What

The Sneffels Round (or informally, Sneffelupagus), is a mountaineering challenge with a 100 hour time limit. Climb a whole bunch of peaks in one go, choosing your own route and selecting from several possible combinations of peaks. There are 39 peaks on the map, but depending on which "electives" you include, you can earn a full finish with as few as 34 or 35 peaks. The peaks include many 13ers and one 14er, Mt Sneffels. Assuming you select and locate the easiest way, none of the peaks are harder than Class 3. The route I would personally select is about 75 miles with 43,000 feet of vertical gain and is about 70% off-trail.

Qualifications

You must meet both of the following requirements:

1. Club membership. Head over here to sign up for club membership.

2. Relevant experience in terms of mountaineering, routefinding, and endurance.

Only qualified applicants will be considered.

Rules

1. You may register as an individual or team of up to three people. Team members may freely share gear or transfer loads to other members as desired. A team must stay together as long as it remains intact. If a team member drops or bails, the remaining team members may then continue as a smaller team (or individual, if there is only one person left). A dropped member may not later rejoin the team.

2. You or your team must supply and carry a tracker with messaging capability. Upon reaching any unstaffed control point, you must message HQ with your time, location, status, and planned route.

3. Staggered starts. Each individual or team will be assigned a separate start time with at least an hour between starts. Thereafter, each individual or team must travel in isolation from others unless there is an extraction-related emergency. When you encounter another team or individual participant, you may freely exchange information, but must proceed separately, assuming an emergency is not underway. A team that is overtaken should take a five minute break, assuming that it is safe to do so. The idea is that each individual or team is responsible for its own routefinding. Note: start times are assigned based on convenience to the run organizers, not necessarily your team! The published start time for the event is merely the earliest possible start time (yours may be up to 23 hours later).

4. No pacers.

5. No caches. Clarification: a legally parked vehicle is allowed, along with anything you might need inside of it, but please be conscious of the potential for interference from marmots, bears, and so on.

6. Crews are allowed only at the four designated checkpoints, anywhere legally reachable by truck or jeep (with a few examples highlighted with big orange dots), or anywhere along one of the Hike-In Crew routes (Blue Lakes Trail, Wright's Lake Trail, or the Ptarmigan Lake route) (orange lines on the map).

7. Vehicle rule: A participant may not travel by vehicle, even if the vehicle later returns to the same point. Resting in a stationary vehicle is allowed anywhere the vehicle may legally park.

8. Mechanical devices: Trekking poles, ice axes, and traction devices such as microspikes or crampons are allowed. Skis, packrafts, wingsuits, and so on are not. You may use climbing gear if you want to carry it. The intention is foot travel with occasional hand-and-foot or hand-foot-and-butt travel.

9. GPS is allowed.

10. There will be a mandatory gear list

Course

For course options and other details, see the website.

FAQ

Will this really take 100 hours? That's eighty minutes per mile.

Maybe. We don't want anyone, no matter how slow, to need to worry too much about cutoffs, as long as you keep moving. You shouldn't feel pressured to take more technical routes than you're comfortable with, and you have time to retreat from a bad route choice and try again. We also want to ensure that if you need to layover for safety reasons, like waiting for a storm to pass, that you will have at least some time to do so.

Why are certain peaks "elective"?

A portion of our intended audience would find some of them too spicy. Teakettle is rated Class 5. Potosi is loose Class 3. Emma is reasonable Class 3, but finding and staying on the route is non-trivial. By selecting your electives, you can construct a course of your choosing that remains within your comfort level. You need a total of six points worth of electives to qualify for a full finish.

Why was "Reconnoiter" removed?

It's tricky to keep at Class 3 or lower, and it connects poorly to the rest of the course, except as maybe an out and back, which doesn't seem that fun for something that isn't quite a thirteener.

Why aren't the Reds, McMillan, Ohio, Tower, Storm, Emery, and Bonita included?

That would make a nice circuit on its own. But we had to draw the line somewhere!

Are the Checkpoints a mandatory part of the course?

They are mandatory, but the order that you do things is up to you. You may also visit a given checkpoint more than once. There is one checkpoint, Ptarmigan Overlook, that you are required to visit twice.

What if I don't finish the whole thing?

Your score will be the total number of control points reached/satisfied within 100 hours. If you skip part of the course, but still proceed to the finish under your own power, the finish location simply counts as another control point.

Event's current local time: 4:12 PM MT