This is a neat, out-of-place mountain that doesn’t get much attention. It should, though.
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I climbed Round Mountain the day after climbing The Cheesebox and Mexican Hat, and an hour after climbing Elephant Butte. It was the end of a great and highly productive two-day adventure blitz.
I first saw the mountain a few weeks ago when climbing Parriott Mesa. It’s just this random mountain sticking up all by itself in the middle of Castle Valley. I looked online and couldn’t find any beta or information about how to climb it, but it wasn’t too hard to figure out.
The route is pretty easy. You park your car and hike up a 4WD dirt road toward the mountain. Once you get close to it, you can pretty much just start hiking up wherever you feel comfortable. The true summit of the mountain is the northern-most peak.
- Summit elevation: 6,185′
- Starting elevation: 5,358′ (where non-4WD vehicles park, as indicated on the map below)
- Elevation gain: 827′
- My times: 55 minutes to the top, 1 hr 35 minutes car-to-car (and that’s with parking farther away than marked on the map below and taking my time exploring some cliffs)
Round Mountain is the bump in the middle of the valley, right of center in the photo (and in front of the snowy peaks). View from Parriott Mesa.
Round Mountain approach and route beta.
View of Round Mountain from the parking area.
Looking toward the mountain from the approach dirt road.
Nice cliffs on the side of Round Mountain.
A closer look at the cliffs. Volcanic rock of some kind…
Looking south to the La Sal Mountains.
Looking north toward Parriott Mesa (left) and Castleton Tower (right) from the summit.
Looking down at the dirt approach road.
The Priest, the Rectory, and Castleton Tower