Weminuche Wilderness - 2012

Weminuche Wilderness

September 2012

It’s good to know your limits.  Unfortunately, there is really only one way to truly find out what they are:  run up against them.  This was to be a trip to test those limits.  Not only was this to be the longest hike we had completed (7 to 8 days) with no resupplying, it would be the highest trip, averaging around 12,000 feet of elevation.  Plus we were following a trail described in an old Backpacker issue which included a lot of off-trail navigation.  It turns out this was a trip to separate the men from the boys.  What follows is the boy’s tale…

The Weminuche Wilderness is a half-million acre area of the San Juan Mountains of SW Colorado near Durango.  While not as well-known as other areas of Colorado, it is every bit as rugged.  There are several peaks that top out over 14,000 feet.  Both the Continental Divide Trail and the Colorado trail bisect the Wilderness.  The route we were to take was called the Needles Traverse in Backpacker and was ranked as the #7 best domestic backpacking trip ever.  Ever.  “Forge your own route through the Rockies’ most rugged corner,” the scribes proclaimed.  “Not a route for the lazy or unacclimatized.”  “But for your effort, you’ll explore historic mining ruins, roam wildflower meadows, and get up-close views of several Fourteeners – including the shockingly craggy Sunlight Peak – that few hikers ever see.”  It sounded like a good idea at the time!  By the end of the trip it had become evident that the editors had never actually attempted this hike.  Plus I’m not sure unacclimatized is a word.

Tom & Bruce

Once again, the Three Amigos (myself, Tom and Bruce) set out.  We had worked diligently to recruit others to join our expedition, but once again were unable to convince anyone else that they possessed that rare combination of qualities essential to success in our endeavors:  adventurous spirit, vacation time, good physical condition, and questionable judgment.  All were necessary to one degree or another.

We met at the Durango airport on Sunday morning, September 2^nd, having arrived from Peoria, Tucson and Kansas City, respectively.  We could have started earlier, but one of us being an accountant had to start month-end on Saturday.  My start from Peoria was moderately eventful.  First I met a couple from church who were going to Europe on vacation.  I had to wonder if I could ever take a traditional vacation like that.  Before I could contemplate that possibility at length, I was brought back to reality with the announcement that our plane was experiencing mechanical problems.  This is always a little disconcerting to me.  On the one hand, I know we have almost unlimited regulations governing air travel, which is the safest way to travel.  On the other hand, it is easy to imagine a stressed-out mechanic under pressure getting frustrated with the problem and just stuffing the components back in the compartment and slamming the door proclaiming, “Good enough!”  After all, they aren’t the ones who have to fly on the plane and it probably wouldn’t crash anyway!  In this case, they were able to make the repairs (allegedly), but not soon enough to get us boarding before the other jet using the same gate had to take off.  So here we have this brand new airport with expanded gates, and they schedule two flights leaving within 25 minutes of each other out of the same gate!?  There aren’t that many Sunday flights out of the Peoria airport.  It made for some tense moments, as my layover was not very long and there are not a lot of flights between Denver and Durango each day.  In fact, there are only two and I was to take the second one.  Fortunately everything was taken care of and we left only 30 minutes late.  We picked up a little time on the flight and landed in Denver only 20 minutes late.  Since my next flight was on the same airline, I was able to grab some lunch between flights in spite of the delay.  It was to be my last normal meal for the following week.  All in all, it turned out OK, but didn’t help my vacation stress level which is generally too high to begin with.

 As it turns out, our timing for the trip was very good.  The month of August had been very rainy and the previous weeks had seen daily showers (take that, Rick).  When we arrived, the weather was beautiful:  sunny and 60.  Unlike other trips, we did not need to rent a vehicle as we flew into a local airport and were planning to do a destination trip instead of a loop.  We had a local service pick us up at the airport, take us into town for supplies and then on to the trailhead.  Sounds easy.  But nothing on this trip was going to be easy.  Durango is at about 8,000 feet of elevation, which is high enough to affect those not acclimated.  It wasn’t too bad walking around town, but you could tell the difference between this and Peoria.  The trip to the trailhead was almost an adventure in itself.  Soon after leaving town, our driver took us up what used to be an old logging road for about 10 miles, gaining over 2,000 feet of elevation.  I haven’t been on such a rough road since Haiti.  It took about 2 hours, which is still much faster than if we had been hiking.  It also cost $400.  While that sum gave us pause, there really wasn’t any other feasible option.  One taxi service had quoted $100, but we feared that ride would have ended after about 2 miles with the declaration, “Well, looks like this is as far as we can go.”

As always, the local drivers were interesting characters, but these were not unusual in the usual way.  Turns out Elizabeth and David were transplants, having arrived in Durango from Chicago via California.  Their conversation was quite, er, colorful.  I couldn’t help but feel I had heard that dialect before.  It hit me later that it was reminiscent of the speech from the characters in “Napoleon Dynamite”, a former roommate’s favorite movie which he quoted liberally.  That was not necessarily a pleasant memory.  Elizabeth had never been up this road and was “learning the ropes” so to speak under the somewhat expert tutelage of David, the owner of the transport company who also shared some sort of living arrangement with Elizabeth and several of his other employees in a manner that I really didn’t want to know more about.  “Now, see, that wasn’t where you wanted to go to get around this bend.  Next time take it slower and hug the inside to avoid the drop-off on the other side of the boulder.”  “Why didn’t you tell me before I did that?”  “I thought you would know that.”  “How would I know that?”  “Just drive and don’t do that again.”  And on and on for a very long time.  At one point we met another vehicle coming down the mountains that was being driven in a less than careful manner, leading Elizabeth to spew a rather colorful expletive not normally associated with either rugged backwoodsmen or proper young ladies of society.  Although her age and gender would have put her in the latter category, she seemed to have picked up some speech habits somewhere along the line that would have disqualified her from that general category.  We finally reached the trailhead: Endlich Mesa (elevation = 11,200), in the latter part of the afternoon.  We hiked about 1 ½ miles and made camp for the night at 11,800 feet.  As we had planned for this dry camp with no water, we had brought along quite a bit of water.  Between that and food for 8 days, we had a lot of weight in our packs.  This was easily the heaviest pack I have ever had.  While we didn’t weigh them at the trailhead, I would guess mine was around 45 pounds.  That is based on the weight of 40 pounds for my checked luggage, plus close to a gallon of water.  Fortunately it was a relatively short hike with a steady but gradual elevation gain.

Endlich Mesa camp on the first night

At this point one of the weaknesses in our plan became evident.  I would not recommend starting the morning at an elevation of 600 feet and spending the night at 11,800.  Generally, altitude sickness kicks in at 8,000 feet, although to a different degree for each individual.  Since we went sprinting past that mark, we weren’t giving our bodies any chance to catch up.  At the higher elevations, the body can adjust to daily increases of 1,500 to 2,000 feet.  So we were about 2 days ahead of that adjustment.  It affected the three of us differently.  Bruce had a headache, I was nauseous, and Tom wasn’t affected.  Another effect is on your sleep.  The first night was a rough one.  Since I was exhausted from travelling, I fell asleep right away, but that only lasted about two hours.  For the rest of the night, it was short periods of sleep followed by longer periods of no sleep.  And, let’s be honest, sleeping while on backpacking trips is not that easy.  An inch and a half pad on top of the ground doesn’t compare to a bed.  Another effect of not be acclimated to the elevation is an elevated heart rate.  Normally my resting heart rate is around 50.  That night it was around 90.  So by morning, I was not feeling all that great.  Breakfast was a struggle, and ended up being futile, if you catch my drift.  All this took away from what was really an awesome campsite.  Being on top of the mesa makes you feel like you are truly on top of the world.  The views were outstanding, there was little wind and the cook area was superb.  It was the first of a number of tremendous campsites.

View from the Endlich Mesa

The proper procedure if you are experiencing mild altitude sickness is to drop down 1,000 feet for the next night.  We, on the other hand, were heading up.  After all, why do what normal people would do?  That would just be normal.  We, remember, were testing our limits!  So, we set off along what would have been a very easy trail had we not been gradually ascending to 12,300 feet.  Confession time:  I don’t do well on little sleep.  I also don’t do well when I haven’t had a good breakfast.  My normally sunny disposition turns rather cloudy with occasional thunderstorms.  At one point Bruce was trying to make conversation, but soon realized that all he was going to get out of me was mono-syllable answers and grunts.  I also forget to take pictures in the quantities I should have.  I did take a few, but not enough to capture the beauty of the hike.  I couldn’t help but think that maybe I should consider taking a normal vacation next time.  Obviously I was not thinking clearly!  I also reconsidered my thoughts on comfort vs. weight.  Tom has been moving toward the ultralight side of the continuum, shedding some serious pounds from his pack in one or two ounce increments.  I, however, have continued on the comfort side of the continuum, which my heavier down sleeping bag and an entire spare change of clothes.  As a result, my pack was several pounds heavier contributing to my slower pace.  I also once again packed more food than I ate, partly due to not eating much during the first couple of days.

Durango City reservoir

From the mesa we descended to the Durango city reservoir at 10,900 feet which is where we ate lunch.  We saw two couples at the reservoir.  I was expecting to see very few people along the trail.  While we didn’t see a lot of people, we saw far more than I had expected, perhaps 100 in total for the week.  We met hunters, fisherman, and teachers with their high school class out for a multi-day trip.  Now as much as I was considering whether this was a true vacation or not, I can state unequivocally that going on a five day trip with a bunch of teenagers is not in any sense of the word a vacation.

Approach to Lillie Lake

After lunch at the reservoir, we began ascending again.  We thought about stopping at Lake Marie, just above the reservoir, but decided that it left too much to hike the next day.  So we continued on to Lillie Lake, which was a couple miles more, but also 1,000 feet higher.  Remember that you should go down 1,000 feet in elevation if you are experiencing altitude sickness?  Well, we went up by that amount.  Camp that night was at 12,600 feet.  It was a rough day of hiking.  While the trail was not strenuous, the elevation was having maximum effect.  Toward the end of the day, we would do about 50 feet and have to stop to rest and catch our breath.  When I say “we”, I mean Bruce and I, and mainly me.  Tom didn’t seem to have any problem.  Bruce had offered to carry some of my food since his pack was lighter.  While very skeptical of that claim, I did take him up on his offer, lightening my pack by probably two pounds.  Regardless of the lighter pack, it was a long 10 mile hike that day.

Unlike other trips to national parks, this trip had very few official campsites.  Most nights we did find sites that had been used previously.  The only restriction for camping in the wilderness area is to stay 100 feet away from water, which we did most nights.  On Monday night, the chosen site was quite a ways from water.  At this elevation, there is very little vegetation.  The area is best described as tundra or alpine meadow.  Besides a water source, the main criterion for a campsite is shelter from the wind with a good place for tents.  This particular site was sheltered enough without having to go further off the trail to get closer to the lake.  One of our most serious mishaps of the trip occurred at this point.  We were using my water filter and the fitting that connects the intake hose with the pump broke off.  Not having a filter would be a serious problem.  We tried a number of innovations, but nothing worked well enough for the engineer among us.  Actually, nothing worked well enough for the doctor and accountant among us either.  We even tried duct tape.  You know it’s a serious problem when it can’t be fixed with duct tape and a little engineering ingenuity.  We ended up straining the water through a handkerchief and then setting the pump in the water in the pan since we couldn’t use the intake hose.  It was awkward, but workable.  The old sleeping bag felt good that night.

Johnson Creek Trail down to Vallecito Creek

It was another rough night with little sleep and appetite.  I did keep everything down, however.   The weather up to this point was almost perfect.  In fact, it was so warm and sunny that some of us got sunburned fairly seriously.  Even the afternoons had quite a bit of sun, which is unusual in the mountains where afternoon showers are the norm.  As we started the next morning, we came to the end of the Endlich Mesa trail where it meets with the Needle Creek and Johnson Creek trails.  If we were going to bail, this would be the place.  By heading west on the Needle Creek trail, you would come out at the Animas River where the narrow gauge train ran between Silverton and Durango.  The other guys asked me if I wanted to take it since I was probably not looking too good, but at that point I wasn’t ready to give up yet.  Plus I wasn’t sure what we would do with the rest of our vacation time.  Plus I didn’t really want to be the one to cause us to bail.  I could only imagine what my former hiking buddies would say, not to mention my day-hiking friends.  So motivated significantly by pride and hoping it didn’t lead to destruction, we headed east on the Johnson Creek trail.  This was a fairly heavily travelled trail, as the Chicago Basin route is the best known hike of the Weminuche.  We met a group travelling with llamas, which is an interesting concept.  Not sure I would like that, but it would lighten the load a bit.  We also met a hiker in sandals.  He had started out with new hiking boots and had developed some blisters.  So he switched to sandals instead.  I'm not sure I have the fortitude to go hiking in sandals.  We soon began descending to what would be our only campsite under 11,000 feet.  As we descended, we all started feeling better.  There’s just something about hiking among trees by a mountain stream that is comforting.  Plus it was downhill.  Did I mention that yet?  We crossed Vallecito Creek and turned north along the creek on the Vallecito trail.  This was another point where we could have bailed off the trail, but at that point, we were feeling pretty good and not looking to quit.  In a short distance we found a camping site close to the creek at an elevation of 9,200 feet, quite a contrast to the previous night of 12,600.  It is amazing what effect the elevation has on your body.  In addition to just generally feeling better, my pulse returned to a more normal level and my appetite returned.  As the hike had been downhill and shorter (9 miles), we arrived at the campsite with a lot of daylight left.  We “washed” some clothes and after supper we (meaning Tom) built a campfire and we all remembered why we enjoy backpacking.

After a good night’s sleep, we were ready to ratchet up the difficulty level on Wednesday.  By good night’s sleep, I mean for a camping trip.  That means waking up only a couple of times.  The packs were also getting lighter as the amount of food we were carrying was slowly diminishing.  We met a group of about a dozen older men who were doing the Chicago basin loop.  A few of them were having trouble with the small creek crossing.  I could imagine that being me in about 25 years.  We traveled up Vallecito trail about 3 miles and began the adventurous part of the trip:  going off trail.  Our goal was to get close to Sunlight Lake for the evening and then head north across the tundra.  We waded across Vallecito Creek which is a fairly broad but shallow creek necessitating switching to crocs and rolling up pantlegs.  It was also bone-chilling cold.  By the time you got across, you couldn’t feel your feet any more.  We did find a rough, sparse trail to follow up Sunlight Creek.  Really sparse.  Several times we lost the trail and ended up bushwacking through the brush until we picked it up again.  We stopped for lunch about half way up and met two rangers who were out for a week-long trip through the back country.  One was a 20+ year veteran of the park service while the other was a rookie.  Their official duty was to look for campsites and hikers to establish how much the park was being used.  If usage becomes significant, the park service will need to “control” it by going to a permit system and establishing set campsites.  I was a little concerned that the ranger did not show any recognition of the route we were planning to take.  I think he said something like, “Well, I suppose that could work.”  It didn’t help my confidence that they had been doing cross country routes, and seemed to know all about the area, not just the more populated paths.  Later in the day, we came across a member of a goat hunting party who was returning from a resupply trip with provisions.  The hunting party was a group of guides who got together to go out for a week.  They had a bow-hunting permit to get one goat.  I’m not really sure how much hunting they were doing, but he assured us they were having a good time.  Because we were climbing and bushwacking, the 6 mile hike took the better part of the day.

Camp on 4th night

The campground was quite sheltered and nice except for the lumpy, wet ground.  There was some kind of mole there that had built a rather large underground labyrinth.  One of them actually came out while we were standing there and barely escaped with his life.  The campground was at 11,500 feet, which means we had regained most of the elevation we had lost the previous day.  Tom and Bruce took a quick trip up higher off the trail, while I hung out with the gear.  Although we saw no signs of bears, we hung our food every night we were below tree line.  This served to occupy some of Tom’s time and energy as there were no established structures for hanging food bags.  But using his engineering prowess and techniques, he succeeded in some rather innovative ways so our food was always safe from possible roaming bears and the more common rodents.  Later I thought that I should have documented the various innovative pack-hanging techniques that he used.  Since I didn’t, you’ll just have to use your imagination.  Most methods involved some combination of rocks, sticks, ropes, leaning trees and accurate rock-throwing skills.

Thursday morning we began the part of the trip for which we had been preparing.  In addition to detailed contour maps, we had a GPS with the waypoints of the trip entered.  Because of some download issues, we had not entered the entire trip into the GPS, just the major points.  This proved to be the second weakness in our plan.  We climbed to Sunlight Lake, dropping our packs part way up as this was a side trip.  We did not see the hunting party at the lake, but did see two mountain goats.  After a short time there, we returned to our packs and set off on the cross-country part of the trip.  It was here that we realized the value of downloading the whole trip to the GPS instead of just the way points.  We started off following a trail which we soon realized was not a hiking trail, but instead was an animal trail that was not leading to exactly where we wanted to go.  Perhaps we would have been better off following that trail, although it’s risky to follow a mountain goat trail.  They can easily go where humans cannot.

We got to a point where we knew we had to go up, but weren’t sure how to get there.  The next waypoint was .6 miles at an elevation of almost 13,000 feet, which was 600 feet above where we were.  The terrain had become more rugged with huge boulders forming a maze to the top.  We ended up trying a couple of ways with Bruce dropping his pack to do some scouting.  If there was an easy way to the top, we didn’t find it.  The route we took required heaving your body over onto the boulder, scrambling up the rest of the way and eventually descending a small ledge without your pack which was then lowered to you.  I think we crossed the line between backpacking and mountain climbing at that point.  We probably covered less than 2 miles that morning and ate lunch at the pass.  Crossing the pass, we faced a long slop of tallus.  Tallus is a large field of loose, medium sized rocks.  The rocks ranged in size but most were one to four feet across.  It is treacherous because you have to test all the rocks before you step onto them.  A fall can be very dangerous.  Not only was it on a slope where a fall could take you quite a ways, but landing on the rocks wrong could result in serious injury such as sprained ankles and wrists to nasty cuts or broken bones.  There was obviously no path at this point.  We had already adjusted our plans based on how long it took us to ascend to the pass.  Now we were looking out across the slope of Leviathan Peak at the Needle Mountains toward a small tarn about 1.3 miles across the tallus field.  It was a very bleak but beautiful sight.  As we began the descent, it was very slow going.  Tom was up ahead looking for a path, but there didn’t seem to be one.  Bruce was leading me as we slowly worked our way across this vast wasteland.  After about a half hour of this when we had made  only marginal progress, Bruce turned to me and said, “Well, this is the last point of return.”  This had become somewhat of a joke to us as the answer to the question, “What is right before the point of no return?”  I looked at the sun beginning its descent, the long tallus field before us and thought about the next couple of days.  Once we got down to the tarn and camped, we would then start out the next day ascending the next mountain across what appeared to be more tallus.  Beyond that lay more unknown and we had a long way to go.  At the rate we had been going, it would be a challenge to complete the trip in time and there were no good bailout paths.  I stood contemplating the future with the realization that this decision would be critical.  There was very real danger here.  Was I up to the challenge or was I in over my head?  If we turned back now, we’d never know if the rest of the trail was easier, but if we went forward and it wasn’t, how would that go?  And yet, the challenge of the unknown and the feeling of accomplishment that you get by forging ahead and completing a difficult route is a tremendous motivation to keep going.  Tom, I knew, would want to keep going.  I wasn’t so sure about Bruce.  So if someone was going to raise the white flag, it would have to be me.  And so I decided…

The last point of return.  To continue on meant traveling through the tallus field to the small tarn 1 1/4 miles away in the middle of the picture.

 

Tallus field up close.

I decided I couldn’t do it.  Humbling as it was to admit, I was in over my head.  I have to admit I was actually afraid.  I’ve been on challenging paths, but here there wasn’t even a path.  And there wouldn’t be a path for a couple of days.  So I swallowed my pride and made the case for turning back.  My argument was basically that I was at my limit and didn’t think I could do it.  In a way it was kind of selfish to force my will on the others, but I did it anyway.  Fortunately, I travel with some great guys who time after time have made allowances and sacrifices for my personal shortcomings.  After a brief discussion, they agreed that we would turn back, partly because we had slowed to a rate that would make it challenging to finish our course in time.

The way back.

Now realize that when I say turning back, we aren’t out of the woods yet.  OK, technically, we were out of the woods because we were above treeline, but I am speaking figuratively here.  Not only do we need to ascend the tallus slope we have been working our way down, but then we need to drop down through the same boulder field we scrambled up, and then descend along Sunlight Creek back to Vallecito Creek.  Then we still have several more days of trails up to Silverton.  We still had a lot of hiking ahead of us.

We worked our way back to the creek, taking a different route that still proved quite challenging with a lot of switchbacks to handle the mountainside.  By late afternoon, we found ourselves back on the Sunlight Lake trail where we made camp slightly above our previous night’s campsite at about 11,800 feet, but below tree line.  Although we probably only covered a half dozen miles, it was a long 7 ½ hour day and undoubtedly the most challenging backpacking I have ever done.  It had been an epic day.

Friday morning we began descending the Sunlight Creek “Trail”.  Surprisingly, it was not any easier descending than it had been ascending two days before.  Having done the trail once, you would think we would know it.  I think we got off the trail even more often than we had coming up, but never too far.  It’s awful hard to get lost coming down a mountain with a creek because you know you need to basically follow the creek all the way out.  Tom added some cairns as we went and more than once had to go back and remove them because we were following the wrong path.  We crossed Vallecito creek again and it was just as cold the second time.  At that point occurred one of the greatest tragedies of the trip, if not my entire hiking career.  When crossing the creek, we changed to crocs or other alternative footwear to keep our hiking boots dry.  After we crossed the creek, we changed back into our hiking boots and left my good pair of crocs lying by the creek.  I didn’t notice it until we were a mile or so down the trail and Tom, who was following me, noticed they were not hanging off my backpack.  Unfortunately, it was too far to go back to get them.  Fortunately we didn’t expect any major water crossings for the rest of the trip.  So if, after reading this journal, you decide to complete the hike we failed to do, look for my green and orange crocs lying by a rock.  You can even keep them, if you want.

Copper colored creek.  Note the "bridge" crossing it.

We turned north on the Vallecito Creek Trail making very good time compared to our previous couple of days.  Since we were back on the main park trails, we were not surprised to see other backpackers.  We met two groups of high school students from Colorado Timberline Academy in Durango.  This is a boarding school for about 40 troubled students.  They start classes each fall with a 5 day backpacking trip through the Weminuche from Molas Pass to Vallecito.  Each group consisted of 10-15 boys and a token girl plus several instructors.  I’m sure it was quite an adventure…for the instructors.  I think I would have rather taken the route we were planning than chaperone a group of high school kids backpacking.  Maybe it wouldn’t have been that bad.  Maybe the kids were wiped out by the end of each day and just wanted to turn in early.  The route they were taking was fairly easy.  A quick descent the first day down to the scenic Animas River followed by a long gradual uphill along Elk Creek.  A couple of miles through alpine tundra and then back down the Vallecito Creek trail.  It was probably 45 miles with a total elevation change of 10,000 feet.  In fact, that’s almost a like a series of dayhikes!  After leaving them to their journey, we camped just under Mt. Nebo at 11,300 feet shortly before the junction with the Continental Divide Trail (CDT), the longest and most challenging of the three main long trails in the US.  The campsite we found was just below treeline, but we turned down Tom’s offer of building a campfire.  I would estimate that we did 9 miles for the day, the first 2 or 3 being quite strenuous.  After an early supper, Bruce turned in for some quiet time and Tom spotted some mule deer on the open slope across the valley.  We watched them until it got dark, but they didn’t get too close to us.  We hoped to see elk on this trip, but never saw much evidence of them other than hearing a couple of males bugling somewhere far in the distance.

Typical, but spectacular Alpine Tundra

Saturday morning brought the only rain we experienced on the trip; about 15 minutes of drizzle.  That aspect of the trip cannot be overemphasized.  Colorado wins hands down over California in that regard.  It was also much warmer.  Having my down sleeping bag was overkill for this trip.  Most nights I had to leave it unzipped and always unzipped the vent by my feet, something I had never done before.  A couple of nights it slipped down to freezing, but most nights were probably mid 40’s.  At this point in the trip, the backpacks were noticeably lighter.  We had packed food for 8 days just in case, but we were now 5 ½ days into the trip.  Plus we were fully acclimated, or at least as acclimated as a group of flatlanders can be!  We now left the wooded areas we had travelled in for the past couple of days, returning to the alpine tundra, similar to the first days of the trip.

Abandoned Copper mine.

While lacking in wildlife and other woodland qualities, the tundra did offer spectacular sweeping vistas.  We began the morning with a nice 1,200 foot elevation gain over the first 3 miles to Hunchback pass at 12,500 feet.  In addition to the morning rain, the weather looked quite threatening.  It was overcast and windy which made it feel cold.  Being above treeline and exposed on all sides didn’t help either.  At one point, we could see the dark clouds moving our way and we prepared to get drenched.  We were very exposed to the elements and if there had been lightning, we would have had to do something drastic.  We were hiking close to an old mine with small miner’s quarters.  I had to think what a lonely life that would have been.  I guess I shouldn’t complain about my job.  Fortunately, we seemed to be just north of the storm system and never did get rained on while we were hiking.  It was also on this section of the trail after joining up with the CDT that we came across a road!  Had that road actually led anywhere, it would have been tempting to take it.  But based on our map, it was only a longer, though easier, way to Silverton.  At this point in the trip, the end was in sight and there was no thought of doing anything except completing our trip as planned by hiking into Silverton.  The CDT soon joined up with the Colorado Trail, a “short” 486 mile trail between Denver and Durango.  We met a couple of guys and their dog who were nearing the completion.  The dog seemed very interested in Bruce.  I figured Bruce must have been carrying some tasty food that he wasn’t sharing with Tom and me!  We also met another hiker who told us about a group of Peruvian shepherds who spend the summer up in the mountains taking care of these huge flocks of sheep grazing in the wilderness areas.  Evidently the shepherds do not speak English and have some rather large, aggressive dogs that do not speak English either.  At that time, the shepherds evidently had misplaced their flocks and were searching for them.  We never did see the shepherds, although later in the trip we did see a couple of stray sheep.



3 Exhausted backpacks!

Leaving the main trails, which were well maintained and easily followed, we took a short-cut across the tundra to Highland Mary Lakes Trail and promptly got lost.  Well, not really lost, just kind of lost.  We knew exactly where we were, we just didn’t know where the trail was.  So maybe it was actually the trail that was lost, not us!  It seems that in that area where they allow sheep to graze, the sheep create their own trails which look a lot like the backpacking trails, except that they aren’t.  These animal trails kind of lead you to where you think you should be going, but then just peter out into the tundra meadows, leaving the unsuspecting backpacker to wonder what he did wrong.  In general, wilderness area trails are not maintained as well as national park trails.  And within the wilderness areas, some trails are maintained better than others.  Up to this point, we had been on well-maintained trails when we actually decided to stick to the trails.  Now, we were having some difficulty.  Tom’s map was a couple of years older than mine and showed a very different route.  Bruce’s GPS showed yet a third route for the trail, but was rather suspect because it did not show the trail ending up on the road to Silverton.  We knew the general direction, so we headed that way and eventually found Verde Lake.  This was the point we would have come out had we continued our bushwacking adventure from Leviathan Peak.  Based on our progress here, I doubt we would have ever made it.  Eventually we found another trail (kind of) that lead to the aptly named Lost Lake where we set up our camp at about 12,400 feet after hiking another 9 or 10 miles, including a couple of false starts and backtracking.  This day had been almost completely cloudy and was by far the worst weather day of the trip.  On some trips, this would have been the nicest day, so I guess I should have been more thankful.  This was also the coldest night with enough frost on the tent to make the fly stiff.  Unfortunately, I did have to get up in the middle of the night to use the “facilities.”  It takes a lot of will power to leave a nice warm sleeping bag, dig out your clothes and wander out into the tundra for a short time.  Not to mention feeling guilty about bothering your tent mate through the whole process.  Of course, he’s not the one who gets cold, so perhaps I shouldn’t feel too bad.

Tallus field that we did cross

Sweeping views from the last day.

Sunday morning was cold, but sunny.  At this point, we weren’t quite sure what we were getting into and were not sure if we would make it out on this day, or need another day.  Our train ticket from Silverton to Durango was for Monday afternoon, but we didn’t want to cut it short.  There was a great deal of uncertainty regarding the Whitehead Trail, which was by far the least travelled of the official trails that we travelled.  We started off toward the next lake in the chain, hoping to pick up the trail there.  We kind of did, which is the same as saying that we didn’t.  We knew we needed to roughly follow the contour around the mountain, but we did have to pick which of our three sources to follow:  my map, Tom’s map or the GPS.  Fortunately the terrain was fairly easy, but we did end up going to a lower elevation than we should have and had to climb back up.  The area we were hiking through appeared to be a grazing area for the sheep, being full of trails that showed promise for a while and then just disappeared.  We did see two sheep off in the distance, but they were of no help.  Since we weren’t looking for the trail at a high enough elevation, we ended up taking the long way around, but it was a nice day for a hike.  We crossed a slope of scree, which are small, loose rocks kind of like gravel, but scree sounds much more dangerous and MUCH cooler.  The scree field wasn’t as large or as steep as some of the ones we did at the Grand Canyon last year.  This was, however, less well marked and treacherous in its own way.  Soon after crossing this, we met with a hunter and his guide.  They were looking for elk and planned to visit the lake at which we had camped the previous night.  I’m not sure what would have happened if they had gotten an elk.  There were only two of them and the hunter didn’t look like he was much of a hiker.  I can’t imagine they could have hauled much of the carcass the couple of miles out to their vehicle.  Since we didn’t have a good report about seeing any signs of elk which Tom would have noticed, they were going to turn around and go back.  They had seen a bull and some cows earlier on the opposite side of the valley, but didn’t have a good way to get over there.

Gravel road with aspens just turning.

Silverton:  the final destination

Two Desparado's sauntering into town.

Soon we could see more signs of civilization and came to the road before lunch after doing 5 miles.  The road was gravel, but led to Silverton, which was the key for us.  After the trails we had been on, it looked like a highway!  Plus it was downhill.  The road into town was another 4 miles, giving us 9 miles for the day and 60 for the week.  As we descended into the town, we could see the first train leaving for Durango.  The train is an old narrow gauge steam locomotive that runs between Durango and Silverton.  There are two trains that run each day.  They start in Durango in the morning, about 45 minutes apart and arrive in Silverton before noon.  Then they make the reverse trip in the afternoon.  Most people take the train one way and ride a bus the other way.  We, of course, skipped the bus trip and were just doing the train ride as actually transportation, not just as a tourist event.  Silverton is not much of a town.  It has some overnight accommodations, but no standard motels.  It is a quaint setting, but after a week in the wilderness, we were looking for showers, beds and laundry facilities, not “quaint.”  The conductor let us use our tickets a day early, so we stowed our packs and climbed into one of the open cars.  There are two types of cars: open and closed.  The open cars have no windows, just open space, much better to air out in.  The ride was a nice conclusion to the hike.  It’s rather low-key, with some nice scenery along the Animas River.  The train stopped at one point to let a backpacker off.  It was humorous to be sitting in the car hearing the (primarily) old people talking about the backpacker going off into the wilderness.  We refrained from commenting.

The entire trip from Silverton to Durango took about 3 hours.  The highlight of the final part of the trip was a local lady who meets the trains and waves to everyone, then gets back in her car and drives to the next crossing where she waves to everyone again.  She must have been at a half-dozen crossings.  I could think of a lot of activities I would rather be doing, but to each his (or her) own.  After disembarking in downtown Durango, we were able to get into our condo a day early, took a wonderful shower, did some laundry and ordered a pizza.  It was good to get back to civilization.

Mesa Verde community.

Since we now had an extra day to kill, we got a rental car and went to Mesa Verde, a large national park in the area that has hundreds of cliff dwellings in various states of ruin.  It was a fascinating look at early North American life.  The dwellings are dated from 1200 to 1300 AD.  The guides stressed the elevation and difficult hiking that we would have on the tours.  Strangely, we did not find it quite so rigorous.  That night we ate at a real (overpriced) restaurant in Durango and celebrated the end of another successful backpacking adventure.  Although events did not transpire just as we had planned, it was satisfying and a great way to rejuvenate.  And now that I know where my limit it, maybe the next trip will push it just a bit further.