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Joey Luther's super San Luis commando adventure
June 24, 2006
Partners: Dave & Emily Hale, Jeff & Allison Valliere, Heidi Morrison and associated doggies.
About 2 weeks ago Jeff sent a message indicating plans to hike a bunch of San Luis peaks on the June 23-25 weekend. As San Luis is one of my remaining 14ers, I agreed to go and Heidi said she'd join us. A few times a year she joins in on my weekend hiking adventures and I was looking forward to this year's but most of my climbs have been snowclimbs or huge slogs (she's not so in to that type of hiking). Jeff or Dave may write their own TR so I'll just stick to my experiences.
We both had to get in a little work on Friday, so that was our priority although the other groups planned on arriving earlier. We finally got outta town at about 2:45 pm. The drive down was uneventful aside from the spotting of a 14erworld sticker on a brownish pathfinder. We followed Roach's directions and they are accurate. The 30 mile dirt road was long and beautiful. We arrived at Eddiesville TH, .25 miles past Stewart Creek TH at 8:00 pm. We grabbed our packs and headed off to meet the others at the intersection of Cochetopa and Diablo Creeks. We planned to backpack into a great campspot pointed out by Kirk Mallory. We hiked fast trying to beat the darkness but it didn't happen and the 4 mile approach took us 1h38min. We crossed the creek and finally found the campsite by following little orange markers left by the others and calling out into the darkness, following the replies. As everyone was hidden in their tents, we set up ours, cooked dinner and went to sleep.
Everyone awoke at 6 am and we started hiking at 7. I wanted to hike with Heidi while Jeff and Dave took off for some other adventures, and Emily and Allison waited for Heidi and I often. About 30 minutes into the hike, Heidi indicated that her shorts were uncomfortable and rubbing her leg. I jokingly offered her my soft cotton boxer briefs and she eagerly accepted. A little clothing switch and we were off to catch back up to Emily and Allison. I stopped many times to take pictures with my new camera.
We soon heard from Jeff on the radio and they were on top of San Luis in amazing time. We were all still low in the willows.
As we approached the saddle to the south of San Luis on the skyline trail, I was eyeing Organ.
Dave and Jeff mentioned that the ridge connecting San Luis and Organ wasn't a straight shot, but it sure looked fun. We made our way up the slopes to the summit of San Luis and radioed over to Jeff and Dave who were far off in the heart of the La Garitas.
The girls all decided to head down to the San Luis / Organ saddle and wait for Jeff and Dave. This gave me the opportunity to give the Organ Ridge a go! If the girls were all going to wait there, I might as well run along that ridge and see for myself how difficult it is.
I sprinted down to the saddle and made sure Indie stayed with the girls. I headed up and left (north) around the first headwall. It's pretty straight forward to get around. Then I headed straight up for the ridge. This was fast moving. I could see Organ getting closer and closer. There were some interesting volcanic structures up here and I was loving it. I stayed directly on the ridge proper walking across a few exposed catwalks. Then I did my little turn on the catwalk. Oh no! guess what song I got in my head at this point, alone high on this ridge?
I scooted along and passed all the visible difficulties and saw the straight shot up the grassy slopes to Organ. Another 50 feet further and I arrive at a notch. It's huge and scarry. I stare down trying to find a weakness but all I saw were strongnesses. It was a solid vertical face of at least 20 meters. I looked down both ways to see if there's a quick way around but both gullies had gray ice in them.
I radioed to the group but I was lodged in a little rock cave and heard no reply. I didn't want to chance it without any gear or climbing partners, so I said, "I'm too sexy for this mountain" and headed back to the saddle.
Once back up on the ridge I made contact with Heidi who said they were headed down a gully into the basin and I replied saying I would do the same. There was a nice convenient gully that headed down into the basin cutting about a mile off my return trip. I headed down a decent looking trail. I kept descending and descending when I had a choice of 2 chimneys to reach the bottom of the gully. Both looked gross.
I chose the left one and made about 4 or 5 class 4 or 5 downclimbing moves. It got a little worse and then a little better. I was in another rock cave. Walls all around me resembling the embedded Sangres stones, however these weren't attached. Each one I grabbed could be pulled out. I didn't have a helmet so I climbed back up those 4 or 5 moves. I went over to the other gully and it was the same. I couldn't make radio contact and I was sure to have a few rocks follow me down whichever I chose. I couldn't actually see the ending of either so I made the only choice I had. I climbed back up to the ridge. I estimate it was about 400 feet down. After 20 minutes of steep climbing, I was back at the ridge and proceded to head back to the saddle. I accidentally summitted the prominent first rock and saw Dave and Jeff on the trail below me. So I scampered back around to the way I climbed around this rock on the way up and was eventually back at the saddle. I was relieved to return to the comfort of the nice class 1 trail back to camp. I ran down the slope trying to catch Dave and Jeff but they had a solid 20 minute lead on me and I wasn't making any ground. I saw them disappear into the trees and 20 minutes later I reached the trees. I headed down and left as I knew the Skyline Trail was somewhere at the valley of this basin. Soon enough I found it and ran back to camp. I was proud of my legs for finding the strength to run after a decent hike.
We cooked some food, took a power nap and packed out. The rest of the group planned on staying another night but we decided to go home. The hike back to the car was a lot longer than on the way in (about 30 mins), but we spent time looking for moose and beavers. We watched a beaver swimming around in his little pond. I was excited to see the beaver, but bummed we couldn't spot a moose. We arrived back at my truck, packed up and began the long drive out. We followed Roach's directions in reverse and just as it was getting dark Heidi yelled "MOOSE!" I slammed on the brakes and we looked over into the field to our right and sure enough it was a moose. Indie was going crazy and Heidi took a picture with my camera, but it was really dark outside. It was definitely a moose. I was stoked.
About 5 minutes later on the road we saw another! I wasn't so sure about this one as it was huge and dark brown. Much darker than a deer or elk, but the first one, we're sure about.
We drove back up to the top of Monarch pass and I was too pooped to drive any more. We pulled off at the parking lot at the top and jumped into the back of my truck where I have a bed. The night was warm and cozy. I awoke at 6 and headed into Buena Vista for coffee and bagels. We were back in Boulder by 10:45.
This was a super fun trip with great people. I had my own little adventure and was glad I didn't read the route description. I made all the right decisions and returned safely, all of this without underwear! I'm sure there'll be more hardcore peakbagging reports to follow from the other guys. |
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