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The Outdoors Journal

Field-tested guides and trail stories.

Trip reports, gear reviews, and how-tos from the Outdoors team. Plan smarter, explore further.

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Huron Peak: The Sawatch summit with one of the great alpine basin views

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Huron Peak: The Sawatch summit with one of the great alpine basin views

Huron Peak is the southernmost of the major Collegiate Peaks. Its standard route ascends one of the most photogenic alpine basins in the state — the Three Apostles cirque on its eastern flank.

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Outdoors Team··3 min read
Missouri Mountain: The third summit of the Belford-Oxford-Missouri triple

Missouri Mountain: The third summit of the Belford-Oxford-Missouri triple

Missouri Mountain is the third 14er of the Missouri Gulch trailhead — a sustained Class 2 climb to a sharp ridge summit. Often paired with Belford and Oxford for a strong triple-14er day.

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Outdoors Team··3 min
Mount Columbia: The Harvard–Columbia traverse partner

Mount Columbia: The Harvard–Columbia traverse partner

Mount Columbia is climbed by most parties as the second summit of a long Mount Harvard linkup. The connecting ridge is a sustained Class 3 — one of the great Sawatch traverses.

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Outdoors Team··3 min
Mount Oxford: The British university 14er

Mount Oxford: The British university 14er

Mount Oxford is climbed almost exclusively as a traverse from neighboring Mount Belford. It's the only Collegiate Peak named for a non-American university — a 1925 addition to the established Ivy-League theme.

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Outdoors Team··3 min
Mount Belford: The Sawatch triple-summit day

Mount Belford: The Sawatch triple-summit day

Mount Belford anchors a popular three-peak ridge with Oxford and Missouri Mountain. The standard climb from Missouri Gulch Trailhead is among the most-efficient triple-14er linkups in the state.

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Outdoors Team··3 min
Mount Yale: The Collegiate Peak with the cleanest summit walk

Mount Yale: The Collegiate Peak with the cleanest summit walk

Mount Yale is the Collegiate 14er with the most accessible standard route — a clean Class 2 walk from Avalanche Trailhead. It sits between Princeton and Columbia on the same Sawatch ridge.

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Outdoors Team··3 min
Mount Princeton: The Collegiate Peaks' southern showpiece

Mount Princeton: The Collegiate Peaks' southern showpiece

Mount Princeton rises straight out of the Arkansas River valley above Buena Vista — a clean, photogenic east-face triangle that defines the southern end of the Collegiate Peaks.

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Outdoors Team··3 min
Mount Antero: The aquamarine-bearing 14er of the Sawatch

Mount Antero: The aquamarine-bearing 14er of the Sawatch

Mount Antero is the Sawatch peak with a 4WD road climbing nearly to its summit — a road built originally for the famous aquamarine and topaz mines on its upper face. It's the highest gem-mining locality in North America.

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Outdoors Team··4 min
Castle Peak: The high point of the Elk Mountains

Castle Peak: The high point of the Elk Mountains

Castle Peak is the highest summit in the Elk Mountains at 14,279 feet. Its standard Northeast Ridge is the gentlest of the major Elk peaks — a meaningful Class 2 break from the more committing Maroon, Capitol, and Pyramid in the same range.

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Outdoors Team··4 min
Mount Cameron: The contested fourteener of the DeCaLiBron loop

Mount Cameron: The contested fourteener of the DeCaLiBron loop

Mount Cameron sits on the ridge between Democrat and Lincoln, just 138 feet of prominence above its parent. The strict 300-foot rule excludes it from "official" 14er counts; the climbing community counts it anyway.

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Outdoors Team··3 min
Mount Bross: The closed 14er at the south end of DeCaLiBron

Mount Bross: The closed 14er at the south end of DeCaLiBron

Mount Bross' summit has been closed to public access since 2005 due to mining-claim and private-property disputes. The peak is the south anchor of the DeCaLiBron loop and remains one of Colorado's most legally complex 14ers.

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Outdoors Team··4 min
Mount Democrat: The DeCaLiBron loop's entry peak

Mount Democrat: The DeCaLiBron loop's entry peak

Mount Democrat anchors the western end of the Mosquito Range's DeCaLiBron loop. At 14,155 feet, it's the first summit of a famous four-peak day from Kite Lake.

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Outdoors Team··3 min