1 and 1/2 peaks in the West Elks

1/2: Marcellina Mountain

Humble Beginnings

Last week I had the pleasure of finishing the 14ers on the El Diente-Wilson Traverse! With the 58 completed (sorry North Massive) my eyes started to lower. Although I spent this summer in Montrose, I have neglected my close proximity to some shorter yet equally deserving peaks: the West Elks. This range has some really gorgeous summits. My first experience of these peaks was when I drove from Buena Vista to Paonia this June, accidentally creating just about the only route where Kebler Pass is the fastest way from A to B. As I drove through, my jaw dropped at one of the most rugged peaks I've ever seen, an 11er just a half mile from the road, "Marcellina". What a beautiful name.

After I decided on a West Elks trip for my last weekend in Montrose, Marcellina was the principal objective on the docket. I found a trip report from dhgold which described a mostly class 3 route with a spicy class 4 knife edge, totally my deal. I downloaded his GPX and made a few mental notes: Class 2 descent, crux is on the ridge, bushwhack isn't that bad. We'll return to these later.

The Trek

As has become a theme of my trip reports, not every trip works out.

The night before I left for Marcellina I did the usual pre-trip reviews, made sure the route was downloaded, checked the forecast, and this summer I've come around to checking where wildfires are too. Which is why I am so perplexed as to where all that smoke was coming from in the morning. In a summer of nasty wildfires for the Western Slope, this was far and away the worst smoke I encountered. It didn't impact my breathing, but I definitely had a certain smokey taste and texture in my mouth that made me drink more water than I was planning on and it was far from a pleasant feeling. Nevertheless, we push onward!

About that "bushwhacking isn't bad" note. I suppose everyone has different barometers, but this was one of the worse bushwhacks I personally have experienced. There was a trail for the first half mile or so, but after that it was lush vegetation from chest high to higher. Luckily, there wasn't much deadfall! It's all about the silver linings. Following game trails made me check my GPS and reorient about every 500 horizontal feet, save for one luxurious path on a flat bit around 9,000.

There were animals EVERYWHERE here. A few elk that I got closer to than I intended, one million chipmunks, and I saw a bear on my drive to the trailhead! There was more bear scat along this trail than I've seen in the rest of Colorado combined.

A couple of elk I spooked were lying in this grassy patch

The bushwhack ends at a loose stoney gully, which is actually extremely visible from one stretch of Kebler. This is the highway all the way to 10,500 where the class 3 begins.

Gully visible in the center of the photo

Well. About that class 3. If I had looked at dhgold's other trip reports (some of the gnarliest class 5 Colorado has to offer), I may have hesitated before assuming I was ready for this.

I am not a climber. During the school year, I'll climb at the Spot, but I max out on 5.10-s because I am such a wuss when it comes to crimps, maybe because of some extreme hypermobility in my fingers. I have horrible grip strength on small holds. And the style of class 3 climbing that this gully is really lines up with that weakness. The ultra-slabby slanted ledges which dhgold loved, I found to be some of the most tedious and nerve-wracking climbing I've experienced. Personally, I found it more technically difficult than anything I encountered on any of the 14ers. I could still climb it, but it was reaching my skill ceiling.

The horizontal view below the best perspective of the actual climbing.

About 150 feet from where I started up the chute, I reached a move that felt a little committal, and decided to ask the hard question of if I was able to down climb it. Although I decided that I could, looking up and down the gully made me very uncertain of the crux move above. In total, the slabby class 3 (I would call it class 4, personally) was a little more than 400 feet, all of which was a no-fall zone. Having to downclimb all that would be remarkably tedious, and given that my limits were being pushed on what the trip report said was the easier section of scrambling, I wasn't feeling optimistic at all for the crux. I decided to call it there, which was absolutely the right move. It took me about 45 minutes to downclimb the 150 feet to the start of the scramble. When I reached the bottom, it seemed like the smoke had finally settled.

I was able to avoid the loose rock gully for the bulk of the descent by staying west of it, although when I moved back into the gully near the bottom, it wasn't as bad as I expected! I remembered the class 2 descent and considered making my way around the side of the mountain, but decided to save my energy for the next day, which would likely be my biggest of the year. Having warmed up since I made my way through the bramble the first time, I continued without my jacket. By the time I got back to the car, my forearms were cut up a decent bit. That's just the cost of doing business for more remote peaks, I suppose.

Last look at this gorgeous peak

Final stats:

4.3 miles

2,162 feet

6:00:38 car to car

Intermission: Crested Butte

I made my way up Kebler and dropped into CB to spend my afternoon. Crested Butte was one of the few big name mountain towns I haven't spent any real time in, Steamboat is probably the last stalwart of that list now. I've heard CB talked about as a mountain town which really tried to hang onto it's identity as it got commodified by the ceaseless tide of the ski-tourism industry, a reputation which I'd agree with after my short time there.

CB is a little like if Aspen had any soul, personality, or charm. It's definitely a little richy rich, but (as opposed to Aspen) I wasn't getting gawked at after showing up with cuts on my arms and my hair in a bird's nest. I went around the Main Street, got a bagel sandwich and some ice cream, and read in the park for a few hours. There were plenty of kids playing in the stream and lots of young folk around who seemed like actual humans living in a community (again, as opposed to Aspen, where everyone under 30 seems like a caricature of zoomers who have 25k followers on Instagram and have never worked a day in their lives). I refilled water by the tennis courts and made my way to the Mill Creek trailhead, where I enjoyed a Santa Fe IPA and one more chapter of my book.

Sidebar: My Book

I'm currently reading Cadillac Desert, which is a history of water and water projects in the American West. My friend and climbing partner Sean (Sean23) loaned it to me for the summer while he's exploring some otherworldly peaks in Peru, and it is fantastic. It reads almost like true crime, exploring the characters that have developed policy just as much as the policies themselves. I'd go so far as to call it an essential read for anyone in Colorado. History with its fingerprints on the future is rarely as compelling as this.

1: West Elk Peak

Planning for a very long day

My initial idea for the second day of the weekend was the Delta County high point, an 11er called Lamborn. After doing some initial research, it looked like Juke-proof road would make it a 15+ mile route, with a fair chunk of road hiking. And if I was doing 15+ miles, I figured I might as well go for something bigger with fewer road miles. I remembered on the 14ers map that there was an isolated peak in the West Elks that nudged above 13k, what was it called again?

West Elk Peak! What a perfectly satisfactory name. I quickly read through a couple trip reports for this long day and noticed Mill Castle, an Utah-esc formation in the drainage I'd be coming through. At some point in the past, I've seen Karl Decker's video on this bizarre feature, where he took the ridge above the castle instead of taking the main trail below it. I found BoggyB's trip report which was a snowshoe of the same and overlapped it with a GPX of the lower trail, meeting at Storm Pass (also, BoggyB, y'all are built different for tackling this in winter. Insane effort). After rewatching Karl's video at 1.5 speed in a parking lot in Crested Butte, I was encouraged to know that there was at least some kind of social trail on the ridge, hopefully avoiding the dense bushwhack of Marcellina.

Now, I don't know how I got these numbers in my head. But considering that I'd be going up the east ridge and descending through the 97% downhill drainage, I figured my total elevation would be between 4,200 and 5,200. Somewhere in the Yale-Antero continuum. I lazily threw my remaining food supply in my backpack (four clif bars, one strawberry milkshake pop tart, and a bag of cheez-its) and implicitly decided that the extra weight I was carrying was worth the effort of not calculating the exact amount of food I actually needed to bring. Some days you find out what the trip is while you're on it.

I know that on a long day like the one I had ahead, my weakness would not be my lungs or my legs, but my feet. I've had a couple excruciating experiences on days where I've had to spend more than 12 hours on my feet (with the Barr Trail and Humboldt in winter being the worst offenders). My plan to alleviate this on a 20+ mile day with some off-trail milage was to build in some serious rests. To this effect, I packed Cadillac Desert, which could entertain me if I was to sit by myself for 30 minutes. Extra weight is just extra training!

The logistical crux of this route is water: there is zero water access for about 12 miles of the hike, which includes all the ascent and a good handful of miles above treeline. And although my map showed streams flowing shortly after descending from Storm Pass, I wasn't sure if they would still be running in August. I packed close to 4 liters in addition my filter, almost certainly making my heaviest pack ever for a single day trip in the summer.

My goal was a C2C time of around 12 hours, assuming about 20 miles. Roughly 30 minutes per mile and two hours of breaks total seemed about fair. I went to sleep in the passenger seat of the Juke at 7:45 with an alarm set for 3:30.

The capstone of a great summer

I woke up at 3:30 and had my traditional breakfast of one pop-tart, which soon turned into one pop-tart and the rest of the box of Cheez-its. I was disheartened seeing the moon so obscured by smoke, an issue that I thought was alleviated based on the clear afternoon I had the previous day. The smokey glare was obscured by thin but wide groups of clouds moving quickly, another issue I thought I wouldn't have to worry about today. Willing to use this as an excuse to get a little more sleep, I set another alarm for four and got another 20 minutes of rest.

Despite the same conditions at 4, I woke up with a little more motivation and had boots on the trail at 4:15.

My first stop was at the creek on the Low-Line trail, where I drank as much water as I could stomach and refilled to capacity. From there, it was only another mile before turning off the trail and ascending the ridge. Prepared for the dense vegetation of the previous day, I was relieved to find Aspens spread out from each other, very easy off trail hiking.

Looks like Slenderman

I soon found a fence, which separated the national forest from... the national forest. It might be a cattle boundary, but it isn't a very good one if it is, as higher up a burn has caused a fair number of trees to fall on the fence. Whatever it was, it had a social trail running parallel to it which I took advantage of until the trail wandered off to the south. After getting through one short band of tighter vegetation, I found myself on the ridge crest unscathed.

Since Boggy B's report, the private property which was Sykes-Picot-ed up along the ridge has constructed a fence along their property line. I was happy to see this, as it can be pretty difficult to stay off private property when the lines are drawn without regard to topography. Again, there was a nice social trail along the bulk of the fence, only disappearing when the terrain is too steep to take a direct line.

After skirting the fence, you begin what makes up a large portion of the ascent: a faint but generally easy to follow social trail through trees while you view the castle from above. This section is lovely and lasts for three miles.To the south of the ridge there is a narrow band without trees, any time the trail fades out, taking this route goes just as quick.

Nice!

One exception to this is between 11 and 11.3k. I may have missed the trail somewhere, but it suddenly becomes very difficult to make progress. One of the castle walls extends into the direct ridgeline, forcing a traverse to the north. There's a very wide area where this can be done. I opted for a mostly straight route until I realized that this line spits you out at a rock ribbon. I traversed slightly to the right on some very steep grassy terrain and found an easy class 3 line to regain the ridge. BoggyB's route swings far to the north and turns back southeast, this might be easier and it could be where the social trail goes too. Shortly after passing the fin which obstructs the ridge, a small scramble to the top of the castle provides some amazing views. The actual trail stays lower, but it is well worth the visit to the top.

Some of the views on the way

The rock band I ran into and the class 3 bypass I found

At mile 5.3, the terrain changes abruptly. The long uphill push turns into an above-treeline ridge tour. With the castle mostly behind you, you can now ride the ridge all the way to West Elk, with sections of climbs and descents never more than 500 feet at a time. My pace accelerated significantly here, due a cocktail of less sustained gain, easier trail conditions, and elevated spirits. The biggest blockade between miles 5.3 and the summit (which I measured at 10.4) is a point marked as "Castle View Point," a 12er which requires about 500 feet of climbing and has a short and sweet scramble to get to the summit, call it 10 feet of class 3-. It may be kept at class 2, but similar to the rock ribbon at 11.3k, the scrambling was so easy that it did not cross my mind to look for an alternate route. On the east saddle of this point, I was briefly snowed on. I found this to be pretty encouraging actually, as the darkest cloud in the sky was just dropping a handful of flakes. If the rest of the clouds were lighter than this one, I shouldn't have to worry at all about precipitation. This more or less solidified that I'd be summiting.

Suddenly open!

The easy class 3 ascent to Castle View Point

Castle View Point lives up to its name

From Castle View Point, with West Elk right of center

I reached Storm Pass and checked AllTrails, surprised to see that I had already gained 4,700 feet. Although AllTrails isn't always accurate when predicting gain and distance from public trails, I have typically found it very accurate when measuring it live and comparing it to known totals from this site. Knowing that I still had 600 net feet to the summit and one sub peak (each direction) in the way and believing the route to have 5,200 feet max, I figured AllTrails had an errant GPX ping somewhere which plunged off the ridge only to regain it five seconds later. I took a long break and noticed a hiker on the switchbacks from Mill Creek up to the pass, the first person I had seen all day. I started back up before they reached me, expecting to run into them on the descent from West Elk but I never saw them again.

From the pass to the summit is just a continuation of the exact same experience you've had since 5.3. I summited the point in between just for the heck of it, but bypassed it on the way back. The ascent to the summit is long and gradual on easy terrain. I topped out at about 10:15 and enjoyed some lovely weather. The summit register goes all the way back to 2010 and has definitely seen better days. From the top, you can see the familiar faces of both the Elks and the San Juans.

The summit ridge of Capitol is just barely visible from the summit, along with many other Elk peaks

To the south, Uncompaghre and Wetterhorn really stick out

Looking back to Storm Pass

After another long break on the summit, I returned to Storm Pass and began the descent into the Mill Creek drainage on a generally good trail. From the saddle, I could see that there was a stream flowing down in the basin near the bottom of the initial switchbacks, but chose to continue on without filtering since I still had over a liter left and water sources on the return seemed to be more frequent than I imagined. The descent back to the trailhead is long and a little tedious but never too tough. There is one just terrible switchback, if you've taken this trail you know the one I'm talking about. This is not commentary on trail design, I imagine sure it started off stronger and then people saw they could cut it on rocky terrain, which took out the top layer between the lower and higher trail until the whole thing just became a sandy mess.

Views of the Mill Castle on the descent too!

About eight miles from the pass, you'll be back at the trailhead. I never did end up reading my book at all on the trail. Nothing wrong with extra training! It ended up being more useful taking a number of 5 minute breaks than one longer break, which I probably could've guessed. Shortly before the 4WD trailhead, you'll get a view all the way up to the end of the basin, which isn't even as far as you went today. I'm glad I had this view at the end of the day and not the beginning...

Your final destination for this trip is The Dive in Gunnison, where you'll get a burger with a side of tots. The tots are non-negotiable. After returning to Montrose, I checked where my elevation went wrong. There was no errant GPX ping, I actually just completely forgot what the individual GPX's gains were. A two-way trip of the lower route is just a hair below 5k, and a two way trip on the ridge is about 7.4. So 5.9 makes plenty of sense to do this as a loop.

This was a great route, and was somehow my second 18+ mile, 5k+ gain where I connected a geologic feature to an obscure 13er. I'd highly recommended it for anyone looking to do this peak!

Final stats:

21.3 miles

5,961 feet of gain

11:31:12 car to car