Music Pass 3-Day — eight Sangre de Cristo 13ers from one camp (Class 3)¶
Other climbers: Kyle Knutson — ✓ all · Shawn D Keil — not yet
At a glance — 3-day trip
8 peaks · ~4.36 h drive
- Day 1 (milwaukee): 19.5 mi · 6,939 ft gain
- Day 2 (tijeras): 10.3 mi · 4,835 ft gain
- Day 3 (cleveland): 15.9 mi · 6,360 ft gain
NOAA weather link: Music Pass Weather
Drive from Denver: ~4h 25m via Google Maps
CalTopo research map: https://caltopo.com/m/2LUKC5H
Researched: 2026-07-30
Status in Peak Checklist: all eight unclimbed by Emily.
Note: the recommended route was distilled from 34 recorded GPS tracks of real trips (14ers.com · ListsofJohn · peakbagger) — all layered on the interactive CalTopo research map.
Why this trip is shaped the way it is¶
Kyle has climbed all eight of these, and his own recordings split along exactly these three
days. The day structure here is not a proposal — it is what he actually walked, pulled from his
CalTopo map C105AEV and layered on the research map in blue:
| Kyle's recording | Points | Matches |
|---|---|---|
Milwaukee, Pico Aislado, 13,20A_actual |
2,342 | Day 1 |
Tijeras, Music_actual |
1,337 | Day 2 |
13,401, Cleveland, 13,384, Dead Man_actual |
3,388 | Day 3 |
That is the strongest kind of beta available for a trip like this: not a stranger's track, but a partner's, over the identical peak groupings, from the identical trailhead — and someone who can be asked about it directly.
Peaks covered¶
Eight summits, all from Music Pass (10,674') in the northern Sangre de Cristo.
| Day | Peak | Elev | Class |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Milwaukee Pk | 13,526' | 2 |
| 1 | Pico Aislado | 13,621' | 2 |
| 1 | PT 13,020 A | 13,028' | 2 |
| 2 | Music Mtn | 13,365' | 3 |
| 2 | Tijeras Peak | 13,612' | 3 |
| 3 | Cleveland Pk | 13,404' | 2+ |
| 3 | "Dead Man Pk" | 13,048' | 2 |
| 3 | PT 13,392 | 13,392' | 2 |
Milwaukee Pk is unranked — it does not carry a CO rank, so it will not appear in a standard ranked-13er search. It is included here because it sits directly on the Day 1 line.
Saguache County — Sangre de Cristo Wilderness, Rio Grande / San Isabel National Forests.
The three days¶
Each day is its own route from the same trailhead, so this works as a car-camp at Music Pass rather than a backpack — no camp moves, no pack-in leg.
Day 1 — Milwaukee + Pico Aislado + PT 13,020 A · ~19.5 mi / ~6,939 ft¶
Over Music Pass and up the Sand Creek basin — much the biggest day of the three. Three Class 2 summits.
This is the one day nobody records from the car. Every recorded trip to these three peaks from
this side camps at the Sand Creek junction, about 2.3 mi in over the pass, and climbs from there.
The line here is the Music Pass Trail to that junction (3.5 mi each way) wrapped around
trk_loj_220, the one recording that tours all three summits from the basin — 12.6 mi of it,
because that party covered a lot of ground between the peaks.
The obvious variation is the one those parties chose: carry a light camp over the pass and do this group from Sand Creek. That turns 19.5 mi into a 12.6 mi day with a 3.5 mi walk in the evening before and out the morning after.
Shorter lines through this basin exist on paper, but the shortest one climbs over Music Mtn — which is Day 2's summit, and doing it twice is not a saving.
Day 2 — Music Mtn + Tijeras Peak · ~10.3 mi / ~4,835 ft¶
The hard day. Both summits are Class 3, and this is the shortest day precisely because the terrain is slower. Tijeras is the high point of the trip at 13,612'.
Day 3 — Cleveland + "Dead Man" + PT 13,392 · ~15.9 mi / ~6,360 ft¶
A single clean loop, and the biggest of the two days that stay on trail the whole way out and back. Cleveland is Class 2+ (Lists of John; peak_db understates it as 2), the other two Class 2. The route builder chose a whole recorded loop here over stitched legs, because the stitched version re-climbed a peak.
No day crosses Marble Mtn A. It sits above the Music Pass approach and one recorded track climbs over it on the way in, but that is that party's detour, not part of any of these three days — the route builder now rejects a segment that summits a ranked peak the trip is not going to, so all three lines stay in the drainage.
Day 2 is Class 3 — the trip's headline grade comes from it
Six of the eight summits are Class 2 walk-ups. Music Mtn and Tijeras are Class 3, and the connecting terrain between them is the crux of the trip rather than either summit. Helmet for that day. If the party wants an easier trip, dropping Day 2 leaves six Class 2 peaks over two days.
Getting there — Music Pass TH¶
| Drive from Denver | ~4h 25m via Google Maps — 165 mi |
| Trailhead | Music Pass TH, 37.92477, −105.48769, 10,674' — a mapped highway=trailhead node with USFS parking, fee=no |
| Road | Music Pass Road is unpaved but smoothness=good. Higher-clearance vehicles can continue past the lower lot; the figures here start from the mapped trailhead. |
| Wilderness | Sangre de Cristo Wilderness — standard LNT, no permits. |
Gear & season¶
- Best window: July through September.
- Terrain: Class 2 on six summits, Class 3 on Music Mtn and Tijeras. No rope in season.
- Vehicle: the unpaved road is graded; any high-clearance vehicle is comfortable.
- Storms: all three days are largely above treeline — early starts each morning.
- Cell: unreliable; carry a satellite messenger.
Trip reports & GPX (all three sources)¶
All three sources swept across all eight objective peaks and deduped, plus 35 mapped OSM
ways and Kyle's three _actual recordings — all layered on the
research map.
- 14ers.com: peaks 10638, 10622, 10690, 10655, 10623, 10651, 10688, 10654 — 23 GPX-library tracks (plus 1 duplicate).
- listsofjohn.com: peaks 300, 230, 797, 418, 231, 387, 774, 409 — 8 tracks from 20 trip reports.
- peakbagger.com: peaks 14665, 14610, 84751, 56735, 18902, 18903, 84752, 15884 — 5 ascent tracks with GPS (plus 9 duplicates).
Sources checked: 14ers.com ✓ · listsofjohn.com ✓ · peakbagger.com ✓