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Well I'm sitting at home now after getting back late Sat. night from the Lake City area in the San Juans. I picked up a little sunburn, a big blister, and a lot of dirt on this three day trip. Now that I'm home I'll share conditions and a report from the San Juans.
First off two weeks ago on June 2-3 I camped at the Blank Gulch trailhead to attempt Shavano, which had thwarted my efforts to climb it this year. I brought along my girlfriend who had done just one fourteener before (Grays) and thought the Class 2 mtn. would be a good one for her. We got a late start from the TH and creeped up the mountain. About 1/2 mile up the trail we were taking breaks for water and rest. At that point I doubted we would make the summit so resigned myself to just having a hike. She kept pushing on though and we made it to the saddle 1,000' feet below the summit. I was surprised we had made it this far so we started up the talus. We slowly picked our way through the cairned talus route and she decided she had had enough about 200-300 feet from the summit. I ran up to tag the summit and looked longingly at Tabeguache, which was so close but out of my reach since it was late etc. I'm glad I was able to make the summit and have her get another 14er and 1st camping experience.
The next jaunt to the mountains was three days later 6-6 into the Sawatch once again. I solicited my jeep- driving friend to go with me to Mt. Antero. We got a late start after buying groceries and swapping tops on the way to Baldwin Gulch so we made it to the turnoff at midnight. We crawled our ways up to a flat spot around 10,200' and parked for the night. We were too lazy to set up a tent so he slept in the jeep ( he swears it was comfortable) While I slept soundly in my new bivy bag (Thanks Steve-O). After sleeping through my alarm a jeep coming up the road the next morning woke me up. I left the jeep at perhaps 8:45 and started hiking. The route was most uninteresting since I was on the road the whole time but the gentle grade helped me zip up the peak. This was the first 14er I did alone and it was nice in some ways, such as I could go my own pace the whole way. I made the summit at around 11:00 less than 2.5 hours after starting. On the way down I contemplated dropping into Browns Creek Baisin and trying Tabeguache but decided I didn't have enough time or energy to do it and still have fun. I went down the road to the fork and had to hike a few miles up the other drainage to meet up with my friend who had been fishing at the ponds.
The San Juan trip 6-13 / 6-15 turned out to be quite fun and productive as far as THE LIST goes. I met up with my Dad in Co. Springs and loaded all the gear into our 85 Subaru Sedan. As I was driving in conjested traffic at 65 mph I got a flat tire and we had to stop, put on the spare and spend and hour to get the tire fixed. Onwards. We got to Lake City around 8:00 and headed up the road towards Silvercreek/Grizzly Gulch, camping at a campground since it was getting dark. The next morning we packed up and bounced up to American Baisin. On the shelf road a warning light came on as we bounced our way up. I couldn't ignore it anymore when I started seeing bright white sparks fly out from the hood. The battery holder had jostled itself back and contacted the terminal, sending sparks flying. After tying down the battery with accessory cord and clutch starting the car we were on our way again after car trouble #2. We made it to the 2WD parking for Handies, but not without bottoming out a few times. Handies turned out to be a lovely hike, entirely on a trail. I'd be hard pushed to call this route a class two. As for the wildflowers, they were there and I took a few close-ups but I've seen better for sure, especially in the San Juans. We made the summit around 10:30 and got a great view. We could see the Needles/Grenadiers and I could pick out the peaks I've read so much about (Trinities, Vestals, Wham Ridge etc.) To the West we could see the Wilsons, who still had a veil of snow from what I could see, the most snow I've seen on the peaks since winter. (Hope this can help DaveC) We drove down to the Grizzly Gulch/Silver Creek Trailhead and set up camp around 1:30. For several hours we sat in our folding chairs reading guidebooks, listening to music, and lounging--how nice. We went over and met some other people who had done Redcloud/Sunshine that day and were planning on Handies the next. Several hours passed by sharing beta, stories, and swapping lies. The next morn. we left the TH by 7 AM and went up Redcloud on the roundabout trail. It took around an hour to make our way over to Sunshine and spend time on the lowest 14er in North America. The smoke from the Durango fire was especially thick today and it obscured our nice view in a thick veil of haze. During the traverse I could smell whiffs of the age old smell of burning wood. We descended the ridge on an obscure trail and went down one of the scree gullies in the baisin to the W of the two peaks. It made a reasonable descent without having to re-climb Redcloud. The drainage had a decent climbers trail leading out through the trees back to the main trail. We drove back to Lake City and had the treat of having a hamburger in the middle of a trip. The plan was to make it to Matterhorn Ck TH for Wetterhorn/ Uncompahgre the next day. On the Henson creek road I was driving along, enjoying the views when my dad looked out the window and informed me we had a flat! Car trouble #3. The changeout was standard procedure by now and we soon had a spare on and were at the 2WD parking for camp. We had debated doing Uncompahgre/ Wetterhorn on seperate days but now decided to go for the combo. The next morning we left the TH at 5:45 and made our way up the road to 4WD parking. As we passed by we noticed three cars with two guys getting ready at one of them. We made our way all 8 miles up Uncompahgre staying on trail the whole way. Uncompahgre was a pretty cool peak since it looks hard to climb from so many perspectives yet the trail winds its way up, keeping it at class 2. We descended the W face, following a guys lead who had come up that way. In good spirits, we picked our way back over the pass and traversed into the cirque below Wetterhorn. As we started climbing up again my dad started to slow down quite a bit. The weather was holding but I had doubts we were going to make it. We passed by several people going down and could still see people on the summit as we went up the ridge. Two people just going down were the two from the 4WD parking we had seen so I felt OK about being up there late since they had just done 1 peak. We stayed with the cairns and crested the ridge below ships prow. The best route (as found out on the descent) takes a line close to the crest of the ridge but I was following cairns so we took a roundabout way on the E face before coming to the notch. From the beta I'd gotten and route descriptions I easily found the correct (I think :-) ) route through the notch, and up the summit pitch. We made it to the summit of our second peak around 1:30, a late time but the weather was great. We tromped all the way back to 2WD parking 10 hours after starting, beat but happy.
I'm glad I got the chance to do these 5 peaks in 3 days. We were blessed with great weather (not great for fighting the fires though) and I'm glad I got to share this Father's Day weekend with an great Dad, willing to do so many adventures with me. BTW when I returned my Mom had found a used 4 Runner for sale which we bought on Sun. (my dream vehicle for these 14er trips) Now I can make it up to the real trailheads ;=)!
I have some pics I'll put up on my website in a little bit. |
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