Epic Adventure 2018 - Part 1

Summit Peak 13,300'

Archuleta County Highpoint
Southern San Juan Mountain Range

7/14/2018 

In our continuing quest to climb all the Colorado County highpoints, I zeroed in on a cluster of peaks in the South San Juan Mountains.  Summit, Conejos, and Bennett Peaks are all fairly close together. We had planned to do all 3 in one weekend, but sometimes, plans change. This "man trip" consisted of Avery, Scott, and myself.

We left COS around 3pm, drove straight to our camping area- Stunner Campground.
While I think Stunner might be a bit overstated, it's a nice little camping area. Here we were, in July on a weekend- there was only 1 other person here. We had the place virtually to ourselves. It's a free campground and it has a pit toilet!

View from our campsite

The spot by the road was flat and soft

Anyway, woke up at 5am and got on our way. From the campground, the trailhead area is 15-20 minute drive up gentle dirt roads. And I must say, the dirt roads were in great shape when we went there this year. Easy driving for any type of vehicle.

The night was.. interesting. It rained pretty well for an hour or so, as I drifted in and out of sleep. Not sure exactly how much. The only thing I know is that when we woke up EVERYTHING was soaked. But we were dry inside my tent. Best $200 I ever spent.

Sunrise, one of the benefits of getting up early

The parking area could accommodate half a dozen vehicles, maybe more. We were the only people here.

It quickly became apparent that there wasn't much of a trail in places. We were bushwhacking through wet grass and plants. Luckily I had some GPS waypoints to follow.

One weird aspect of this trail. It is VERY lightly traveled. It's not well established. It's not easy to follow. Because of this, and the wet weather - we ended up soaked. My boots filled up with water. I ended up stopping at least 3 times before the summit to wring water out of my socks. Somehow, we did the whole hike without me getting blisters!

Forest typical of the lower elevations. Lots of beetle kill

You climb into this beautiful basin 

We found a trail, then lost the trail, then found it again. It traverses a slope, then comes across a basin. All the plants were soaking wet.

At this point the trail was a muddy rut

Heading up above treeline. Tons of beetle kill in the area.

This is a beautiful place.

Right after this photo was taken, something amazing happened. We heard elk bugling. It sounded awesome, but kind of eerie in a way too. We couldn't see them, but we knew they were around. And I must say, in climbing over 70 summits, we have never heard elk bugling as we were heading up in the morning. Quite a treat!

Summit Peak comes into view, finally.

There it is! Summit Peak dead ahead.

I believe this is "the Unicorn" and Montezuma. Typical San Juan beauty.

Cool view, and look - there is wildlife there 

Zoom in a little, we see 4 elk!

There's kind of a trail here, but I believe this is part of the CDT

Looking Southeast

Happy hikers

After leaving the CDT, you literally just head up the steep, grassy slope. When you attain the ridge, the slope eases significantly.

After bashing up a sleep grassy slope, we are nearly there

Once we attained the ridge, it was an easy stroll to the summit. The exposure on the north side was intense!

The exposure on the one side was steep

Very Steep dropoff straight ahead

Looking WSW

Standing on the summit, I was reminding how big this world is, and how small we are. In every direction I look and I see the beauty of nature, not yet ruined by mankind. It's a blessing to see such a rugged, wild landscape. The weather was extremely mild. A little chilly, slight breeze. Nice enough to sit and enjoy the view and soak it all in.

Looking North

This especially rugged and craggy summit demanded our attention, and our intrigue.

Northerly Panorama

Avery about to top out

The same elk, but there are more now!

Northeast from summit

Rio Grande pyramid, distant center

There are still lots of wildflowers

We are but a spec in this large place. Our car is parked distant left.

Flowers

On the way back I decided to bushwhack down the slope and cut out a bit of distance. It worked. We made it back in only 3 miles (instead of 4), and saved a bunch of time in the process.

One of the many nice waterfalls in the area

Some nice pools to swim in, if freezing water is your thing

There was a closed gate here... the most robust part of the fence

So, because of some strange circumstances, we left and went home. Basically, the dog got injured from a bunch of small cuts, and was bleeding a lot. We decided to let him get some rest instead of dragging out the trip.

We stopped at 3 Barrel Brewing in Del Norte. The food was decent and so was the beer.

BUT- the southern San Juan mountains are beautiful, rugged, isolated, and uncrowded. The peaks are sublime. We saw no one while hiking. The trail barely existed.  It was a good trip.

4 Pass Loop - Aspen/Snowmass - PART 2

4-Pass Loop   Aspen/Snowmass Wilderness  Area

July 16th, 2017

Day 2- Fravert Basin >; Trailrider Pass >  Buckskin Pass > Crater Lake

Start: 10,720'  High: 12,462'  Low:  10,076'  Gain:  3812'  Loss: 4458' Distance: ~15 miles

We hit the trail at 730 AM, not particularly early, but much earlier than the previous day. We even had the luxury of drinking coffee, and they partook in hot oatmeal as well.

Really cool section of trail that we got started on right away. We dropped down a headwall into the lower basin

Looking out from the same spot. It was very lush down below

Pretty huge waterfall, I think someone called it King Falls

Another look. It spills onto a pile of massive boulders about 2/3 of the way down

Prime moose habitat, but we didn't see any

Flowers were everywhere

Close-up

2nd and final major stream crossing. It was much smoother and calmer than the last one.

The water was still ICE-cold of course

 One of the "luxury items" I brought was an MSR camp towel. It weighs a good ounce when dry. We all used it to dry our feet off before we put our socks and boots back on. It proved to be worth it's weight in gold.

This meadow was simply unbelievable. So many wildflowers, this picture doesn't do it justice.

The trail followed the gentle valley for a while, heading down. Eventually we crossed over and started climbing steeply out of the valley. This gave us wonderful views of the area that just got better as we climbed higher.

Half stream, half waterfall

Looking West

Looking East

The trail reached this wonderful meadow with BIG views

A selfie, why not?

North Maroon (L) and Maroon Peak (R)

3-shot panorama of the area below Trailrider pass

Avery is heading up the pass

On top of trailrider pass, they were able to have a brief moment together

Looking down at Snowmass Lake from the pass

Panorama, looking East

We had to cross half a dozen snowfields, this was the longest initially

A closer view of Snowmass Lake

The descent into the Snowmass Lake basin was absolutely breathtaking and the weather was beautiful.  It's moments like this that you climb up the passes for!

Looking back up at Trailrider Pass

Looking down at Snowmass Lake. It looks inviting but the water is just above freezing

Snowmass mountain (14,098') is the small point in the back middle. It's a fairly challenging summit.

This snowfield was really long and slushy and not at all fun for Anastasiya

And this was as good a time as any to sit down and eat some lunch. I ate a Met RX Big 100 bar, 2 oz of sour cream and cheddar ruffles, a meat stick, and some leftover trail mix. That was good because we had plenty more hiking to do.

Beaver Dams!

About this time we had to decide if we were going to keep pushing up the last pass or hunker down and do more hiking tomorrow. Despite me running out of water, and the threat of thunderstorms in the distance, we decided to continue onward. I told you I can be stubborn right?

Hagerman Peak and Snowmass Mountain left of center

I thought this looked really cool hiking next to the cliff edge

The slope relented as we neared to final and highest pass!

Looking SW from Buckskin Pass (12,462') notice the goats?

2-shot panorama from Buckskin Pass

We had a really neat encounter with a family of mountain goats on Buckskin pass. We tried really hard to not disturb the goats, but they ended up coming very close to us and running between myself and the other 2 in our group.

Impressive Cornice on Buckskin Pass

After topping out on Buckskin pass, I admit I was feeling a bit deflated. We still had a pretty good amount of ground to cover, and fatigue was starting to set in. I actually took a several-minute break on the way down just to give my quads and shoulders a rest.

The summit trail for North Maroon Peak is partially visible here

As we get closer to crater lake, aspen groves emerge

Indeed Brewing Companies Rum King was a nice treat

Our route for day 2 was quite cicuitous

 Besides the excitement of a wandering porcupine, we were pretty tired and went to sleep pretty early this second night, after another huge dinner.

The next morning I woke up early and went for a little 1-mile hike with my camera trying to get some good pictures. The lake was calm at first but as the sun came up a stiff breeze blew away my hopes of good reflection shots.

Pyramid reflected in Crater Lake

The Maroon Bells from Crater Lake

Maroon Bells w/ alpenglow

North Maroon dominates the view

The final morning had us hiking about 2.5 miles from Crater lake the Maroon Lake trailhead. We met a really fun couple from South Africa who had also completed the 4-pass Loop at the same time as us. We talked about how fortunate we were to have such good weather on the trip.

Back at the trailhead. After roughly 30 miles of hiking, we are ready to take the packs off and eat some real food!

In Aspen we treated ourselves to a huge brunch and then drove home back over independence pass, through Leadville, Copper Mountain, Frisco, to Denver.

This was a great trip despite the at-times really heavy crowds on the trail. This is a wonderful route that is slowly being loved to death. I would recommend it but with an asterisk next to it, don't do the 4-Pass Loop if you are looking for solitude or a pure wilderness experience.