Chicago Basin - 5 Peaks in 5 Days

Peaks: 
Mt. Eolus (14,083)
North Eolus (14,038)
Sunlight Peak (14,059)
Windom Peak (14,082)
Jupiter Mountain (13,830)

Dates: July 28 - August 1, 2013
RT Distance: about 23.5 Miles
Elevation Gain: about 12,700 ft.
Group: Aaron (spon0949) and Brad (mountain ninja)

Half of these photos are from Brad.





Day 1:

Brad and I drove 7 hrs. down to the neat little town of Silverton to catch the afternoon Silverton/Durango train. Taking this old coal train is the most practical way to access these remote peaks. Apparently the train has been in operation since 1881 and is now used primarily for tourism except for one stop they make along the way to drop off and pick up backpackers and hikers. The forecast for the day was 90% chance heavy rain. Brad and I were the only ones getting off the train in Needleton that afternoon. On the ride there, one of the tourists stopped to ask us what we were planning to do.

"Are you the guys that are getting off at the Needleton stop?"

"Yep"

"How long are you guys going to be out there?"

"about 5 days, 4 nights."

"So...are there cabins or something you guys are staying in each night?"

"No."

"Oh...well are there stops along the way were you can get food and resupply or whatever?"

"Not really...that would be nice though!"

Then he looked at us like we were crazy.

"Well good luck to you, be safe out there!"


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It was raining as we got off the train and put on our rain gear. The couple hundred passengers on the train waived goodbye to us as Brad and I crossed the bridge into the wilderness. We covered the 6 miles as quickly as we could as we wanted to set up camp in daylight. We found a great spot for base camp high in the Chicago Basin right about at treeline. 








Day 2: 

We woke early and were ready to start our trip up to Mt. Eolus at around 4am. Just before we left it started pouring again. We got back into our sleeping bags and slept till the rain stopped about 3 hours later. It was not looking like the sky was going to clear up, but we decided to just go for it being prepared to turn back if bad weather picked up again. We really didn't want to waste a day as it takes a lot of time, energy, and some $ to get to this area. We made it to twin lakes and could see that we'd be hiking into the clouds. We stopped, talked it over, then decide to keep going until God gave us a reason to turn back. We did this several times and the weather never really got better or worse all day. 

into the clouds!

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Mountain goats hung around us on the mountain. Actually there were mountain goats everywhere! They were kind of a nuisance back at camp. They would follow us around, wait till we pee, then lick up the spot where we peed. Apparently this is quite common for mountain goats to do this as they are deficient on sodium or something like that.  


Pretty soon we were on the saddle between Eolus and North Eolus. There were no views. Only once the clouds gave a quick break to show us a shadow of the peak, and then it disappeared again. The entire rest of the time we spent in poor visibility.  

Had to be quick with this shot!



Eolus was the peak I was a little nervous about. It was a little loose with some exposure and route finding (made more difficult in the fog). Before you start climbing the face toward the summit, there is this cool feature called "the catwalk". It's basically a long ledge that you walk across with a drop off on either side.  


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We were trying to be extra cautious as we made our way up on the ledges, keeping in mind that we were >8 miles and a train ride away from civilization. No summit views on Eolus or North Eolus. Brad had climbed Eolus before in identical conditions (without summit views) two years ago and was understandably disappointed, but it didn't ruin our fun!





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Brad is working on his Which Wich summit shots. If you take a picture with a Which Wich bag on top of a 14er, they give you a free sandwich. As far as we can tell, Brad is about to be the first person to climb them all with a Which Wich! He's even been contacted by the owner of the company about sponsoring him! He's got 3 or 4 to go.




After these two peaks, Brad ran over to tag unranked 13er Glacier Point while I sat down and ate some food. When we returned we were happy to be back at camp and thankful for a safe trip, we talked with some other hikers who said they sumitted Eolus later in the day than we did and the skies cleared for them. Bummer! Oh well.






Day 3:



This day was much clearer and we were able to start pre-dawn. We made it pretty high up the basin before the sun came out to give us our first views of the Eolus group.


So that's what that mountain looks like.




At this point Brad realized that the 13er he thought he climbed the day before was actually just a sub point below the actual summit of Glacier Point. He was pretty bummed about that. Our first mountain of the day, Sunlight Peak, is probably my new favorite. The climbing was fun and challenging with minimal exposure until the final summit move.  



Toward the top there's this cool chimney chute where you have to climb up through a hole in the rock just before the summit ridge.  



Then came the infamous Sunlight summit block. It's a massive boulder that sticks way up and has some pretty intense exposure on the back side. Climbing up it requires a 4th class airy move. To get back down, most people jump from the top boulder to a lower one calling it "the leap of faith". I wasn't planning on going up the summit block, but as I started climbing up to check it out, all the sudden I was up at the top! It is nerve racking for sure, but I felt that the whole thing was just a little bit overrated. I really think it depends on one's comfort level with exposure. Definitely more mental than physical. I was up on the summit block for all of 2 seconds then I made the jump back down before I let myself think about it. What a rush!  



Leap of faith.






 

Brad even stood up at the top! I told him if he was a man he'd do a handstand up there like he did on Uncompahgre peak last year:


He didn't bite.

After that the hike up to neighboring Windom Peak was pretty straight forward. This peak was a little harder than expected, but really fun with equally awesome views!  





Again, Brad hopped over to unranked 13er Peak 18 next to Windom while I took a nap on the saddle. 

We hiked back to camp after a long day. Back at camp worst tragedy of the trip happened. I spilled my cup of noodles! Most would be like, "who cares! It's just a cup of noodles!" But when you have been in the mountains for days and you are very hungry and you get one hot meal a day and have been day dreaming about that hot meal and it spills on the ground it's like the worst thing you can imagine at the time! I shouted "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" as I scramble to salvage some of the noodles off the ground before they get contaminated, Brad runs over to help...oh wait...no...he just wants to take a picture of my misery. Thanks Brad!



Now it's time to rest. But, get this, Brad decides he's going to go back up to twin lakes because it's a nice day and he wants to get some sunset shots of Sunlight. I'm like, "I can't even feel my legs right now and Brad hasn't had enough hiking?" Good photographers will do what it takes to get those "WOW" shots you know. Well, not me. I stayed in my sleeping bag that evening and lived vicariously through Brad's pictures. 

He did get some cool shots though:
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Day 4:

The next morning we slept in till 5am or so. I remember waking up and thinking, "there's no way I'm leaving this tent!" Gotta love the energy of my hiking partner! I don't know how but we were on the trail and feeling good in no time. Jupiter climbs around 2,700 ft. in two miles. Its relentlessly steep grassy slopes were wearing on our tired legs. I definitely underestimated this peak. I was thinking easy class 2 walk up. I'm pretty sure we did a couple at least class 3 moves. In my opinion this one was more dangerous than any of the 14ers in the area because of the looseness of the rock toward the summit. I'm probably just remembering it being worse than it really was because it was just harder than I thought, but I don't think I would repeat it if I ever return.  


We reach the summit and shout "URANUS!" Views of all the 14ers were fantastic up there and Brad gave me a free karate lesson on the summit.  


Steep!




We got back to the tent around 1. Guess who decides to go climb some 14ers again???? Brad heads up around 2 to re-climb Eolus and North Eolus for the views and re-attempt Glacier Point that he missed the first day. All in all, he pretty much summited 10 peaks to my 5. It's not a competition right? That's what I say;) You, my friend, are a machine.

He finally got some great shots of Eolus.


That night we celebrated our summit victories by dancing around our tents with our headlamps to techno music in our heads!






Day 5:

We hiked back without stopping the next morning. It only took us about 2 hours. We were missing our families and wanted to make sure we had enough time to catch the train. With a couple hours to spare, I did a little fishing in the river and we swapped stories with some other hikers. A very memorable trip I highly recommend!


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Thanks for reading!

Elk Range Beauty - Electric Pass and Leahy Peaks

Electric Pass Peak (Right) from Leahy Peak

James, Molly and I took a quick backpacking trip up to Cathedral Lake out of Aspen.  The hike in was super easy, but also exciting as we got caught in an intense thunderstorm right before we reached the lake.  We huddled down under a tree for a good hour or so waiting for it to pass.  I wouldn't have wanted to be stuck above treeline for that one!

Once we reached the camping spots near the lake, we set up camp and started talking about bear stories as it was getting dark.  Once it was dark, I was having trouble sleeping.  I know that we are generally safe from bears and other wild animals in Colorado, but just talking about it for so long kind of messes with your head a little.  Turns out James wasn't sleeping either for the same reason.

Sometime after midnight James finally got to sleep. How did I know this?  Well, he was snoring very loudly.  It was no longer the fear of bears that was keeping me awake, but the obnoxious sound of my camping buddy.  All of the sudden, James has one of those choke on your snore moments.  You know, the kind where the snoring stops and you make a loud grunting, gurgling sound?  Well, his unconscious growling was so loud that he actually woke himself up!  He immediately turned to me and yells really loudly,

"Aaron!  A bear!"

I said, "No James. that was you snoring."

In the morning I woke up early to catch the sunrise on Cathedral Lake.  I really need to get a wide angle lens as the whole scene wouldn't fit into the frame.  I had to take 3 separate vertical images to create this panorama:

Cathedral Lake reflection.  Electric Pass Peak and Leahy Peak are the two bumps on the right - Prints available

We headed up the peaks afterward.  The hike up these two is extremely scenic and totally easy.  We took our sweet time and enjoyed the views.

James and Molly heading up.

Spires of Cathedral Peak

Nearing the saddle between the two peaks looking back at Cathedral Lake (left)

Alpine sunflowers with Castle and Cathedral behind

Pyramid, The Bells, Snowmass, and Capitol from Electric Pass Peak

Looking toward Leahy from EPP.  A quick hop skip and jump from here.

 

Castle Peak from the summit of Leahy

the hills were filled with wildflowers!

Blanca and Ellingwood Peaks - June, 2013

Blanca (left) and Ellingwood (right) from the northeast

Date: June 28-30, 2013
Partners: James and Kenton
Elevation Gain: Somewhere between 4-5k

I'm glad we took Kenton's truck for this crazy ride up the infamous Lake Como road in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.  Pretty sure I would have just parked at the bottom of the road and hiked an extra 3000 ft. of elevation gain had I brought my own truck.  The road is crazy nasty and filled with what other hikers refer to as "baby head" rocks (they're about the size of a baby's head).  So we start up the road slowly in Kenton's small pickup and realize that this trip is going to take a while.  It's so bumpy!  After a couple minutes, Kenton just says, "forget this!  I don't care about this truck anyway!"  Then he proceeds to crank up some Metallica and starts just plowing over the rocks.  Kenton and I are hanging on and trying not to bang our head on the windows.  Poor James and Molly in the back had nothing to hold on to.

I attempted to capture a video of the drive up:

We finally reached one of the obstacles at one of the switchback and pulled off the road to start packing in.


We hiked for a little while until the storms came in.  Then we threw on our rain gear and continued in the rain until we reached the lake.

Right as we reached the lake, the rain stopped just as the sun was setting.  The sun dipped right between the clouds and the horizon for only a moment and lit up the face of Little Bear Peak with some of the most intense light I've ever seen.  I pulled out my camera and ran full speed to the lake to capture the scene.  It was amazing!  Once in a lifetime!  The light only lasted a minute or so tops.  A large print of this photograph is hanging in the Ft. Collins Front Range Community College campus in their "Little Bear" building (The buildings are named after different Colorado 14ers):

The next morning we woke early and headed toward Blanca first.  I didn't realize how scenic this hike would be.  There must have been dozens of small alpine pools and tarns and waterfalls along the way.

Sunrise

Ellingwood at Dawn

As we started gaining elevation toward Blanca, our feet started slipping.  The rocks were covered in a thin layer of verglas from the rain the night before.  As we approached some exposed switchbacks, James decided that the slippery conditions were making him uncomfortable.  He decided to wait for the sun to arrive so it could melt the ice.  Kenton and I pushed on.  These peaks really make you feel like you are on top of the world!  They contrast from some of the other Sawatch peaks we'd done recently where the terrain around you is all rolling hills and not so dramatic.

Nearing the summit of Blanca with Ellingwood behind.  Can you spot Kenton?

Blanca Summit with Little Bear behind

We descended back to the starting point for Ellingwood Point.  We almost went down too far, but another hiker pointed us in the right direction.  The hike/climb up Ellingwood was very steep and tiring.  We were trying to hurry as well because it was getting late in the day and we wanted to avoid storms.  The views of Blanca and Little Bear are awesome from here:

Blanca and Little Bear

Can't forget to get our free Which Wich!

Back at camp we were fortunate enough to run into an 80 year old guy who had just finished climbing Blanca peak.  We visited with him for a while and listened to some of his mountaineering tales.  I can't imagine the determination and physical ability it takes to do something like this at 80 years old.  It's amazing what people can accomplish!

We decided to camp out another night and head home in the morning as we were so tired.  The next day we took a quick side trip to check out the Great Sand Dunes.