| Report Type | Full |
| Peak(s) |
American Peak - 13,814 feet |
| Date Posted | 08/21/2024 |
| Date Climbed | 08/17/2024 |
| Author | ReginaThomas |
| Additional Members | Kiefer |
| Tour De American |
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American Peak - 13,814' CO Rank 103 San Juan 13er 83/249 (I'm 1/3 of the way there!) 4.32 miles RT, ~1976' of gain Dragon’s back… I mean American Peak. What is it they say about the best laid plans? Oh, that’s right, they often go awry. Having a birthday in mid-August means I often have to adjust to shorter objectives due to the monsoon rains that frequently hit the San Juans especially hard this time of year. Dragon’s Back peak, although a high 12er, has been high on my list this year. If you have seen it from Wildhorse Peak, you will understand why.
I was excited to see a promising forecast for Saturday 08/17 and we even had booked an amazing AirBnb in Lake City. By the time we arrived the forecast had deteriorated, and American Flats is not the place to be with threatening weather. Could we have gotten Dragon’s back Saturday? Absolutely, but would it have been iffy to get Blackwall too? It sure would have, and Blackwall being the last reason we have to drive up Engineer Pass, I was not looking for an extra trip up the road, even from the Lake City side. Since we were now dealing with a 60% weather forecast we changed plans to American Peak next to 14er Handies Peak.
After we settled into our home for the next two nights we headed out for a small side adventure to Goose Island. If you have driven past Lake San Cristobal, you have probably seen the drawbridge extending to a small island (.61 acres to be exact). I had always wanted to check it out so we fought the mosquitos and headed across the drawbridge. It turns out Goose Island is named because the Canadian Geese nest there from mid may to June. With how territorial they are, I don’t think I would check this island out during those months. It was a fun little stop, and the views of Coney BM and Company were beautiful looking across the lake.
Kiefer and I have set a goal of completing all the ranked peaks from Sherman to Silverton via Cinnamon, and Capitol City to Silverton via Engineer before the end of the 2024 season. If we couldn’t close out Engineer Pass’s peaks this weekend at least we can close out Cinnamon Pass’s and avoid driving higher than Cooper Creek going forward.
We pulled our harnesses out of our packs and readjusted our plans to head up to American Basin, which also allowed for an extra hour of sleep in the morning. Actually having a bed to sleep in made it that much harder to wake up and get going, but by 5:30 we were headed up the road to Cinnamon Pass again. Hinsdale county has mercifully done some work on County road 30 and it is in much better shape than last year, both to Grizzly Gulch TH and American Basin. Imogene the Taco got up to the upper trailhead easily and we set off up the familiar trail towards Handies Peak.
We veered off the trail after about .84 miles toward a white dirt saddle on the West Ridge to American Peak. After assuring some other hikers we weren’t lost (but thanks for looking out) that we were just not headed up Handies we headed up steep tundra into the upper basin west of Sloan Lake. The upper basin was rocky, but there was a nice use trail through the talus which made for quick progress. I
remarked to Kiefer that it reminded me of the slopes from upper Senator gulch to the Potosi Peak Saddle.
Kiefer decided he missed Mount Emma at one point and completely missed the trail just to his right through the talus, but otherwise the ascent to the base of the steep “sandy” gully was easy enough. Sandy is in quotations, because what looked like it would be a quick jaunt up some of the finest San Juan Scree (YAY 13ers!!, but you get used to it, as we both have) turned out to be some of the finest San Juan hardpan. If you didn’t crawl up the mountain did you really do it right? This was the only irritating part of an otherwise extremely enjoyable route, and thankfully it was short, and over quickly.
We topped out on the saddle and enjoyed the view of Jones Mtn, Half Peak, Uncompahgre, Wetterhorn, and Handies, AND the beautiful Wemi jaggedly rising in the distance, including… Jagged Mountain herself. We could look down into upper Burns Gulch and upper Cuba Gulch. After stopping to admire the views we took off on the trail across the long ridge toward American Peak.
We were originally planning to head out and back to American and then tag Jones on the way back before descending on our ascent route. I had remarked earlier to Kiefer that I was sad about not seeing Sloan Lake. He suggested that we make a nice Tour De American and descend Patriot Couloir. This time…YAY scree was to our benefit as we knew we’d be able to get a quick ride down the mountain. Clouds were already building in the distance, and descending Patriot would cut off significant time and distance, AND deposit us right on the banks of Sloan Lake. But we will get to that.
After reaching the white saddle a use trail contours through all the talus to the summit of American. The ridge was long, but it went by
quickly as the trail made for efficient travel through the talus fields (other than all the stops I made to take pictures). Just before the summit the rock gets looser but not by any means challenging. We got to look down Traitor Couloir (which Kiefer climbed in June 2021), Independence, and Patriot couloirs on the way up.
As we ascended we could see a large group of people on the Handies summit, and many more people hiking up the switchbacks. Great job everyone who got Handies!! We had complete solitude on American and took our time enjoying a snack and the beautiful summit views.
Even though Colorado and I had an understanding that she would not rudely storm prior to giving us a nice 30 minute break at Sloan Lake we decided after our 20 minute stay on the summit we should head back down and start skiing… scree skiing that is. We quickly descended the final rocky section back to the brown dirt saddle that denotes the top of Patriot Couloir.
Patriot is the easiest couloir on American Peak, and is just to the right of the summit if you are looking at American from American Basin. The next couloir over is Independence, followed by the extremely tight and steep Traitor. Victory Couloir is to the left of the summit, and we plan to be back to climb it in the spring, and descend Independence.
The scree ski went quickly and soon we were dealing with scralus (scree+talus) before reaching Sloan lake just a short 40 minutes after leaving the summit of American.
There were two men fly fishing in the lake and in the short time we were there they caught two cutthroat trout. They released both back into the lake and shared with us that the lake was stocked in the 1950s by a Lake City Local who hiked up with a backpack of minnows.
We hiked around to a grassy bench on the east side of the lake and sat down to take a break and enjoy the views. The water is so clear that we were able to watch rainbow trout jumping and swimming the whole 30 minutes we were there. Honestly, I think we watched the fish more than taking in the peak views around us.
After our break we headed over to the trail and headed down the familiar and easy to follow trail towards the truck. We passed a CFI crew (thanks for all your hard work guys and gals) taking a break and kept cruising to the truck.
I was surprised how much I enjoyed American Peak as a backup plan. I still only have 13 14ers left and I told Kiefer I would like to get up El Diente/Wilson this year to at least knock that list down a bit, before hopefully hitting the remainder of the Sangre Peaks next year and hopefully the Bells Traverse. I used to be myopically focused on the 14ers, and now I find them to be an afterthought to their lower neighbors. After years of solitude on the Colorado Trail I enjoy the more remoteness and ruggedness that the 13ers afford. I have even begun to enjoy the "chossineering" and scree of the San Juans. It has just become the price of admission for solitude on some of these lesser traveled peaks and is always rewarded 100 times over. I thoroughly enjoyed American Peak, and as luck would have it the weather looks perfect this upcoming Sunday… Here is to finishing the Engineer Pass Peaks with a ride on the back of a dragon.
Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow): 
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