El Diente (14,159ft) is the the point on the right of the ridge. We (Paul and I) left Telluride around 5am and parked at the Rock of Ages trailhead close to 6am. This shot was taken from just below the Rock of Ages saddle (13,000ft) at 7:30am.
We took the 'North Buttress' route (roughly in the middle of the sunlit patch show above) up roughly 1,000 feet of excellent class 4 scrambling to the top. This took about 2.5hours. The ridge shown extending to the left leads to Mt. Wilson (14,246ft) and is one of Colorado's "4 Great Traverses."
Boom! I was completely worn out by 1,000ft of class 4 scrambling after a 6mile 5500ft elevation gain approach. But, I was also overjoyed to be standing (sitting) on the summit. You can see Mt. Wilson over my right shoulder. We had originally planned to complete the traverse and bag a 2nd summit but as we looked at storm clouds approaching knew that we had to descend and come back another day. I was disappointed not to be able to complete one of the most 'classic' traverses in Colorado but knew that I was making the right choice and would be back another day.
It rained intermittently the whole way down from the summit and back to the car. Although we heard plenty of thunder, we saw no lightning and for the most part stayed ahead of what sounded like the worst parts of the afternoon storm. We made the right choice to descend and were in high spirits walking back to the car past old mines and dense forests with colorful leaves.
A classic Colorado day capped and complete by an incredible rainbow arcing over Telluride where we spent the night after a fantastic day of climbing.
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