Purple Peak

Purple Peak is a 12,800-foot summit in Colorado’s Elk Mountains, in the Raggeds Wilderness of Gunnison National Forest near Crested Butte along the Ruby Range. Its most striking feature is its steep relief, rising 1,760 feet above Blue Lake in only half a mile and giving the mountain a sharp profile. Runoff from its slopes feeds Oh-be-joyful Creek, the Slate River, Silver Creek, Ruby Anthracite Creek, and ultimately the North Fork Gunnison River. In an alpine subarctic climate, it has cold, snowy winters, cool to warm summers, year-round precipitation, summer thunderstorms, and a drier period in late spring. The name was officially adopted in 1965.

Colorado · United States