Mount Sopris
Jaywalker's Signature Mountain

(adapted by permission from the book Wild Snow, by Louis Dawson.)

Mount Sopris in autumn, viewed from west near Carbondale, Colorado.

In Colorado, drive Interstate Highway 70 to the town of Glenwood Springs, then head up the Roaring Fork Valley towards the town of Carbondale. If you enjoy mountain vistas, be prepared to pull over. Rising before you will be colossal Mount Sopris, western bastion of the Elk Mountains, and one of Colorado's most tempting hikes and backcountry ski descents. Sopris is not a fourteener. It's not even a thirteener. Nonetheless, in a vertical thrust seldom seen in western Colorado, Sopris rises 6,000 vertical feet from the Crystal River Valley. Five glorious cirques radiating from its double topped crown: two identical height summits 1 1/2 miles apart and 12,953-feet high.

While many of Colorado summits have boring or mundane names, Sopris is an exception. The peak is named after Richard Sopris (1813-1893), one of Colorado’s first explorers. Sopris was born in Pennsylvania and migrated west in 1858 with the gold boomers. He was successful in mining the Platte River area and settled in Denver. However, wanderlust was Sopris' ilk (or perhaps he was broke). In spring of 1860 he organized a group of fifteen gold prospectors to explore west of the "Snowy Range," the huge barrier of the Continental Divide west of Denver. The crew took a roundabout route, eventually traveling over the hills south from the Vail area to the Roaring Fork Valley, then to the base of what they named Sopris Peak, now called Mount Sopris.

Once the visited Mount Sopirs, their journey wasn't over. They headed downvalley and discovered the famed Glenwood Hot Springs, then spent several months swinging through southern Colorado. While the Sopris expedition didn't find gold, they helped make the first functional map of Colorado. Richard Sopris went on to a life of farming and politics in the Denver area. No doubt, it was men such as Sopris who laid the foundations for our North American mountain culture, such as that of Carbondale enjoyed by Jaywalker Lodge.

Skiing from the summit of Mount Sopris. WildSnow.com photo

Mount Sopris is easy to climb; the first Anglo ascent was made in 1873 by Dr. Albert Peale and other Hayden Survey workers. During the Elks' mining boom of the mid 1800's, the area around Mount Sopris was the district's bread basket. It was during this time that a network of roads developed around the north side of the peak, with one track ascending to Thomas Lakes, a pair of tarns at 10,200 feet. In the 1950's and 1960's, spring skiers such as Aspen newspaperman Bil Dunaway jeeped to Thomas Lakes and skied Mount Sopris. The Thomas Lakes road was closed to summer vehicle traffic in the 1970's, and recently closed to ATV traffic. While you can't drive as close as before, Sopris hiking and skiing is still popular among alpinists in the Roaring Fork Valley.