Access: Andrews Lake (Molas Pass)

Start: 0700

Roundtrip Distance: 17.9 mi

Elevation Gain: 7800 ft

Duration: 8 hr

Weather: 27-55F, partly cloudy, wind ~10-20mph

Partners: Solo

I moved from Breck to Durango back in July after finishing the Summit County 13ers (not the reason for the move, just a nice punctuation for my 12 years there). So now I've gone from the relatively accessible Eaglesnest Wilderness to the "Can I day trip at least a few of these peaks?!" Weminuche Wilderness. I quickly noticed that every time I drive north on 550 the Twilights are just there hanging out teasing the hobbyist mountaineer in me. I felt inclined to cut my 13er teeth in the Weminuche by bagging these before winter. Which would start the day after ascending these.

I had been trading messages with another forum member trying to peg down a date but it never worked out so I finally decided just to do them solo. I researched TRs (thanks bergsteigen, chicago transplant and furthermore) and found the beta to be kind of sparse - especially for autumn with light snow cover.

I arrived at the Andrews Lake TH after crushing 16oz of black coffee only to find the pit toilets closed for the season. WTF. I sulked into the trees, dug a dung hole with a rock and soiled the soil. Great start. Started running down the trail just after dawn with views of N Twilight much of the way.

Literally it felt like it was mostly down. Wasn't looking forward to revisiting that on the return trip. After 5 miles I landed at Crater Lake where the well defined foot trail soon petered out into a social/climbers/game trail and finally ended in a thicket of Willows.

I had manually mapped a route in caltopo that took me into a broad gully between Twilight and N Twilight above an unnamed lake. But in an attempt to not lose elevation, I side-hilled a mile or so of loose scree ::MISTAKE 1:: After periodically cursing the shifty shale, I eventually reached the saddle and a bright white quartzite cairn leading to North Twilight (2:45). It proved to be an easy walkup and had amazing views of Engineer and the Mineral Basin beyond. As well as Twilight, SoTwi and West Needle behind.

I ran back down North Twilight retracing my steps to the saddle and started toward Twilight. It looked doable in the shallow snow directly along the ridge but I soon encountered a deep cleave in the ridge. From above I could not identify a clean downclimb. I backtracked and traced a west bypass to the steep and deep gully at the bottom of the cleave. It normally would have been an easy ascent but it was mostly covered in deeper snow and had a giant chock blocking easy passage halfway up. I managed along the flank of the gully and found a scramble out of the gully and back to the north ridge of Twilight summiting in 3:25.

The down climb off to the south was straightforward. I traversed the ridge line bump that is South Twilight without stopping and started up a snowy, blocky wall on the northeast side of the unnamed 12er along the ridge ::MISTAKE 2:: I knew others had sidehilled past the 12er but I also knew there was a register up there (thanks Furthermore). I got greedy and just wanted the bonus peak. I'd done no research on routes. After about 15 ft of ascending from an exposed ledge I realized the route I was on became overhanging, still snowy and I couldn't identify where it topped out. I gingerly downclimbed and got the hell out of there. Around the corner, I was met by the sun and rewarding views of Twilight Lake and the north face of West Needle.

It was intimidating: caked in snow and covered in shadow. The couloirs looked impassable (I didn't bring traction anyway). I skirted the gendarmes to the west at the base of the ridge and just started climbing the snowy north face. I'd consider it sustained, mostly unexposed 3rd class for conditions that day until the summit block. The blocky, snowy wall had no obvious route.

From the ridge, I could make out a dry couloir on the east side leading directly to the summit. So I traversed over and took the super highway to the top (5:30).

Milling around, debating whether the NE or SW summit was the highest point, I noticed a small cairn down ridge from the NE summit. I decided to follow it and started making my way down ridge proper. Soon the cairns disappeared and I made the decision to downclimb north off the ridge parallel to the route I had ascended ::MISTAKE 3:: Once again, I found myself on exposed snowy ledges, but descending instead of ascending this time. I made one exposed move starting down and quickly realized I was uncomfortable in the cliffy snowy terrain. I backtracked up to the ridgeline and just continued on, hoping to avoid being cliffed out. Luck was on my side. Apparently I had charged right past the 4th class climb on my way to the couloir.

I rejoined my ascent route for the down climb and efficiently traversed talus over to the saddle between S Twilight and the 12er, even finding the faint trail that bergsteigen had followed. I descended the skiers right side of the rib hoping to hop over it near the bottom to rejoin my ascent route adjacent the unnamed lake. But I repeatedly emerged from trees atop cliffs ::MISTAKE 4:: and had to reenter the narrowing couloir. Eventually I resigned myself to descending to the base of the couloir hundreds of feet below the lake and regaining the vertical. It was tedious talus but straightforward. I finally emerged from the willows I had battled through earlier behind Crater Lake. The run out sucked as much as anticipated. I was feeling pretty worked and had to hike most of the low angle climbs back to the trailhead. I finally arrived back at my car at 1500.

Navigation & Communication

I preload my intended route in both Caltopo on my phone, as well as my Suunto Ambit 3 watch, for both redundancy and because the watch is more convenient while the phone is more detailed. I make sure I have the map downloaded on the phone for offline use, and then put the phone in airplane mode when I start. I've never run out of battery even on 18 hour days with that approach. GPS will still work in Caltopo in airplane mode. Once I've finished the last summit, if I'm doubling back on the route, I'll switch the watch navigation to "Track Back" so I can follow my old track. Sometimes it deviates from my planned route so I like to see that level of detail on the return trip.

Even though my phone is in airplane mode eliminating contact with the outside world, I always try to carry a SPOT transceiver. I share the link with at the least my wife and occasionally some friends. I always give her my estimated return time, a time when she should put SAR on standby, and a time she should call out for help. And I also tell her I'll call her when I've started my descent from the last summit. Putting SAR on standby gets a page out to team members to be on standby for a distressed hiker at your general location without formally dispatching them to the site. If you are in trouble, doing so can save minutes to hours in making resources available to reach you.