San Luis Peak Trip Report 07/15/2012

Peak(s):	San Luis Peak - 14,023 feet Handies Peak - 14,058 feet Sunshine Peak - 14,004 feet Redcloud Peak - 14,037 feet
Date Posted:	07/15/2012
Modified:	07/16/2012
Date Climbed:	07/07/2012
Author:	G-VO

Summer in the San Juans Part 1
With most of my remaining unclimbed 14ers being in the San Juans, I planned an ambitious trip to summit nine peaks in only five days. I flew into Denver late last Thursday and met Mark who lives in Denver. We hit the road late Friday afternoon just in time for 5 o'clock traffic on our way to West Willow Creek TH. Our plan was to climb San Luis on Saturday, Handies/Sunshine/Redcloud on Sunday, Uncompahgre/Wetterhorn on Monday, take a break and hike to Navajo Lake on Tuesday, climb El Diente/Mt Wilson/Wilson Peak on Wednesday and drive back to Denver Thursday so I could catch the Redeye flight back to Florida on Thursday night. Piece of cake! Before setting foot on a mountain, the Friday night drive became the first big challenge. We hit Creede in a downpour and started the drive to West Willow Creek TH. The road was steep. We eventually made it to the Endarka Mine where we initially missed the left turn to continue up to the TH. After finding the road we continued the drive. The road continued to get worse and the rain didn't help. After a second creek crossing and steep climbing right turn, my rental car found it's limit and began spinning out. The car was a 2WD Chevy Captiva. I had never heard of it either but it did have a little extra clearance which helped. At 11PM in the rain we chose to just leave it there in the middle of the road and deal with it in the morning. That was our camp location for the night. With a passenger car, the safe bet would be to park by the mine. If you don't have 4WD and get to a descending left turn with a creek at the bottom and a climbing right turn after the creek, stop and park in the area by the left turn before the descent down to the creek. End of 2WD road The next morning, we were able to turn the car around in the creekbed and got it up to the turn before the creek crossing where we parked next to another vehicle that showed up that morning. After all that, the climb was the easy part. The actual TH was 0.7 miles above our "campsite" and we continued up and over the continental divide to the Colorado Trail. This made for a great trail run at 12,000 ft until we left the trail and continued up to the peak. It was an easy Class 1 climb, but the clouds were rolling in as we approached the top. We quickly took our Which Wich pictures and met another climber and his dog at the top before heading down. Clouds rolling in over San Luis We managed to beat the weather down and then drove to the Silver Creek/Grizzly Gulch TH which proved to be another challenge for our rental car. We hit the sleeping bags early with a plan to hit the trail around 3AM to climb Handies first. We managed to get rolling just after 3AM and quicly realized that we could follow the markers for the Hardrock 100 race which summits Handies peak somewhere around mile 60 I think. For us it would thankfully only be mile 4. Hardrock 100 The trail was easy to follow although at times it seemed to veer away from the peak as it gained elevation. We would not realize how pristine this side of of the mountain was until our descent as the sun finally started to rise over the ridge. Summit of Handies Snow and Sunrise Sunrise Tundra on Handies We made it back to camp at the trailhead by 7AM to reset/reload for the climb up Sunshine and Redcloud. After the initial ascent up Grizzly Gulch, I decided to try the Northwest Face route directly up Sunshine while Mark chose to stay on the standard route up Redcloud. The plan was to meet somewhere in the middle. Finding the trail for Sunshine is not too difficult if you look for the stream intersection. There are no cairns or trail intersections, but if you look closely, you can see the Sunshine trail across the river while still standing on the Redcloud trail. I crossed the creek and started up a solid trail towards Sunshine Peak. Around 12,000' the trail dies into a rock glacier of talus and scree. At this point there are many options. The bowl in front of you has a number of different gullies which will be the crux of whichever route you choose. One option is to veer left and shoot for a gully that is fairly aligned with the Sunshine/Redcloud saddle. Another pair of climbers I met on the summit chose this option which they said involved some Class 3 scrambling on very loose rock which eventually brought them to the saddle and a sign that says "Dangerous Trail." I went straight ahead and initially went for a narrow gully that looked like it had fairly stable rock at the top. After a tough scramble up loose scree, the top of the gully contained some snow which made the rock wet and slippery. Unable to get a comfortable grip on the rock, I retreated and traversed right to the next gully. Gullies on Sunshine Peak This gully may have been passable but still would have required class 3 scrambling on loose rock. I chose to delay the fun I would later have on the Wilsons and traversed further right to the next gully where I was able to make it up class 2 scree to a flat area. Looking down the gully on Sunshine Peak From here there were two obvious routes, one to the left that intersected the main trail above the saddle and the other to the right which followed the West ridge. I chose the West ridge and scrambled to the top. The rock was loose in spots but it was not very steep and easy to follow. From there, I descended the main trail to the saddle where I passed Mark who was heading up Sunshine and continued to the top of Redcloud. Mark made his way back to Redcloud and we descended the well established trail off Redcloud to Grizzly Gulch. If I were to do this again, I would recommend staying with the Redcloud Trail and traversing over to Sunshine on the ridge between the two. The Sunshine NW ridge route is a scree route that results in high levels of erosion from every climber that scrambles on it. View from top of Redcloud Peak By 1PM we were done with all three peaks! We had just beaten the rain which started pouring as we packed up camp. We drove to Lake City for burritos then to the Matterhorn Creek TH to camp and prep for the next 20 mile/8,000 ft day on Uncompahgre and Wetterhorn. Read Part 2 here LINK DISPLAY TEXT Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):

Summer in the San Juans Part 1

With most of my remaining unclimbed 14ers being in the San Juans, I planned an ambitious trip to summit nine peaks in only five days. I flew into Denver late last Thursday and met Mark who lives in Denver. We hit the road late Friday afternoon just in time for 5 o'clock traffic on our way to West Willow Creek TH. Our plan was to climb San Luis on Saturday, Handies/Sunshine/Redcloud on Sunday, Uncompahgre/Wetterhorn on Monday, take a break and hike to Navajo Lake on Tuesday, climb El Diente/Mt Wilson/Wilson Peak on Wednesday and drive back to Denver Thursday so I could catch the Redeye flight back to Florida on Thursday night. Piece of cake!

Before setting foot on a mountain, the Friday night drive became the first big challenge. We hit Creede in a downpour and started the drive to West Willow Creek TH. The road was steep. We eventually made it to the Endarka Mine where we initially missed the left turn to continue up to the TH. After finding the road we continued the drive. The road continued to get worse and the rain didn't help. After a second creek crossing and steep climbing right turn, my rental car found it's limit and began spinning out. The car was a 2WD Chevy Captiva. I had never heard of it either but it did have a little extra clearance which helped. At 11PM in the rain we chose to just leave it there in the middle of the road and deal with it in the morning. That was our camp location for the night. With a passenger car, the safe bet would be to park by the mine. If you don't have 4WD and get to a descending left turn with a creek at the bottom and a climbing right turn after the creek, stop and park in the area by the left turn before the descent down to the creek.

The next morning, we were able to turn the car around in the creekbed and got it up to the turn before the creek crossing where we parked next to another vehicle that showed up that morning.

After all that, the climb was the easy part. The actual TH was 0.7 miles above our "campsite" and we continued up and over the continental divide to the Colorado Trail. This made for a great trail run at 12,000 ft until we left the trail and continued up to the peak. It was an easy Class 1 climb, but the clouds were rolling in as we approached the top. We quickly took our Which Wich pictures and met another climber and his dog at the top before heading down.

We managed to beat the weather down and then drove to the Silver Creek/Grizzly Gulch TH which proved to be another challenge for our rental car. We hit the sleeping bags early with a plan to hit the trail around 3AM to climb Handies first.

We managed to get rolling just after 3AM and quicly realized that we could follow the markers for the Hardrock 100 race which summits Handies peak somewhere around mile 60 I think. For us it would thankfully only be mile 4.

The trail was easy to follow although at times it seemed to veer away from the peak as it gained elevation. We would not realize how pristine this side of of the mountain was until our descent as the sun finally started to rise over the ridge.

We made it back to camp at the trailhead by 7AM to reset/reload for the climb up Sunshine and Redcloud. After the initial ascent up Grizzly Gulch, I decided to try the Northwest Face route directly up Sunshine while Mark chose to stay on the standard route up Redcloud. The plan was to meet somewhere in the middle. Finding the trail for Sunshine is not too difficult if you look for the stream intersection. There are no cairns or trail intersections, but if you look closely, you can see the Sunshine trail across the river while still standing on the Redcloud trail. I crossed the creek and started up a solid trail towards Sunshine Peak. Around 12,000' the trail dies into a rock glacier of talus and scree. At this point there are many options. The bowl in front of you has a number of different gullies which will be the crux of whichever route you choose. One option is to veer left and shoot for a gully that is fairly aligned with the Sunshine/Redcloud saddle. Another pair of climbers I met on the summit chose this option which they said involved some Class 3 scrambling on very loose rock which eventually brought them to the saddle and a sign that says "Dangerous Trail." I went straight ahead and initially went for a narrow gully that looked like it had fairly stable rock at the top. After a tough scramble up loose scree, the top of the gully contained some snow which made the rock wet and slippery. Unable to get a comfortable grip on the rock, I retreated and traversed right to the next gully.

This gully may have been passable but still would have required class 3 scrambling on loose rock. I chose to delay the fun I would later have on the Wilsons and traversed further right to the next gully where I was able to make it up class 2 scree to a flat area.

From here there were two obvious routes, one to the left that intersected the main trail above the saddle and the other to the right which followed the West ridge. I chose the West ridge and scrambled to the top. The rock was loose in spots but it was not very steep and easy to follow. From there, I descended the main trail to the saddle where I passed Mark who was heading up Sunshine and continued to the top of Redcloud. Mark made his way back to Redcloud and we descended the well established trail off Redcloud to Grizzly Gulch. If I were to do this again, I would recommend staying with the Redcloud Trail and traversing over to Sunshine on the ridge between the two. The Sunshine NW ridge route is a scree route that results in high levels of erosion from every climber that scrambles on it.

By 1PM we were done with all three peaks! We had just beaten the rain which started pouring as we packed up camp. We drove to Lake City for burritos then to the Matterhorn Creek TH to camp and prep for the next 20 mile/8,000 ft day on Uncompahgre and Wetterhorn.

Read Part 2 here
LINK DISPLAY TEXT

Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):

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