A Most Illogical and Inconvenient Way to Summit Turner

The Approach

It has taken years to discover that if you walk away from the peak in the morning it is easier to get to the summit in the afternoon. It all has to do with the earth’s rotation, gravitational pull of the moon and the sun’s angle.

It’s kind of like hobbit logic: the further you are away from the peak, the closer you are to the summit.

So on Tuesday morning, we were near the base of Turner Peak, just across the highway. Instead of hiking toward the 13er, we turned south and walked away.

We would circumvent its aura, its mystique, and sneak up on it. But to do that, we had to show we were worthy by visiting six other ranked summits before climbing number seven.

That may seem illogical and completely inconvenient to summit one peak, but it worked extremely well.

Other potential names for this TR:

Turner: Keeping Up With the Jones
A Hobbitesque Route to Turner
“Wandering” Our Way to Turner
The Seven Summits of Cottonwood Pass

But the title that I’ve always thought of is simply Cottonwood Pass Loop.

Preface:

I’ve been thinking about this route for years. Looking at this area from the top of Cottonwood Pass it just made some kind of sense. I like odd routes, doing something different, just for the doing of it. Like the Elk/Sawatch Traverse. I can’t remember when I finally sat down and figured out this loop on a map.

I asked Brad if he was interested and he was. We actually tried this route two years ago. That didn’t work out too well. That was because we made a bad judgement call. We started in the rain. We were wet by the time we got near Ptarmigan Lake. The cloud cover was so bad, we couldn’t see North Jones and went up ‘Lil Jonesy’ by mistake, the small bump on the ridge between Jones and North Jones. Even at the top, we could not see North Jones. We claimed we had summited it, started toward Jones.

On the way up the ridge, I turned around and clouds had parted and North Jones could be seen. We missed it (even with a digital map on our phone. Ugh.) Well, the route plan was ruined.

We screwed up. Missed an entire peak. We were soaking wet. It was cold. I was done. I yelled at Brad and pointed back at N. Jones. Told him I was going down. He followed. It stopped raining by the time we reached the lake. Sun was coming out. We looked like drowned rats.

Brad has repeatedly said that was the coldest he has ever been in July.

The thing to remember, it is OK to change or alter plans when weather is an issue. We just tried to force it. Don’t do that.

Views from the summits

The Loop

Brad asked if I wanted to hike this week. His original plan was in the San Juans. But as fires raged and plans changed, I asked about the Cottonwood Pass Loop. It was settled.

We met at the Ptarmigan Lake trailhead to start, planned to start walking about 5 a.m.

It was supposed to be a nice day, except for the wind. And smoke. It was really smokey the evening before. But the morning was pretty clear and cleared up more during the day.

As we started out, Brad asked me about the stats for the day. I had totally forgotten everything about this hike, other than the route. Didn’t know the estimated mileage or gain. Didn’t know how many peaks.

Brad started looking at the route and figured out we were going to hit seven ranked peaks if we finished.

The Jones Peaks

We hiked up the Ptarmigan Lake trail to about 11,700.

We could see (this time) North Jones and found a fairly easy path to reach its east side. Near 12,000 we decided to go right, instead of left to reach a saddle. Right took us to its NE ridge. I liked this to make it a loop instead of an ‘up and down.’ Saw two goats near the top, but never saw them again.

This was an easy stroll up the ridge to the summit. We reached the summit about 7:30 a.m. And this is where the wind started, and didn’t stop all day. We didn’t spend much time here.

Going down was a little bit rocky. We reached ‘Lil Jonesy’ about 8:10 a.m. This area is rocky and bouldery.

The ridge to Jones was another fairly easy hike. A bit of goat trail here and there. Then we had to tundra walk to the left to get to the summit, which we reached just before 9 a.m. We grabbed some snacks, took photos. From here it was a complete tundra / grassy slope walk down to the saddle of Chalk Rock Mountain

Ridge to Cottonwood Pass

Chalk Rock ridge was rocky. I had read a couple of trip reports about the Class 3 and 4 scrambling. We took helmets and put them on. It was mostly Class 2 scrambling, with short bits of C3. We got to a downclimb that was loose rotten C4. I turned around and dropped to the south side, which has a rocky ramp most of the way. Brad had committed to the downclimb, but would have been easier and quicker to turn around. He did move to the other side, but it was crumbling all around him. He tossed me his pack to make it easier. We stayed on the rocky ramp for a bit, no particular reason other than it moved pretty quick. We climbed back up to the ridge. From there it was mostly C2 to the top. Took us an hour to do the ridge.

If you want to do this route, but this ridge is too much, there is an old mining road to the south which would be easy to access.

We reached the top of Chalk Rock about 10:25 a.m.

The next point along the ridge is unranked, but we still had to go up and over. (10:55 a.m.) The north side slope was a little rocky, but not too bad. Then there was a small bulge in the ridge, a tiny up and down.

At the end of this grassy area, we reached the Continental Divide Trail, which we took to Wandering Ridge.

We saw a few through hikers and a couple trail runners along the way.

At one point, Brad asked me if I knew the first rule of hiking. It’s to look good doing it. Which meant it was time to remove our climbing helmets. We looked a bit odd on the CDT wearing them. We had left them on to keep our ball caps from getting blown off. We got a few odd looks from the other hikers.

It seemed like it took forever to reach 12,799 even though we were walking on trail. The trail didn’t go to the summit, but it was close. We had less than a quarter mile and about 140 feet to gain. (12:10 p.m.) We followed the ridge down and eventually got back on the trail.

From there it was an easy walk to 12,598, the high point next to Cottonwood Pass. (1:15 p.m.) It is the point where many people hike from the parking lot.

We met a young German man that is living in Illinois. He is on a roadtrip. Took his photo for him. We reached the official Pass at 1:43 p.m. A guy approached us and asked if we were through hikers. I ask why. They had snacks! He and his father are from Wisconsin and are here to hike the CO Trail along the Collegiate Peaks. So they were acclimating to the elevation and handing out snacks and cold drinks to through hikers. Fun. We chatted with them for a bit, got snacks and headed out.

To Turner

We crossed the highway and stopped to get the gallon of water I cached in the bushes the day before. I knew we would need a lot of water for this hike and I didn’t want to carry it all. We filled our water bottles and kept moving.

We were just below the summit of 12,585 and had to make a call of where the summit was. The trail went right, but it turned out the summit was on the left. Brad chose correctly. I chose to go up in the middle, so only had to backtrack a little bit. (2:40 p.m.)

It was here I realized what was left to do. We had to drop about 500 feet, then regain another 1,000-plus. Ugh. My legs were tired. My feet and back were feeling the day. I am not in great hiking shape yet this year. Had only been up to 12,000 feet twice this summer.

Hiking down was ok, mostly dirt. We reached the saddle. I would have to imagine, not a lot of people have been through this area.

I realized we had traveled 11 miles and gained 4,500 feet to get here, instead of just starting at the road and getting here in just over a mile and about 900 feet, or starting at the Pass. But you can’t get there from here, or something like that.

Up we went. There was a hint of a trail through a rocky rib, found two cairns, then nothing. It was just a very slow uphill, side hill hike toward a saddle. Several very short breaks. The elevation gain seemed to take forever. Then we reached the boulders. The top of Turner is all boulders.

As I started up, I kept thinking to myself, I shouldn’t be doing this. How am I going to get down? My legs were jelly. I didn’t have the energy to keep myself from falling if I tripped. I didn’t have the reflexes to adjust to a stumble. I was going to fall down this peak and break something. But I kept going. Several hundred feet of boulders. Ugh.

And we saw rain clouds in the distance. We had a few pellets of grapple blown about. But it all missed us.

Finally, we reached the top at 4:30 p.m.. 12+ miles. 5,600+ feet. A most illogical and inconvenient approach to Turner, but that’s the new way of doing things in the mountains.

We didn’t stay long. Thanks to Kiefer and Regina for the new summit registry.

I’m not scared to admit that I Spider Crawled down a lot of the top of boulder peak. I just didn’t trust my legs. I was moving really slow. Brad was moving faster. I didn’t get frustrated with myself because I knew this was the safest way to go. Took some deep breaths at times to regroup. I walked where I could, but was back on my ass a lot to maneuver.

When I finally reached the areas of grassy tracks between the rocks, I was back on my feet moving well. I eventually caught up with Brad. We moved to a treed area we had seen from the other side of the loop. We had been looking at Turner all day, discussing the best way down. Well, we picked a way down, it wasn’t the shortest, but it looked to be the easiest as it avoided more boulders and rocky slopes. With tired legs, this was our best option. As we were making our way down the trees, I suggested we don’t follow our planned route back to the TH, through the trees. We should take a direct path to the highway and just walk it. It would be easy walking, no deadfall or and trees to navigate.

We were on the highway for less than two miles, cut a couple of the paved switch backs. And we were back at the Ptarmigan TH about 6:40 p.m.

I had some cold drinks in the cooler. Brad crawled in his 4Runner to stretch his back. I don’t think he ever got back up.

I drove home and took a shower. Brad stayed in the area to hike a short peak on Wednesday. I was feeling it this morning, sore and stiff.

Stats

Seven ranked peaks. That’s the most I have ever done in one day. Brad said it either tied or set his high mark. This was pretty much a really long walk with typical 13er non-trail conditions, except for the Chalk Rock ridge. No surprises. Nothing unique.

15+ miles
5,500 gain (give or take 100)
13+ hours
7 summits

*We hold both the FKT and SKT for this route.
No, I haven't googled to see if anyone else has done it.
We will hold this unsanctioned and unverified title until proven otherwise. (and maybe even after)