Keller Mountain — Rock Creek east ridge (Gore, Class 2+)¶
Other climbers: Emily Sharpe — not yet · Shawn D Keil — ✓ climbed
At a glance — recommended day
10.16 mi · 4,008 ft gain · Class 2+ · 1 peak · ~2.52 h drive
NOAA weather link: Keller Mountain Weather
CalTopo research map: https://caltopo.com/m/TNHK558
Researched: 2026-07-27
Status in Peak Checklist: unclimbed. A 13,080' ranked Gore summit on the east side of the range in the Eagles Nest Wilderness, reached up Rock Creek from north of Silverthorne. This is the shortest and closest of the remaining Gore reports — ~10 mi, ~4,000 ft, and the easiest drive from Boulder at ~2h 31m.
Combination Options: - Solo day trip — there's nothing left to pair it with. climb13ers notes Keller "can also be combined with North Traverse Peak" from this same trailhead, but you've already climbed North Traverse, so the natural partner is spent. All 8 swept tracks are Keller-only. - Easiest of the seven remaining Gore peaks. If you want one that isn't a big day, this is it — good bad-forecast or short-window objective. - Different side of the range from the Deluge Lake reports (Valhalla + Snow Pk, Mt Silverthorne) — those are the Vail/west side; this is the Silverthorne/east side. Not combinable in a day despite Keller sitting only ~2 mi from Valhalla as the crow flies.
Note: the recommended route was distilled from 8 recorded GPS tracks of real trips (14ers.com · ListsofJohn · peakbagger) — all layered on the interactive CalTopo research map.
Peak covered¶
Class 2+ and no more than that — climb13ers is blunt: "the climb should not exceed Class 2+ unless you deliberately find some scrambling you want to do." The east ridge is a walk-up in mountaineering terms; the interest is the ridge line itself and the wilderness setting.
| Peak | Elev | Class (route) | RT from TH (climb13ers) | peak_db |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keller Mountain | 13,080' | 2+ (East Ridge) | 9 mi / 3,610' | 731 |
In the Eagles Nest Wilderness (White River NF), Summit County — no permits or fees, standard wilderness rules. LiDAR reduced the elevation by 5 ft.
Getting there — Rock Creek (north of Silverthorne)¶
Drive from Boulder: ~2h 31m via Google Maps (origin: 1162 Peakview Circle) — I-70 W to Silverthorne (exit 205), north on CO-9, then west on Rock Creek Road to the trailhead. 97.6 mi.
| Trailhead — Rock Creek | ~39.71115,-106.16705, 9,465'. Passenger-car accessible (climb13ers); the Rock Creek Road approach is unpaved for the last stretch. climb13ers calls this the trailhead "for Front Range hikers." |
| Trail | Rock Creek Trail up the drainage, then onto Keller's east ridge. |
| Alternative TH | Bighorn Creek, 8,620' (Vail side) — the South Ridge route, 13.2 mi / 4,975' RT, with "extremely limited" parking. Longer, and the wrong side coming from Boulder. |
Route — Rock Creek to the east ridge (Class 2+)¶
~10.2 mi · ~4,008 ft round trip — the recommended line follows an August 2025 recording verbatim, chosen because it is summer, starts at the researched trailhead, is essentially gap-free (max-gap 0.01 mi) and reaches the summit:
- Rock Creek Trail from the trailhead at 9,465' — up the drainage through the forest.
- Gain Keller's east ridge and follow it west. This is the line climb13ers documents as the East Ridge route (they quote 9 mi / 3,610'; the recorded track runs a little longer).
- The ridge walk to the 13,080' summit — Class 2+ at worst, with scrambling optional rather than required.
- Return by the same east ridge. This matters — see the warning below.
Come back the way you went up
climb13ers: "If you do not return by Keller's east ridge, expect a difficult bushwhack in beetle-kill forest." Beetle-kill means dead standing timber and deadfall — slow, scratchy and genuinely unpleasant. Descending a different drainage to "save time" is the classic mistake on this peak.
Gear & season¶
- Best window: July through September. East-side Gore drainage, so it melts out a bit earlier than the Deluge Lake side, but the upper ridge still holds snow into early summer.
- Gear: poles; nothing technical. No helmet or rope demand at Class 2+.
- Seasonality note worth knowing: the cleanest recorded track in the pool is a February ski/winter line, and two more are October shoulder-season. The recommended route deliberately uses an August recording so it reflects summer conditions.
- Beetle-kill forest on the lower mountain — expect deadfall, and don't count on off-trail shortcuts through it.
- Cell: patchy up the drainage. Carry an InReach.
Other considerations¶
This is the low-effort one. ~10 mi and ~4,000 ft, the shortest drive of the Gore set, and Class 2+ throughout. Of the seven remaining Gore reports it's the obvious pick for a marginal forecast, a late start, or a day when you want a summit without a 6,000 ft push.
The pairing that would have made it efficient is already done. climb13ers explicitly suggests Keller + North Traverse Peak from Rock Creek, and that's the natural two-peak day here — but North Traverse is already on your list, so Keller stands alone. Nothing else ranked is reachable from this trailhead in a day.
Two approaches, and the numbers aren't close. Rock Creek: 9 mi / 3,610'. Bighorn Creek (Vail side): 13.2 mi / 4,975', with a parking lot climb13ers describes as "extremely limited." Every recorded party in the swept pool used Rock Creek.
A backpack is possible but pointless here. climb13ers mentions "an excellent backpack approach possibility" from the Vail side — that's for people linking more peaks. At 10 mi round trip from Rock Creek, this is a day hike.
Trip reports & GPX (all three sources)¶
Sources confirmed logged in: 14ers.com ("letsgocu"), listsofjohn.com ("letsgocu"), peakbagger.com ("Kyle Knutson"). The peak's libraries were swept across all three sources and deduped — 8 recorded tracks — plus the full OSM trail network (27 mapped ways in the Rock Creek / Boulder Creek drainages), all layered on the CalTopo map.
- 14ers.com: peak page Keller Mountain (10240) — 2 tracks, one a trip-report attachment and one a GPX-Library upload (a February winter line, not used).
- listsofjohn.com: Keller Mtn (731) — 4 trip reports, 3 with downloadable GPX; cross-links the correct peakbagger pid (33066).
- peakbagger.com: Keller Mountain pid 33066 — 7 logged ascents, 3 with downloadable GPX, including the August 2025 recording the route is built from.
- climb13ers.com: Keller Mountain — both routes (East Ridge / South Ridge), both trailheads with elevations, the Class 2+ grade and the beetle-kill descent warning.
Sources checked: 14ers.com ✓ (logged in, "letsgocu") · listsofjohn.com ✓ (logged in, "letsgocu") · peakbagger.com ✓ (logged in, "Kyle Knutson")