Canby Mountain (13,478) & "Stony Pass Peak" (13,165) by Brian Schultz Sunday July 28, 2013

Roundtrip mileage: 3.1 miles from Stony Pass

Elevation gain: 1,300'

Start to finish: 1 hour 20 minutes for Canby Mountain and 50 minutes for "Stony Pass Peak"

Participants: Tim Briese & Brian Schultz

The weather forecast called for rain in the morning along with 80% chance of thunderstorms. It didn't sound very encouraging but a least we'd have the benefit of starting from the high elevation of Stony Pass and the peaks would have very little elevation gain and mileage. We slept in a bit before driving from Ridgway to Silverton and up to Stony Pass. It rained on the drive up and it was raining when we parked at the pass (~12650'). It was also bone-chilling cold when we began at 8:35 AM. On a positive note, we easily found the described trail on the east side of the road and it was a good one.

In addition to the rain, the wind was blowing hard, which wasn't much fun because we had to keep our heads turned to the side, but it was only a mile to the top and we claimed the summit at 9:20. Needless to say, we stuck around only long enough to sign the register. We hiked back down nonstop, reached the truck at 9:55, and started up the engine to warm up.

I was still cold when we departed at 10:20 for "Stony Pass Peak" and had to keep moving to stop from shivering. There was no trail as we headed west from the pass but the terrain was easy. Grassy slopes transitioned into a mix of talus and grass and we reached the summit at 10:45. It was too cold to enjoy the summit so we immediately turned around and made it back to the truck at 11:10. At least we picked some easy thirteeners today. We drove back to Silverton and had a tasty lunch at Handlebars.