San Juan Weminuche mountain trip 2025

Members – Brent and Corey

Dates of Trip - 8/19 to 8/23

Intro

This was Brent and I’s 10^th anniversary since our first yearly San Juan Mountain climbing trip and our 7^th year running. Luke, another buddy of ours, has joined for about half of them but unfortunately, he was unable to join this year. Our main goal this year was to continue to work on the high Weminuche Wilderness peaks but also visit a part of the wilderness we had not yet seen and we hoped to avoid an approach from highway 550. We had been into the Wemi five other times as part of our yearly trips and always dropped down to the Animas River from Purgatory or Molas pass to start the adventure. This year I was blessed with purchasing a Tacoma so our 4x4 options really expanded and we set our eyes on a trip to Bear Town where we could hopefully tackle the Eastern Grenadiers.

I had hoped we could summit Storm King, Seven, Eight, Nine, Guardian and Silex on the trip and texted Brent as we planned that if we got all six of those peaks in a trip, I would consider it a big success. I also had eyes on the Trinity Traverse as Brent and I had never climbed them despite being in Vestal Basin twice over the years (our luck has been mixed in that basin). I figured that it would be a long shot to get the aforementioned six peaks plus the Trinities, but scouted routes from Stormy Gulch to climb the Trinities from that side just in case weather somehow allowed.

If we succeeded somehow on obtaining all nine peaks as part of the trip, we would be Grenadier range finishers together! As the trip started neared it seemed we would have some monsoon moisture forecast for Thursday, Friday and Saturday but good weather windows to climb each morning, so I became somewhat hopeful of getting all nine but knew we would still be very lucky to pull off.

Looking back a bit at our 2024 San Juan trip where we climbed the 5 peaks of the Western Grenadier range

We climbed the westernmost Grenadiers the previous year on a trip with Luke backpacking into Vestal basin. We had a poor forecast with significant monsoon moisture planned but went for it anyways and were blessed on August 21^st the first day of our trip to get Outlook Peak before our backpack into Vestal basin. On August 22^nd we hit a morning window before afternoon storms to climb a lifelong goal of Brent and I’s, Wham ridge on Vestal, which was an incredible climb. We had been turned by weather off Wham ridge on our first trip into the basin years prior in 2019. So it was a sweet climb to be back 5 years later to finally climb the amazing classic. After wham we fortunately had time to sneak in the classic Arrow standard route before rain started right about lunch.

The next day on August 23^rd, we climbed Electric, Greystone, and Garfield on a drizzly dreary monsoonal Weminuche morning but had incredible views as the clouds finally broke on our climb of Garfield making for a spectacular Wemi adventure. Unfortunately, while hiking near Garfield Lake after the final summit of the day we received word that Luke had a family emergency from my Garmin in reach and ended up returning to camp that day and packing out on a long difficult rainy evening to get him home to his family. We had planned to climb the Trinity traverse the next day but that would obviously have to wait.

I did not write a trip report on this trip as these routes are well documented so I didn’t feel I had much to offer to the masses, and also several of the peaks on our last day were shrouded in clouds, but it was a trip I will still remember forever. Our slightly shortened 2024 San Juan trip still allowed us to climb the western most five peaks of the Grenadier range setting the stage to potentially complete the amazing subrange on our 2025 trip.

Day 1 – Work and the drive to Silverton in the evening

On 8/19 I worked a usual clinic day and had dinner with the family and left Eagle to meet Brent outside of Grand Junction. As has become habit for us, we stashed a car in the Gunnison Bluffs parking lot outside of Grand Junction and made our way to Silverton and ultimately camped in the back of my pickup right off the start of the Cunningham gulch road getting to bed shortly before midnight

Day 2 – Bonus peaks (Canby Mtn, Stony Pass Peak, Hunchback Mtn) + Stormy Gulch approach

We woke up around 6 AM to start the drive to Stony Pass. We parked at Stony Pass and quickly walked up Canby Mountain and Stony Pass Peak. This was a wonderful start to the trip. I have enjoyed trying to get shorter peaks in the morning of our first backpacking day to just get a few peaks under the belt before the main trip starts. To grab these peaks, it was a short 2.26 miles round trip and 1,394 feet of elevation change. The views from Stony Pass Peak towards our upcoming adventure in the Eastern Grenadiers was so exciting and enjoyable.

From there we continued driving on the overall nice 4x4 road down to the Rio Grande River crossing and up towards Beartown and the Hunchback pass trailhead. This road overall was an enjoyable easy 4x4 road most of the way. However, the last mile or two things change quickly and it became much more difficult. We ultimately bailed 0.5 miles short of the Hunchback pass trailhead and, in the future, when I head in there again, I think I will park even a mile lower as I am certain even with a pack, I could walk the final parts of that road faster than driving. I really despise hard four-wheel drive roads though…

From our parking spot we loaded up for our adventure and started the hike up towards the Hunchback Pass trailhead. From this moment on we didn’t see a soul for the entire rest of our trip! True wilderness still does exist!

The hike up Hunchback pass was very quick and we dropped our packs to do a quick detour to climb Hunchback Mountain. This was a very pleasant hike to the summit where our views of our upcoming adventure only grew! The view of Storm King, Silex, and The Guardian over the deep blue color of Vallecito Lake was such an enjoyable perch. From the summit we descended back to our packs and then started the decent to Stormy Gulch.

The Valliceto trail was wonderful. We ultimately did not find a start to a climbers trail off the main trail heading into Stormy Gulch. I was wondering if we would find cairns and a trail leaving straight from the Valliceto trail but we never found one and ultimately just bushwacked until we found a good crossing of Valliceto creek. For the crossing of Valliceto creek, there is a small gorge so finding a place to cross took us a bit of looking until we found a spot not guarded by small cliffs to cross the creek. The first ¼ mile after Valliceto creek there is a decent amount of dead fall obscuring the trail but if you keep looking you will find it and it is pretty good trail up into the normal camping meadow. We were only off the main trail 1 mile before we found our camping spot below the headwall to Lake Silex.

All in all, compared to our previous backpacking routes into the Wemi, this had been our easiest by far. Including Hunchback Mountain and the approach we did only 8 total miles to our camping site. The long 4x4 road took a bit over 2 hours from Silverton so there is that to contend with, but we were very pleased to be to camp so relatively easy compared to the west side Wemi approaches. We were also pleased to have three enjoyable peaks climbed on our approach day.

Day 3 – Storm King, Peak Eight, Peak Nine, Peak Seven, Gaurdian, Silex

This looked to be our best weather day with monsoon moisture picking up each subsequent day so I was hopeful we could really have some success. As it turns out, we far exceeded my expectations on the day as the moisture held off until late in the afternoon! The goal for the day setting out was SK, 8, 9, and 7. I suspected The Guardian and Silex would require a separate day. I had scouted the potential of doing all six in a day but it seemed like mostly a pipe dream.

We woke up to star filed skies at 4:15 AM and were hiking by a bit after 4:30 using headlamps. There was a trail heading up the valley that we followed from the main meadow and then we climbed the headwall above the meadow to Lake Silex. This is steep grass followed by talus but overall straightforward to the lake. From the lake we started an ascending traverse through the talus filled basin to the Storm King/Peak 9 saddle where we arrived as the sky started to lighten.

The climb of Storm King was enjoyable. It had the most talus of the peaks on the day I thought. The climb starts on a climber’s trail from the saddle on a rib up to just below where more rugged terrain starts. At this point it was obvious we should cross a narrow gully to our left to continue the ascent. This gully widens into a talus filled face for a majority of the rest of the climb. We stuck to the left of this talus as much as possible trying to stick to more stable class 3 scrambling which overall worked out well. We summited Storm King just as the entire Wemi started lighting up with alpenglow setting the stage for a magnificent summit.

From the summit of Storm King, we retraced our steps on class 2+/3 terrain back to the saddle and quickly headed for Peak Eight.

The route of Peak Eight is obvious straight up a 2+ couloir or on a great 3^rd class scramble just to the right of the distinctive couloir on a stable rib which is what we took. This leads to an airy, enjoyable, stiff class 3 scramble to the summit on a beautiful ridge to a fantastic summit. Thank you Lidar, for adding this gem to the list as Brent and I both felt it was one of the more enjoyable scrambles of the trip.

From Eight we descended the exact same route and climbed the gully to the Peak Eight/Peak Nine saddle. I had anticipated Nine for some time as it has a stiff reputation and many people seem to put it in their top 10 hardest Colorado 13er lists. It seems there are several routes that people take and from my research and being on the peak I would say Furthermore’s trip report seems to be a definitive report on how to tackle this peak by the easiest route. I would encourage anyone wanting good beta on the ascent of Nine to review his great report.

The key to the easiest ascent of Nine is finding a somewhat hidden grassy ledge that is hard to identify from the Peak Eight/Peak Nine saddle that sweeps across the southern face of Peak Nine. Again, Furthermore’s beta helped a ton here as we at least knew a general location of where we were heading and as we got closer to the lower South face the grassy traverse ledge became more obvious. I would also say Peak Nine for being a non-bicentennial had some of the best cairns on a peak I have seen, and they were frequently placed in key spots to help with route finding.

The traverse on the ledge starts out with some class three to gain the easier portion of the grassy ledge. This ledge leads to a long 1/3 mile grassy fairly easy traverse heading a long way away from the summit. There is a tempting gully about a half way across this ledge but it looked much more fourth class and if you go to the end of the traverse the obvious easier 3^rd class ascent will eventually reveal itself to climb to the ridge. If it doesn’t look obviously 3^rd class just keep going! Once on the ridge we bobbed back and forth from the south side of the ridge, to the north side of the ridge, to sometimes ridge proper but the entire climb to this point seemed all 3^rd class. Nearing the summit there was a shorter ~15 foot or so 4^th class climb to gain the final summit ridge but it had relatively low exposure.

The final class 3 scrambling to the summit was awesome where we were able to sign into the 1987 Mike Garratt register giving each other a high five. I would say Peak Nine was a formidable peak but I would also say if using the grassy ledge and finding the path of least resistance on the ridge climb back to the summit the climb was much less difficult than I had built up in my mind. It is still a very difficult peak, in a secluded spot, with complex route finding but we found it to be less difficult than expected. If looking for the easiest ascent route, I would just say find the grassy ledge and use it. If you get sucked up into the complexities of Peak Nine going more directly for the summit it seems it takes a much more difficult turn.

From Peak Nine we followed the long circuitous route we ascended back to the start of the grassy ledge. From here there were still no clouds in the sky and on the grassy traverse I began to wonder if we could do all three of the remaining peaks. I mentioned doing The Guardian and Silex to Brent in passing and he was very interested. He knew I really wanted to get Peak Seven as well (which was low on his priority list) so he told me to hustle and get Peak Seven while he refueled and rested a bit at the unnamed lake below Peak Nine. If we still had good weather when I came back from Seven, we decided we would go for them. After we made this decision, I took off as fast as I could go heading for Seven.

I had planned on climbing Peak Seven by it’s north ridge but could see from Peak Nine that the southern ridge looked easier and quicker with grass nearly all the way to the saddle with Peak Six. So, I went for this route as I figured it had less talus to ascend and I could get up and down quicker. This worked out great and the climb from the unnamed lake below Peak Eight and Nine was fantastic mostly on grass to the south ridge which was a mostly class 2 with 1-2 easy class 3 moves to the summit. The views down to Balsam Lake and the Trinities were incredible from Seven and I quickly reversed course to get back to Brent to try to get over to The Gaurdian and Silex. Little puffy clouds were starting to develop but nothing threatening at this point.

From the unnamed lake, Brent and I filtered some water quickly and then started a grassy walk under the south side of Peak 9 towards the southern basin of The Guardian and Silex. This was as straightforward grassy walk. It required a minimal amount of descending but overall, the contour into the basin was relatively simple. Once in the basin we started a grassy ascent up The Guardian towards it’s upper south ridge. The final scramble up The Guardian’s south ridge was an enjoyable class 3 scramble on par with the rest of the day’s scrambling.

From the Guardian, Silex looks close, but we elected to descend back down the south ridge to the upper basin and then started a high traverse beneath the connecting ridge towards Silex. This flirted with some cliffs but we found some nifty ledges through the difficulties to a final mostly class 2+ climb to the Silex summit finishing our “scramblepalooza” day. I was somewhat stunned we had climbed all six in a day and felt so blessed for the safety and beauty of the day.

From Silex I thought we were mostly done with difficulties but descending to the Silex/Peak 9 saddle we were met with a few somewhat crummy looser 3^rd class down climbs trough some small cliff bands that surprised us. I think at this point we were just fatigued and tired of scrambling. Once at the saddle we started the steep talus filled gully decent down to Lake Silex. This gully looks heinous from below but when we were actually in the gully it was relatively stable and less steep than it looks. I suspect it is easier to descend then climb. We made it to Silex Lake as it became more cloudy and storms started to threaten. At the beautiful lake we again filtered some more water and eventually circumnavigated Lake Silex on talus and trounced down to camp finishing a dream day for me. The total stats on the day were 13.3 miles with 7,800 feet of elevation gain and loss. It rained solidly that evening while we were in camp but it was such a peaceful evening to lounge around in solitude with Brent.

Day 4 – Trinity Traverse

I had finished the Centennials July 25^th, 2021, on Rio Grande Pyramid to later that winter learn that Trinity Peak was deemed to be in the top 100 peaks in the state by Lidar. I still considered myself a finisher as I did the original list but still since that time the Trinities where high on my priority list. After last year and needing to leave Vestal basin early, I started to think of other ways to get them. I was planning on a day trip from Molas pass on a clear weather day but never was able to align a day off with optimal weather. So, when planning for this trip I found the option of climbing these peaks from Stormy Gulch which seemed more doable than I previously had recognized. With the blessing of summiting all six peaks the day before this opened this day for an opportunity to finally do this classic traverse.

The day started almost identical to the previous day with a 415AM wake up call and hiking shortly after 430. We followed our exact steps the day before by Silex Lake to the Storm King and Peak Nine saddle. From here we started a grassy decent into the upper Ten Mile Drainage above Balsam Lake. We didn’t really now how far down into the valley we would want to traverse before starting the climb up to West Trinity. While descending into the upper basin it became obvious we could do an ascending traverse below East Trinity and Trinity Mountain heading towards the Vestal/West Trinity Saddle staying high in the basin. This is a somewhat difficult side hilling traverse but never exposed and just a bit tedious intermixed with talus and grass.

As we were on the traverse and once we got below West Trinity and Trinity Peak we could tell we could climb a wide gully between the two and ascend West Trinity from the east rather than going all the way to the Vestal/West Trinity saddle as I had initially planned. We studied some photos form Peak Seven the day before that made us feel confident this gully would go. Ultimately, this worked out seamlessly, and we were able to climb West Trinity with essentially a class 2+ climb using this route. Making this decision was a wise move and saved us an additional third of a mile side hilling traverse if we would have went all the way to the Trinity/Vestal saddle.

From there we completed the traverse to Trinity Peak (refinishing the Centennial list for me). The traverse was a blast! A few quick personal thoughts on the traverse. The 2 shorter 4^th class sections were as advertised with solid exposure but extremely solid and the final class 3 summit scramble was a real treat. The decent towards East Trinity in the northern most white gully was much more stable and less steep than I anticipated. Getting out of the dirt filled gully between Trinity peak and East Trinity was a bit trickier than I expected. The class three scrambling higher up on East Trinity to the climber’s right side of the gully was a bit more sustained and steep then I expected. East Trinity could get tough if sticking too far left in the gully it seemed and it was a stiffer scramble then I expected nearing the summit but a real awesome scramble. Overall, the traverse was as advertised and a classic as many other reports have discussed.

I will say we struggled a bit on the decent off East Trinity. The initial decent had a good climbers trail but then the final decent I think we got sucked too far towards our camp in Stormy Gulch. We knew we needed to get to near Trinity notch and descend a talus gully toward upper Trinity Lake Basin. I think our camp being to the east lured us a bit too far to the east and we got into some tricky slanting slabby sections. Ultimately, we were able to pick our way through thanks to a small ledge through the slabs that we found but it seems like we spiced up this decent some probably because we were angling a bit more towards Trinity Lake. All is well that ends well and we eventually made our way down to the grass after the more difficult than expected descent off East Trinity. From here had a fabulous walk by Trinity Lake. Eventually we did find a nice climbers trail that really helped with getting through the upper basin willows which returned us all the way to our camp in the Stormy Gulch meadow at 11,000 feet.

Stats on the Trinity Traverse from this route from Stormy gulch were 8.5 miles round trip with 4,400 feet of elevation gain and loss.

Amazingly we had climbed all 9 target peaks for the trip! Reveling in this success we enjoyed a rare evening with no agenda for the next day. While hanging in camp we enjoyed intermittent rain on and off for the rest of the day. While it rained we had the pleasure of hanging out with a curious deer that circled our camp for about an hour often getting within 5 yards of us. That evening we just soaked in the blessings of the success of our trip and the solitude of this amazing place.

Day 5 – Return home

We usually are trying to climb a few peaks in the early morning on our final day then pack out, so it was a real treat to just sleep in and pack up leisurely and do the backpack out. The monsoon moisture was really forecast to pick up Saturday and then really be impressive the next week so we were hoping to get over hunchback pass to our truck and do the drive out before any major moisture happened which worked out perfectly. The pack out amazingly to our parking spot was just under only 6 miles from where we camped in Stormy Gulch. Quite an enjoyable backpack compared to a post peak 12 climb noname to purgatory slog we did several years back. On the drive out as we crested Stony pass around 11 AM the Wemi were shrouded with dark storm clouds and it seemed it was already pouring over there. We picked up a few Colorado Trail hikers and dropped them off near Silverton before the rain started in earnest and promptly made our way to Montrose Wendy’s as is our tradition on the drive home. The next week it rained substantially even in the early morning hours in Eagle. Brent and I texted numerous times over the week of how blessed we were to get the trip in just before the main monsoonal moisture surge of the entire summer.

I love you Kim Bryce and Nolan. God is good! Thanks for the memories on these amazing adventures Brent! I'm excited for our 8th straight year already in 2026! I hope this is helpful to someone in the future.