PART ONE

Day 3: 13,323, 13,350, camp move to the W Ute Lake cow pond, and 13,171

Distance: 17.5 miles

Vert: 6,600 ft

Difficulty: 4th class (though it could have been kept to 2nd)

Day 3: the day our perfect weather became slightly less perfect. We knew this day would be a big one, and while not making it to West Ute Lake wouldn't be a death sentence, it would greatly complicate day 4, on which the weather looked even worse afternoon. With that in mind, we started hiking at 4:30 after pounding coffee, oatmeal, and electrolytes, heading up the path to Rock Lake pass, which we could now do with our eyes closed. We found the cairns that led to the switchbacks off the ridge, and followed gentle ledgy terrain in the dark, eventually reaching Moon Lake after an hour of hiking.

We knew we needed to wrap around to the south of Moon Lake, then follow the drainage down until the route up to the basin below 350 and 323 opened up. As we left Moon Lake, we heard the unmistakable sound of coyotes yipping in the distance. We headed down the slope south of the lake, with the yipping getting louder and louder until we thought we were about to stumble on a fresh kill. Then...silence. We never heard them again. All we knew was that they sounded like they had been exactly where we wanted to go, so with caution we proceeded along the side of the slopes granting access to the upper basin. After fighting through some willows and a good amount of sidehilling, we popped out at a vast marshy meadow, with our two peaks illuminated in the sun above us.

We followed the narrowing basin to its terminus, where a gully and grassy slopes granted access to the route up to the saddle. After putting some vert under our belts, we came across a small alpine lake surrounded by talus. We climbed past the talus and viewed the route to the saddle, which held some cliffs underneath it but seemed to have easier passage to the right. This didn't really register in our brains that well, because we both stupidly took lines right up the cliffs. Marshall said his went pretty well at about 3rd class, but mine was loose 4th cliffs and grass, and as I pulled up to surmount the cliff, I knocked loose my left handhold, leaving me hanging on with my right foot and hand only. I found better footing, pushed up, and arrived safely above the cliffs.

Rather than go to the saddle, we elected to head straight up the grassy slopes of 323 first, since we were already on its flanks. This climb was very quick, and about 10 minutes later we stood on top of 323, ranked peak number 9 in the Oso group!

We got moving quickly, knowing how much distance we still had to cover today. 323 is barely ranked, and as a result the drop to the saddle is easy and short. The ascent up 350 was also speedy, and we topped out 350 less than 30 minutes after leaving 323. Someone had built a chair out of the shale rock just below the summit, so I seized the opportunity to relax for a moment before heading on down.

After a lengthy stay (for us), we left the summit and backtracked to the saddle. This time, we followed a deer and swung out wide to skiier's left and found a pretty solid trail that led all the way down to the talus near the upper lake. It even tried to find a way across the talus for us too, though not with any gusto. We continued back down the basin, this time skipping the lower sidehill and going all the way to the valley floor before climbing the slopes back up to Moon Lake. As we started up those slopes, we saw a large black butt bouncing up into the willows...we'd scared off a bear! Somehow, this was only my second (confirmed, who knows what creatures those floating reflective eyes belong to at night) bear encounter, despite 500ish summits in Colorado. He disappeared into the willows, like, exactly where we wanted to go, so our navigational mantra became "go to the bear, turn right." Which we did, though the bear had long disappeared. We ran into a couple of backpackers at Moon Lake, then followed the trail and cairns back up to Rock Lake pass, gaining about 900 feet from our low point below Moon Lake. There were no more (ranked) mountains to climb from Rock Lake, so we went back to the tents, packed up camp, ate a dehydrated meal and coffee (me), and got ready to leave. The climb of the unnameds took about 5:45 tent to tent, and we were packed up, fueled, and ready to go 40 minutes later, as we started to see fluffy white and grey clouds coming in over the Peters group.

We started hiking toward the next pass at about 10:55, hoping to reach 171 before the skies opened up on us and then find a camp around West Ute Lake for the night. As we navigated away from Rock Lake, we could see the skies better, and there were threatening clouds to the west and to the east of us, with a channel of safety directly south. Fortunately, all the clouds at this time of day appeared to be moving directly north, so this clearing in the sky seemed to stay over us longer than it should. We passed a family who was doing a big backpacking loop from Hunchback Pass and reached the top of the pass, still completely dry.

Once at the pass, it was clear that the direct route I drew up on the map to the pass wasn't going to work, as there were miles of willows between us and there. We elected to take the trail to twin lakes, then follow the CDT up and over the pass. It would add a bit of vert and at least two miles, but they'd be easy trail miles. As we worked our way circuitously down to Twin Lakes, following the strong trail, we encountered two moose in the willows, both absolutely massive. They paid us no mind though, and we passed by with pictures and nothing else. We found the turnoff for the CDT, dropped a few hundred feet, encountered a group of seven who were in the thick of a Molas Pass to Wolf Creek Pass backpack, and started regaining elevation to the pass.

Our weather luck, which had persisted much longer than we anticipated, finally ran out as we approached the pass. We felt some sprinkles and heard distant rumblings of thunder. We elected to set up camp and wait out the storm for a window to run up 171, which we didn't think would take very long. There were 3 lakes to choose from: a high lake with beautiful water (that we kind of didn't see), a cow pond with crappy (literally) water, and W Ute Lake, a couple hundred feet lower. We picked the worst option, which was the cow pond. I ended up hiking up to the higher lake to get water for the evening, the cow pond was that bad. We laid down in our tents around 2 PM and read/napped until about 5 PM, when the weather gave us enough of a reprieve that we felt we could safely get up and down 171.

We didn't waste time in hitting the trail (metaphorically, as it was all off trail) to get onto 171. As it was our third separate hike of the day, we were well-versed in starting climbing. We took a direct route up grassy and talusy slopes, intersecting the ridge just below the first of two prominent notches. Once on the ridge, the peak was a talus hop, and though the second notch looked intimidating, it was climbed at class 2 due to the blocky talus on the far side. 171 didn't take much time at all, and 43 minutes after leaving the tents we topped out on the summit, 1100 feet higher. The clouds and storms around us made for epic scenery, and we lingered longer than was wise on top, soaking in the views.

Eventually, we decided that the clouds were drifting a little more our way than they were before, so it was time to skedaddle. We reversed our route and were back at the tents in no time. I climbed the seven minutes up to the good water lake and filled up everything I could, while Marshall risked the cow pond with his filter. We ate and drank, then fell asleep, thrilled that we'd successfully accomplished crux 2. Marshall woke up in the middle of the night and nearly peed on a coyote, while I stayed peacefully asleep. Next up: the Nebo group, and a return to the cars.

Day 4: 13,232, Nebo, 13,121, back to car

Distance: 8.3 miles

Vert: 3,200 ft

Difficulty: 2nd class/easy 3rd

It feels weird to call a three peak day with a heavy pack a "rest day", but after eclipsing 20,000 feet of vert in the first three days of the trip, that's what today felt like it was going to be. Weather was again a factor today, with 70% chance of storms after noon, so we aimed for a 5 AM departure from the cow pond. We nailed the timing and followed the trail down to W Ute Lake, where we turned onto the CDT and began the ascent up to the saddle between the Nebos and 121. The sunrise was absolutely on fire, and we timed it so we were nearing the saddle as the colors were their most magnificent.

At the saddle, we hid our packs in some spruce/fir treelings that managed to grow this high to keep them away from marmots and people. We pulled out our day packs and sped up the talus slope to the ridge between the two peaks. I had no expectations for these two peaks, but there was a bit of scrambling at a minor cliff band on the way up, and the peaks were actually quite aesthetic when viewed from the other. We went up 232 first, as we were already partway up the ridge when we topped out the first climb. The last push up to the summit was all talus, but yielded phenomenal views.

We headed back down the ridge, and as we did so, we realized how much higher up the bump was that we initially reached the ridge than the true low point between Nebo and 232. Not wanting to regain 300 feet of elevation just to go downhill again, we decided to keep our eyes out for other options. We basked in the sight of the high lake between the peaks and agreed that would be a wonderful camp spot on the far end, then headed up Nebo. Nebo had a couple of small cliff bands in it, but sticking to the ridge proper kept things manageable. We topped out Nebo, again wondering if this peak had the best views of the Wemi, as we'd wondered on just about every peak thus far.

To descend, we both liked the volcanic scree/grass ramp to the right of the ridge. We took that down and dropped about 300 vert in 3 minutes. We then sidehilled over to the true saddle with 232 and looked down. There was a gully, and while it looked loose as can be, it didn't really look that steep. We both thought it was worth a try and would be way faster than regaining 300 feet to the bump on the ridge.

Once in the gully, we found it really wasn't that bad! A bit loose, but a lot of the rocks were large enough they didn't want to move, plus the gully was not very steep either. It steepened and loosened as we got out of the gully proper and onto the apron below, but it was absolutely the fastest way down the peaks. We sidehilled on talus aiming not to lose too much elevation, but ultimately decided to just head to the lake with a little island in it, then reascend to the pass. I'd recommend anyone who goes this way to just go straight down to the lake rather than wasting time trying to sidehill. The regain to the pass and our packs was only 100 feet or so, and just like that we had one peak and a couple of miles between us and the car!

We reloaded up our heavy packs and began up 121. Fortunately, the only peak we had to summit with a full pack was both the shortest and the easiest of the entire trip. Grass and easy talus led up to the false summit, and the true summit was only a short distance away. We summited less than a half hour after grabbing our heavy packs.

Though we had summited the last peak of the backpack portion of our trip, our challenges were not yet over. What we encountered on the north side of 121 was the most dangerous terrain of the entire trip. It consisted of 600ish feet of loose talus, which we had to descend while carrying a full pack. One wrong step and we were in trouble. But we made no wrong steps, and slowly we inched our way down until the talus turned to grass. A quick ascent of a bump on the ridge took us to the vast plateau above Hunchback Pass. We wrapped around to the end of the plateau and over the hill, then descended yet more talus to the grass below. From there, we beelined it toward the trail, where we rounded a corner and our cars came into view, seemingly untouched by marmots and porcupines. Once at the car, we elected to read, eat, and nap at our current parking area, waiting out a few showers before moving the cars down to the Beartown trailhead that evening to get ready for day 5. We'd checked weather at several times throughout the weekend (I had at least some measure of service on every summit, AT&T ftw), and we knew Wednesday would be our last viable hiking day. Thursday, which originally we were hoping to have as a hiking day as well, was an absolute wash, with thunderstorms likely at 9 AM. We elected to make Wednesday our last hurrah and get out while still relatively dry and un-struck by lightning. When we pulled into our parking spot at Beartown, we were greeted by a mother moose and baby, 150 feet away, who were completely unconcerned with our presence. We watched them for a bit, ate more food, and were in bed by 7 PM, this time in the comfort of our cars.

Day 5: 13,318, 13,351, Ute Ridge

Distance: 9.5 miles

Vert: 4,100 ft

Difficulty: 3rd class

Knowing Thursday was going to be a wash, we had already decided that Wednesday was going to be our last day of the trip. With an 80% chance of storms in the afternoon, we elected for the Ute group, rather than the longer White Dome group (plus the aesthetics of clearing out everything east of the Vallecito would look too good on a map). We rose early and set off from Beartown toward 318, our first peak of the day. The moose and baby had cleared out, thankfully.

There was a strong trail the entire way up toward the pass, though we veered off once below treeline and once on the grassy slopes above. The lingering clouds put on a fiery sunrise, as though the Weminuche was giving us a proper sendoff. We eventually turned off the trail permanently and angled up toward a gully a little closer to 318, which was loose and sandy, but shaved off at least a half-mile of travel. Once on the upper ridge, grass mixed with volcanic scree for an quick ascent (and even quicker descent!), and after navigating the hoodoos on the ridge, we topped out on 318 to a cloudy, smokey, brilliant sky.

After a brief stay, we charged back down the slopes toward the saddle with 351. The ridge proper of 351 held some intimidating towers, and rather than engage them head-on, we chose to navigate around them to the right. Unfortunately, the grass we began on gave way to more volcanic scree, and this terrain ate up every step we tried to take. It was like trying to walk on a treadmill covered in a foot of pea gravel. Every step was a battle. I think, in hindsight, it would be better to navigate to the right around the towers, but then try to hug as close to them as possible, rather than go for a stroll way out to the right. But we did manage to crawl our way to the top, taking much more time than we anticipated.

With one peak left until our Weminuche adventure was over, we sent out a few texts and dropped down to the blocky ridge leading to a point between 351 and the Ute Ridge saddle. Ute Ridge looked very far away, but the descent off the ridge bump was the volcanic scree and grass again, which made it go lightning fast. After stopping to dump some rocks out of my shoes at the saddle, we started up the grassy slopes leading to a couple of false summits on the way to Ute. We skirted the first one to the right, instead reaching the hoodoo-lined ridge near its low point. The next bump we took head on, and from there we had nothing but the final ascent (and two mini cliff bands) to reach our last summit.

The final push up Ute Ridge held a couple last surprises for us. There were two cliff bands in the face, which weren't really surprises, but what was interesting was that they required some scrambling to surmount. The first one was short and probably could have been dodged entirely by going 50 feet right or left, but I hit it directly via a short 4th class chimney, made harder by me stubbornly holding onto my poles the whole time. After 3 tricky moves, I was above it. The second cliff band is 10-15 feet high and extends a good portion of the way around the mountain. It's possibly avoidable by heading a few hundred feet right, but who has time for that? I found a fairly stout 4th class chimney, about 15 feet high, that required a duck-under to the right to top out. On the way down, I followed some cairns to an easier 3rd class descent, but to get up Ute, you're gonna have to use your hands a bit. Once above the cliff band, the final summit push is a talus hop, and I quickly reached a waiting Marshall and summit #17!

While the summits of the Weminuche had been our second home over the last five days, it was time to say goodbye for now. We retreated our route down Ute Ridge, taking the easier cairned chimney that's further to the south, and made our way back to the pass between Ute Ridge and 351. At the pass, a number of game trails lead toward the forest below, and we found our way down, taking spur trails at times based on what seemed to lead in the general direction we wanted to go. All trails sort of lead to the same place, it appeared, and we were in the vast meadow below the peaks not long after leaving the pass. We ascended up to the grassy ridge, scared a herd of elk, and joined back up with our ascent trail in the morning, which we followed back to the vehicles, finally ready to trade the boots for Crocs permanently.

Once at the cars, we cleaned up as best we could, changed clothes, and began the long drive our from Beartown to Silverton. Having 4wd engaged helped immensely on the drive (duh), and while I used 4Lo to control speed for the mile or so until the rock step, beyond that we were able to move pretty quickly. On the way up Stony Pass I picked up a CT hiker named Cathy, who had turned the wrong way at the pass on her way to Silverton to meet her husband. She'd been hiking the CT for 30 days(!), starting in Denver at the beginning of the month and now nearing the end. I dropped her off at her husband's Jeep at the top of the pass, did my best to avoid other cars on the way down, and stopped to reinflate tires at the bottom of the road. Marshall and I grabbed some burgers and coffee in Silverton, and I bid him farewell and embarked on the long drive back to Pine.

I'm blessed, and I know it. For many people, a trip like this would be a bucket list item, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see some of the most remote peaks the state has to offer. I've been lucky enough to have once-in-a-lifetime trips in back-to-back years, and that is something I have to remember never to take for granted........That being said, I hope I get to have another one again soon!