Uncompahgre Peak
After getting some dinner in Lake City, I made my way up to the trailhead. It was starting to get dark but luckily the 4WD road didn't give me too many issue (just slow going). I got the car all set up for sleeping. The day started as expected up the trail but sadly my first views of the summit showed it covered in clouds.
The clouds seemed more like foggy clouds than rain clouds so I continued to make my way along the good trail. As I hiked, the clouds came in and out, at times completely covering the peak, and at others seeming to blow over. Up on the ridge I passed a large group of mountains goats.
This peak looks so different than the others I have done, so when the clouds did move out of the way, it was a cool sight.
 |
| Looking back down on the trail from the ridge |
The hiking was easy and got a little more difficult around the back side of the mountain, where I had to get over some loose rock.
The views from the top of this one seemed pretty sparse with the clouds. But as always, good to be at the top.
After the hike down, I made my way in to town to get a few things and then headed to the Redcloud/Sunshine trailhead, where I would be spending the night once again in the car.
|
Hike
Summary
|
|
|
Date:
|
Tueday, July 16, 2013
|
|
Mountain:
|
Uncompahgre Peak
|
|
Hike Start Time:
|
6:17 AM
|
|
Summit Time:
|
9:10 AM
|
|
Hike End Time:
|
10:53 AM
|
|
Miles:
|
8.11
|
|
Elevation Gain:
|
2,887
|
Redcloud Peak/Sunshine Peak
My original plan was to do Wetterhorn on day 2 in the San Juans, but the weather was calling for a much larger chance of rain earlier on day 3 (Thursday). Given that Redcloud/Sunshine is a longer hike, I decided to switch them out so I could be sure to get these in while I am here. I am getting used to my nomad-type lifestyle. Not necessarily knowing for sure what I'll be doing day-to-day and not exactly sure of the logistics (where I will sleep, what will I eat, if I get a shower, etc). I am also doing a little better with my "mountain girl time", as I call it. This is the phenomenum where it seems quite normal to go to bed around 8 pm and wake up anywhere between 3 am and 5 am. Today was the earliest start I got. Even though the weather was calling for more rain on Thursday, there was still rain in the forecast for today. This was the first hike I started well before sunrise on my own where I needed a headlamp. I know it is hard for you city folk to understand, but 4:30 AM in the middle of nowhere Colorado is basically completely black.
And it can definitely play some tricks on your mind, given that you aren't exactly sure of the people/wildlife/general environment around you. Luckily the sun brings some visibility around 5:15 AM and I could completely rid myself of the headlamp around 5:45 AM. Sadly the sun did not seem to burn off the clouds like I wanted, and today is starting to look a lot like yesterday with only minimal visibility of the summit.
The trail makes its way through a large basin and then up on the ridge, with Redcloud to the right.
The hiking was pretty easy along the trail, despite the limited visibility. Redcloud surely lived up to its name for me, given that the views from the top were pretty much nonexistant and, well, the rock is red (although that is clearly the case on any day).
After only a few minutes on the summit, I made my was down over to opposite ridge to head towards Sunshine.
Once I was on top of this peak, I was sadly greated with much of the same view as on Redcloud...just clouds.
From here, there are a couple options to descend: (1) re-summit Redcloud and descend as ascended, or (2) use one of the routes up Sunshine to descend. Option 2 would result in about 2 miles shorter overall hike so I opted for that one, knowing that there would be some loose rock on the descent. As promised from the route described online, there definitely was loose rock, and a pretty loose scree gully I had to hike (slash slide) down.
Other than that though, it was a fine hike down...and the sun was shining at the trailhead, so that made me happy:)
|
Hike
Summary
|
|
|
Date:
|
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
|
|
Mountain:
|
Redcloud Peak
Sunshine Peak |
|
Hike Start Time:
|
4:34 AM
|
|
Summit Time:
|
Redcloud Peak: 8:27 AM
Sunshine Peak: 9:36 AM |
|
Hike End Time:
|
12:35 PM
|
|
Miles:
|
11.10
|
|
Elevation Gain:
|
4,152
|
Wetterhorn Peak
After a couple days in the car, I decided to spring for the motel room in town and get a shower and a nice bed for the night. The downfall to this approach is you have to wake up a little earlier and end up getting a little later start once you make it to the trailhead. But again, my mountain girl time got me to sleep early enough that a 3:45 AM wakeup call was not terrible. Still got started just before the trail was visible, and quickly got my first glimpse of the peak.
Wetterhorn was to be my first class 3 hike of the season, so I was pretty excited for this one. The wildlife was certainly out this morning....I passed a deer and sheep.
As the sun came up, I realized I was in a really good mood because there did not seem to be any clouds thus far! I made my way to the saddle on a good trail, and got some good views over the ridge.
I knew that once I got past the yellow rock on the ridge, things would get a little slower/more technical.
It is hard to tell exactly from the pictures, but the trail runs out and you are left with some route finding, with the help of some cairns (well, sometimes they were helpful).
In my mind, there was basically three sections to the summit from here...the first, second, and third portions (ok...no one said I was all that creative). The first section is where I had to get across some rocks to a rock rib, which basically blocks your passage much farther.
This section I thought was moderate in difficulty. There seemed to be some good cairns. However, I did find myself taking a lot of breaks to survey the various routes, change my mind on which I wanted to take, backtrack, etc. Since I am a solo climber, and apparently the first on the peak for the day, I did not have anyone to bounce ideas off of in terms of routes. Oh well. Part 1 was complete when I made my way to a notch in the rock rib I crawled through.
This led me to portion #2. Portion #2 basically involves getting above the "Prow", a large rock formation to the hiker's left.
I would say this section seemed to be the toughest to me. There were a couple spots that seemed more exposed, so I had to find ways safely around that. Even though this is what I believe to be the toughest part of the hike, the rock was really solid so I would not say it was terribly difficult in the big scheme of things. After getting above the Prow, I climbed through another notch to find some angled rock slabs the descend.
From there, there was about 100' of class 3 rock to get to the top.
I thought this portion was relatively easy, given that there are plenty of large/solid hand and foot holds along the rock. When I made it to the summit, it was still sunny and the views were pretty awesome! I don't know if it was the couple days of cloudy hiking leading up to this, or the more technical hiking at the end, or the fact that the views were really great (and probably the views I was missing out on the former 2 days), but I have to say that I think I have found a new favorite peak. Not that I necessarily had a favorite before, but this one is definitely up there on great hiking days.
Of course, I still had to get down....and sometimes going down these more technical pieces can be difficult. The rock always looks so different going down than up.
But I made it back to the saddle, for the remainder of the easy hike back to the car.
|
Hike
Summary
|
|
|
Date:
|
Thursday, July 18, 2013
|
|
Mountain:
|
Wetterhorn Peak
|
|
Hike Start Time:
|
5:15 AM
|
|
Summit Time:
|
9:03 AM
|
|
Hike End Time:
|
11:45 AM
|
|
Miles:
|
8.56
|
|
Elevation Gain:
|
3,363
|
Handies Peak
I saved Handies Peak for the end of my trip to the San Juans this week because it is pretty short and I knew I would have the long drive back to Denver after hiking. I slept in the car one last time since the road up to the trailhead is pretty long. This peak has good trail all the way to the top.
Once on top of the ridge, there was a pretty good view of Sloan Lake.
It seemed I was the first person on the trail that day since I never passed anyone all the way to the top. The views from the top were good. These mountains look so cool and so different from the Sawatch range I have been in mostly up to this point.
On the descent, the day was turning into a sunny one and I saw many other groups of hikers....including a family of Aggies which was exciting! The wildflowers were great on the mountain, likely because of all the rain it had over the past couple weeks.
Not too long and I was back at the car and on my way back to Denver. Great trip :)
|
Hike
Summary
|
|
|
Date:
|
Friday, July 19, 2013
|
|
Mountain:
|
Handies Peak
|
|
Hike Start Time:
|
6:02 AM
|
|
Summit Time:
|
8:14 AM
|
|
Hike End Time:
|
9:59 AM
|
|
Miles:
|
5.82
|
|
Elevation Gain:
|
2,437
|
No comments:
Post a Comment