The Cleaver and Chair Mountain

Jul 19, 2026 — Chair Mountain is a high-prominence summit in the Raggeds Wilderness, a gorgeous, bright-white talus lump that sits (ha, ha) above the other similarly-featured summits of the Raggeds Massif to the south that we hiked the previous day. Despite its immense beauty, the remoteness of this peak and the frustrating red tape prevent much visitation. It’s a massive bummer that access is restricted because Chair Mountain is a true gem of Colorado, and even more of a bummer that more accessible routes (aka from the south) would totally bypass the fun Class 3 scramble route using the peak’s east ridge, and instead require lots of annoying talus-hopping/slipping.

Note that we first tacked on The Cleaver, which has a Class 4 south ridge. It’s the only Class 4 on this whole loop route, and I recommend bypassing The Cleaver to keep the day less scary, more below.

We went into the day with the thought that we could snag Ragged Peak after failing to do so yesterday, this time approaching from the north. A potential storm yet again foiled that plan. Originally we hoped the crest connecting Chair Mountain and Ragged Peak would go, but it seemed far too sketchy upon seeing it with our eyes and not on a topo map, though we are pretty confident a route would have gone splendidly using the talus basin between them. More on that later.

Whiley, Ben, Luke, and I drove up from McClure Pass on a decent dirt road, likely passable by any vehicle with at least some clearance. We parked at the Raggeds Trailhead, just outside a gate that strictly stated “Road closed: vehicle travel beyond this point limited to those authorized by forest service special permit.” We reasoned we were on foot, so we ventured along the road. Feeling cocky, like we’d really stuck it to the man, after 1.5 miles, we reached a much more explicit sign that we couldn’t seem to find a loophole for. It read: “Private property uphill from this sign. No access to forest or Chair Mountain. This is not a forest road. Trespassing prohibited. Property patrolled by sheriff and private patrols.” So yeah, wow, that made it extremely clear. However, we had the land ownership boundary mapped out, so rather than risk getting caught on the road, we began our annoying bushwhack along the property’s perimeter.

Our intention was to wrap around the private property boundary and stay within national forest land, and we managed to do so. If you look at my attached map/GPX, I drew a straight line that marks this boundary rather than include our actual track, just in case we accidentally did venture lightly into the territory, so that you know where the actual private land is and can keep clear. What we did might be a gray area, since there’s a chance the National Forest land nearby is also off-limits, but we did our best due diligence and kept clear of the private property buildings along the way.

After over a mile of mostly reasonable ‘shwhacking while mostly contouring to not lose too much elevation gain, we made our way to the base of an 11er called The Cleaver. The northern slope seemed very tame, though it was a steep 2000’ of vertical gain, but we knew we’d need to take the south ridge to connect over to Chair Mountain, otherwise we’d need to backtrack nearly all the way back down to wrap around its scary western cliffs. We knew the south ridge had some Class 4 from previous reports, but we clearly didn’t think it through enough. In hindsight, this detour was a bad time investment for a few reasons: we got more of an adrenaline pump than we wanted to today, we lost lots of time we could have spent tacking on Ragged Peak, but most of all, our party split up when Whiley and Ben decided to back off the descent and bail for the day, leaving Luke and me to frolic up to Chair Mountain without our fun companions.

The northern slope of The Cleaver was clear of brush, starting out with a grassy slope, then an open forest, and finally a ridgeline that thinned to bald and introduced some Class 2 for a couple of hundred feet up to its summit. Chair Mountain looked spectacular ahead. We began hiking gingerly down along the treacherous south ridge, the route insidiously steepening until we we were using scraggly roots as handholds to confirm we wouldn’t slip. When the ridge proper no longer seemed viable, we noted a spot to the right (west) that seemed less of a straight-drop and decided to start scrambling down here. We probably could have tried venturing farther along the ridgeline to locate a better descent option, but as you can likely tell from my report so far, today was a day of ridiculous decisions by ridiculous people doing a ridiculous activity. So why not continue this theme? Plus, it might have actually been even worse along the ridge.

Anyway, I won’t even describe the nonsense descent from The Cleaver that Luke and I took because it was really dumb and not fun at all. But we did have four points of contact most of the time and scurried along at least one exposed ledge. After an embarrassingly long time, we made it down to the talus below and began our ascent toward Chair Mountain. We tried looking up for possible better descent options we could have taken, but nothing seemed all that clear. After all the little hurdles and poor choices we’d made today, I basically said I wasn’t even going to write a report for this outing. But Chair Mountain was too cool and we were, somehow, having a lot of fun.

A half mile on excessive Class 2 talus led us to the base of Chair Mountain’s east ridge, which would serve as our ascent route. We had not expected to see what appeared to be a talus wall ahead of us, the kind that looks like pulling out one boulder would collapse the whole face. We drew closer and located the least steep-looking section of the slope and took our sweet time to not kick a rockslide onto one another. I’ll call this Class 3, but it certainly had more objective danger than the subsequent ridgeline scramble we’d be enjoying. Fortunately, the upper, steeper reaches of the slope had more solid scrambling options than the lower, so our concern was alleviated.

We had reached the stunning east ridge of Chair Mountain and began the real fun! Although there wasn’t a ton of actual Class 3, we did encounter a handful of such moves, but the remainder of the extended ridgeline offered plenty of Class 2+ on solid, massive boulders. The north face of Chair Mountain was no less than epic to behold, and the crest was wide enough that we felt safe to scramble-play, though thin enough that it felt like it could turn into a knife-edge at any time, but it never did. A couple of spots along the crest proper pushed us just to its left, nothing cryptic enough to warrant a detailed description. We located a Class 2/3 chute toward the top that provided access to the summit. And of course the summit view was fantastic.

Our original plan was to attempt the ridge crest from Chair Mountain to Ragged Peak, but it was far too dangerous-looking to commit to since there was a potential for thunderstorms. And even though a storm did seem to be forming, we thought we could maybe still find the time to get to Ragged Peak by dropping into Buck Creek Basin and then regaining the ridgeline just below its summit. I think we both sort of knew we weren’t going to actually do this, but it was clear we were trying to subconsciously fabricate a reason to drop into Buck Creek Basin to create a loop route, and our excuses were just us grasping at straws. True, we did not like the idea of returning the way we came mostly because of the private property nonsense, but really, I think mostly Luke and I wanted to go on a little uncharted bushwhack adventure together, and so we decided this southern descent from Chair Mountain could work well.

Although we ultimately had fun and didn’t regret our choice, it was yet another ridiculous decision that I actually don’t really recommend. Basically our route took a long time, we got swarmed by more mosquitos than either of us have ever experienced, and we ended up trespassing for a substantial amount of time. So, you can read on if you’re interested, but it would probably be best to just return the same way, but bypassing The Cleaver.

Our descent from Chair Mountain was down a sea of talus, the rocks of which were usually big enough to boulder-hop, but more often was a dinner-plate style of talus that was tedious. Even better, toward the bottom of our slope choice, we reached an impassable cliff we’d not anticipated and had to traverse east to locate a Class 2+ route around it. More talus ensued, and then more. We could see grass below, but it was always just a patch not worth the effort to get to, or difficult to reach at all due to cliffs, so we just decided to commit to our talus hell until reaching a grassy slope at about 10,800′. This led into the Buck Creek drainage, where mosquitos began attacking us and would not let up until much later. We could barely manage to fill our water filters in the light flow of the creek because we sort of preferred to be dehydrated than be eaten alive. Besides the general beauty of this verdant basin with stunning cliffs hugging it, there wasn’t much to report.

We intended to drop all the way down to the Raggeds Trail and take this back to the trailhead in order to avoid private property, but at around 9800′, we got a visual on the official trail about 1000 feet below us, and between face-swats we managed to agree we’d continue our bushwhack as a contour and join the private roads located at a much higher elevation rather than stick to the mosquito-y watercourse, and also to save our legs the additional vertical regain later. You could keep this part of the loop legal by continuing to drop down to the Raggeds Trail, and I’d actually probably recommend doing so. Who knows if there would have been trouble if we were caught on the roads.

Our bushwhack contour was pretty heinous. Fortunately none of the plants were nettles or prickly, but we dipped in and out of many little streams along the slope, and were high-stepping nearly continuously. Occasional animal trails assisted us, but our laughing at this absurdity and the bliss of a true little adventure kept our spirits high. I guess sometimes it’s nice to not plan an exact route and instead make silly decisions with a silly friend. Eventually we reached an old dirt road that merged with a more heavily-used dirt road. We followed this for a couple of miles past various residences of the overly-wealthy and dropped west down a slope at a point where it made sense to join the legal Raggeds Trail a few hundred feet below us. I suppose since we had already been on this illegal road for a significant time, we could have just followed it back to the trailhead, but some singletrack was welcomed and the forest hike back on the trail was beautiful.