Hayden Peak is a 12,987-foot summit in Colorado’s Sneffels Range, northwest of Telluride, within the Mount Sneffels Wilderness and Uncompahgre National Forest. Part of the San Juan Mountains west of the Continental Divide, it is distinguished by sharp local relief, with its south face rising about 2,000 feet above Deep Creek in roughly a mile. The peak was named for geologist Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden, whose survey team studied western Colorado from 1873 to 1876, and the name was officially adopted by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. Its alpine subarctic climate brings snowy winters, brief summers, and year-round precipitation.