14ers.com friend had studied the route and he had it down pretty well.wizzer
Eric getting ready to start the fun part of the climb.going up!
Eric making his way up the 1st class 3 section.
We followed a well marked fairly wide ridge to the back side of Wetterhorn, eventually this ridge stops and you just turn and start the class 3 climbing up to the summit.  The rock was fairly stable in most places, but we gave each other plenty of room to avoid showering rocks down on each other.  It was a class 3 grind all the way up to the summit and was a lot of fun!  Uncompahgre
A look back at Uncompahgre from Wetterhorn.
We were very lucky with the weather on the summit, it was 60 degrees with 0 wind and barley a cloud in the sky.  After some summit pictures and a few snacks we started making our way back down.  Climbing back down the class 3 route we had just came up seemed harder than going up. We just took it slow and managed to work our way back to the easy flowing single track back to the car.  Over all this was one of my favorite 14ers this year and Is a definite repeat in my book.

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