After a long summer of hiking, it was finally time for our final trip, and if all went as planned, our 14er finisher.

My friend, Hunter, and I had been hiking the 14ers for 4 years, all working towards the goal of finishing all 58 before we left for college. We'd done 3 in 2015, 11 in 2016, 16 in 2017, 14 in 2018, and had 14 left to bag this summer to reach our goal. As the summer went on, we got closer and closer each week. We'd planned out our whole summer, having several big trips, each one consisting of 4 or 5 peaks. Although we had to rearrange some of them as we went, we finally got to our last trip.

Our final 4 ended up being 3 peaks we'd failed or bailed on (Little Bear, San Luis, and Mt. Eolus), and then Wilson Peak for our finisher.

The trip started with a Sunday night drive to the Little Bear trailhead. We made it pretty far up the road in an F-150, so our hike for the next day would only be about 10 miles. After an uncomfortable night sleep in the back of the truck, the alarm sounded at 4:00 and we got on our way. We had tried Little Bear several years earlier, but turned back after we had passed the hourglass, more out of fear and lack of experience than anything. This time, we knew we could handle it and we were hyped to finish off the Sangres with Little Bear. We flew up the scree field right after Lake Como and traversed over to the hourglass.

About to start up the hourglass

The hourglass has a stream running right down the middle of it, so it forces you to go around it and into some Low Class 5 climbing.

We stayed right at the rappel station and it was nothing too sketchy. Once you're passed the class 4, it's only a little bit of walking on extremely loose rock until you're at the summit.

Summit! Epic view of Blanca as the clouds rolled in.

Heading back down the hourglass was a lot tougher. It was some very difficult downclimbing, and we had a couple of close calls. The clouds dropped down into the gully, making for a pretty sweet looking descent.

We were very relieved to make it back below the hourglass, and we didn't waste much time getting back to the car. Our time was 3:15 up to the summit and about 2:30 from the summit to the car. Once we were back to the car, we loaded up and headed to Alamosa for some lunch and down time. We spent all afternoon in Alamosa, then made our way to Creede for San Luis. The road to the 4WD trailhead was nothing bad, so we were able to make it all the way up. We got to the trailhead before sunset and chilled for a little bit before heading to sleep.

Since we had a great weather forecast for the day, we slept in a bit and didn’t start til 6:30. San Luis and Little Bear are polar opposites, so it was a nice change of pace.

It was a great hike and a really cool area. We made it up to the summit in about 2:30. 2 14ers left!

From there, we drove to Durango to catch the train the next morning. We had been to Chicago Basin two years earlier, and it was not a great experience. We got rained on the entire time. We had managed to summit Sunlight and Windom on our first morning in the Basin, and woken up plenty early to hit Eolus and North Eolus. As we got near the catwalk, it started to snow, so we did North Eolus and then headed back down. Long story short, we still needed to do Mt. Eolus this summer in order to finish.

So we got to the train on time, boarded, and waited for the Needleton stop. The forecast for our 1-day stay was looking very similar to what it was 2 years earlier- lots of rain. On the whole approach, we were racing against the rain, hoping we could get a campsite and a tent up before it started to rain. We made it into the Basin in 2 hours, started setting up the tent, realized the tent was broken, fixed the tent for 30 minutes, then finished getting it set up juuuust in time to beat the rain. Getting a tent set up before the rain came meant all of our stuff would stay dry, so we considered the day a major win.

We stayed in the tent for a couple of hours, hearing the rain outside the entire time. Around 6:00, when the rain stopped, I went outside to fill up water. When I went out, there were still lots of clouds, but they looked a lot less threatening than before. We talked for a little bit and decided we would make a bid for the sunset summit. If it works out, it means we get to sleep in the next day. If it doesn’t, it could mean up to 5 miles and 3,000 feet of elevation gain and no summit, meaning we would have to try it the next morning as well. So around 6:30 pm, we left the campsite and made our way up the trail.

Heading up to Twin Lakes, looking back down at the Basin.

We made our way up to Twin Lakes, then crossed the stream at the lake and headed up towards Eolus. As we made our way up, the weather started to look better and better, and we realized we had a legit shot at making this work. We accidentally took a class 4 route that brought us up to the ridge in the middle of the catwalk rather than at the Eolus-N. Eolus saddle, but it turned out being really fun so we weren’t complaining. We crossed the catwalk just as the sun was setting, then scrambled up the face to reach the summit.

Going across the catwalk.

Summit #57!

From there, we headed down and to the saddle between the two peaks. I figured I might as well add another summit, so I scrambled up North Eolus a second time while Hunter chilled at the saddle.

We climbed back down to our campsite and took a lot of joy in cancelling the 4:00 alarm for the next morning. From our campsite to the summit was about 1:40, then we took our time on the way down and made the whole trip about 4 hours. With lots of rain forecasted for the next day, we decided we would head down to the train early and catch the 11:15 train going to Silverton (the one that drops off all the hikers) rather than the 3:30 train going back to Durango. Either way, we would end up in Durango at 6 (because we had to take the train back), but we figured we'd rather be on the train than in the rain. Needless to say, 5 hours on a train wasn't too exciting, but at least we stayed dry.

Once we were back in Durango, we fueled up with some of America's finest food (McDonald's) and drove to Telluride to do Wilson Peak the next day. Our families were driving out from Denver to hike/celebrate with us, so we linked up with them at a campsite outside Telluride.

The next morning, we woke up around 4:30, had a bit of a drive to the Rock of Ages trailhead, and started our hike around 6:00. There were a lot of clouds the entire day, so rain seemed inevitable, we were just hoping it would wait until after the summit.

First view of Wilson Peak in the morning.

We kept hiking up the mining road and eventually to the Rock of Ages saddle. We made the traverse to the other saddle, then started across the Class 3 ledges on the way to the false summit. Once we were up to the false summit, it was hard to wait any longer. We downclimbed about 40 feet, then started up the final climb to the summit. We scrambled up, then did the brief walk over to the summit. Damn that felt good.

14er finishers!

Celebrating with my dad and brother on top.

The weather cleared up perfectly for the summit, and we were able to chill up there for a while. Awesome day!

From there, we drove into Telluride to get some pizza to celebrate. We spent the next day rock climbing outside Telluride, then drove home on Sunday. Day-by-day, the trip looked like this:

Sunday 8/4- Drive to Little Bear

Monday 8/5- Summit Little Bear, drive to San Luis

Tuesday 8/6- Summit San Luis, drive to Durango

Wednesday 8/7- Ride the train, hike into Chicago Basin, Sunset summit of Eolus & North Eolus

Thursday 8/8- Pack up and hike out of the Basin, ride the train all day, drive from Durango to Telluride

Friday 8/9- Wilson Peak 14er finisher! Celebrate in Telluride

Saturday 8/10- Rock Climbing and exploring Telluride

Sunday 8/11- Driving back home to Denver

Overall, it was a really fun and really successful trip!