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Red Mountain Creek: Ironton Park to Peters Pass

Mountains of Minerals | Friday – Sunday, August 1-3, 2025

This weekend I headed up into the San Juan Mountains near Ouray so I could hike a few new trails and explore some of the old mining ruins that are found along the upper reaches of Red Mountain Creek from Ironton Park up to Peters Pass. The weather forecast for the weekend was looking pretty dry, but there was bound to be some smoke in the air from all the wildfires currently burning in the southwest this summer. As usual, I left from work on Friday afternoon, stopped for a quick dinner in Delta and then continued up the Million Dollar Highway to the Red Mountain Mining District for my first hike which would take me to the Corkscrew Gulch Turntable and American Girl Mine.

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Three Out of Three: Red Mountain No. 2

National Summit Day | Final Peak on the Abrams – Anvil Ridge
Friday – Saturday, August 2-3, 2019

Over the years I’ve viewed the summit of Red Mountain No. 2 from many different vantage points; reflected in Crystal Lake from Ironton Park, along the Jeep road to Corkscrew Pass, while exploring the old mining buildings of the Red Mountain Mining District below, and from the top of many of the surrounding peaks in the area. This weekend I had a concert to go to on Saturday evening so I was looking for a peak to climb that was pretty short and close to home. Since I’d already climbed Red Mountain #1 and Red Mountain #3 I figured it was finally time to finish off the trio. Not only would this be my third and final summit of the Red Mountains, but Red Mountain #2 was also the only peak along the ridge on the east side of the Million Dollar Highway between Abrams Mountain and Anvil Mountain that I had not climbed yet, so it would be nice to finish that ridge, too. This turned out to be a fitting hike for Saturday morning since it was apparently National Summit Day, even though Red Mountain #2 is not a ranked, high or popular peak. Those are my favorite kind!

Red Mountain Colors

Fall Colors 2015 | Saturday, September 26, 2015

As usual, I spent the last weekend in September on my annual fall colors trip to photograph the changing of the seasons in the high country of Colorado. Instead of going away for the whole weekend, this time I just headed out on a day trip to the San Juan Mountains. From reports I had seen online, plus my trip last weekend, it appeared that the Red Mountain Pass area was changing colors nicely at this time, so that’s where I decided to go. Unfortunately, Diane wasn’t feeling well this weekend, so she ended up staying home today.

Tag: champion gulch

Red Mountain Creek: Ironton Park to Peters Pass

Three Out of Three: Red Mountain No. 2

Red Mountain Colors