The Coors Mountain Is Not Pikes Peak

The mountain on the Coors Light can is not Pikes Peak. It is not a generic Rocky Mountain composite. It is Wilson Peak, a specific fourteen-thousand-and-seventeen-foot summit in the San Juan Mountains near Telluride, in the Lizard Head Wilderness. It has been on the can in various stylized forms since nineteen seventy-eight, which means it has appeared on more containers of beer than any other specific mountain in history, though nobody has done the math on that precisely.

Wilson Peak is visible from several points along the road between Telluride and Norwood, on a clear day. It is a pointed summit with a distinctive triangular profile and a blue-gray band in the rock that the graphic artists working for Coors apparently found compelling. The clean graphic version on the can does not convey the climb. Wilson Peak is one of the more technically demanding fourteeners in Colorado, with the standard route requiring scrambling on loose rock above the final ridge, a section that filters out hikers who came up expecting a long walk. The summit register contains entries from people who drove past the Coors billboard in Telluride and then looked up and realized the mountain on the sign was the one they were about to climb.

This is not marketed. The connection between the can and the peak is known in climbing circles and Telluride history, less so to the general public. The mountain does not have a welcome center or a Coors branded overlook. It is just a mountain that a brewery decided looked right, in the summer of nineteen seventy-eight, and put on the label.