Five Days, Five Peaks, One Funny Book

I need to preface this post by acknowledging up front that this trip was highly dangerous, and perhaps foolhardy and irresponsible, to have undertaken alone. Each individual step into the wilderness seemed sensible, or at least justifiable, as it was taken. But now, looking back on the trip's perils and uncertainties, I realize that I took great risks. Given the rewards--physical, spiritual, and psychological--the risks were in my judgment worth it.

The plan for the trip was simple. I purchased a ticket on the Durango-Silverton narrow gauge railroad departing Durango at 9 a.m. on Friday and scheduled to arrive at the "short-stop" wilderness access point of Needleton at 11:30 a.m. I would spend Friday through Tuesday backpacking and climbing in the Weminuche Wilderness Area of the San Juan Mountains, returning to the train by 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday. My ambitious goal was to climb a total of six peaks--three fourteeners and three of Colorado's highest thirteeners. Given the vagaries of weather, fitness, and trail (and off-trail) conditions, I would deem the trip a success if I managed to summit at least three of the peaks. Anything beyond that would be icing.

Ticket in hand, I departed Thursday evening from Fruita for the four-hour drive to the train station. The first few hours were uneventful, as I passed through the desert areas of the Western Slope to Ouray. It was just dark as I headed south out of Ouray on the "Million-Dollar Highway" toward Silverton. In the daylight the first 7-10 miles of this trip are a spectacular drive along a cliff-side road with dizzying drops off the right-hand side. The road is entirely guard-rail free so that the frequent winter avalanches can more easily sweep right over the road's surface. In the darkness, knowing that just beyond the gleam of the headlights was an unprotected drop into the abyss kept my attention firmly on the road.

I made it safely to Silverton by about 10 o'clock, and decided to pull in for a beer and a little relaxation before proceeding on to Durango. Driving down the main strip in town, I noticed two bars. One was a rowdy brewpub chock full of tourists, and the other a more sedate bar with a few slightly hangdog patrons (and one fantastically attractive bartender) talking quietly over the Rockies game. I, being the more sedate and contemplative sort myself, opted for the quieter scene.

While watching the Rockies complete a truly impressive comeback over the Padres, I had a pair of pints and conversed intermittently with the other patrons of the bar, who all proved to be locals. They occasionally made disparaging remarks about tourists, which initially made me feel both unwelcome and slightly irritated since without tourists their service-industry jobs would surely melt like the winter snows. Upon reflection, however, I realized that their gripes were a wholly natural (and probably entirely justified) response to the types of wealthy, narcissistic bastards with whom they daily have to deal. I could rationalize: "I'm not like those tourists they're talking about."

Melissa, the bartender, advised me on a good road to take out of Durango to camp while awaiting the morning train. As I was leaving at around 12:30, I was accosted by an unlikely anti-drunk-driving activist on his skateboard. After assuring him that two pints over two-plus hours left me fully in charge of my faculties, I made my way back onto highway 550 toward Durango. Out of Silverton, this road goes over two high passes in rapid succession. Passing over these summits, with little or no other traffic on the roads, I saw more glowing deer eyes than ever I had before. And many of these pairs of eyes were attached to magnificent bucks with great, pointy racks.

By 1:30 I was a few miles up the recommended Hermosa Creek road, where I camped out for a quick night's sleep. In the morning, I quickly finished up jotting Roach's route notes from his Fourteeners and Thirteeners guidebooks onto my climbing cheat sheets, then proceeded to the train station. I grabbed a couple of bagels, loaded my gear onto the freight car, and boarded the train, speaking with some of the other backpackers in the process.

On the train ride up to the trailhead, I met "Ranger Bob," a volunteer forest service ranger who would be backpacking up into Chicago Basin in order to advise other campers and climbers about safety and the area's regulations. As he put it, he has no enforcement powers, but is there as a voice of reason for many of the inexperienced hikers who often get themselves into trouble.

The train reached Needleton precisely on time, and the backpackers all made a beeline for the freight car to retrieve their gear. I was disheartened to see the number of folks headed out. In fact, it led me to impulsively alter my plans. Of the six peaks I wanted to climb, four (including all three of the widely sought after fourteeners) were approached directly from the hugely popular and easily accessible Chicago Basin. My original plan was to take the broad and gently-graded Needle Creek trail seven miles into Chicago Basin and attempt the four peaks there first, then attempt the cross-country (read "trailless") route into the Ruby and North Pigeon drainages to attempt the final two peaks.

The last thing I wanted, however, was to elbow my way up the trail in the company of 40-odd other yahoos in order to compete for the remaining mediocre campsites within earshot of the dozens of people already likely camped up in the basin. Instead, I opted to head directly up the brutal bushwhack to the headwaters of the North Pigeon drainage. From there I would attempt Pigeon and Turret Peaks, only later attempting the uncertain trek over Twin Thumbs Pass into Twin Lakes, above Chicago Basin, from which all three fourteeners would be accessible. This would prove to be probably the best travel decision I have ever made.

After crossing the bridge over the Animas River, I watched the others take the broad, inviting trail through Needleton (an assemblage of aging cabins in varying states of disrepair) toward the highly popular Needle Creek Trail. Then I casually ducked upriver on the little-used Animas River trail. I followed this briefly, past a few decrepit homesteads and a rusted-out old railcar, until reaching a meadow. From this meadow, a difficult-to-find and rarely traveled trail headed up toward Ruby Creek. The gradient was gentle at first as it headed up to a second meadow, where the trail took an unexpected turn and became more difficult to follow.

Soon the trail was steep. It shot straight up and across the slopes through the trees for a third of a mile to a broad shoulder, then angled up and across the slopes on the other side of the ridge, toward North Pigeon Creek. As the trail approached the creek, the gradient slackened, and the final hundred meters the trail dropped down to cross the creek. Here I stopped to pump some water from the creek. Immediately after unpacking my bottle and water filter I was swarmed by a mass of small flies. Dozens of them buzzed about my face and landed on every available piece of exposed skin. No sooner had I said to myself "well, at least they don't bite" than did the first piercing pain prove my appraisal premature.

Quickly I pumped, swatted, drank, swatted, pumped, swatted, packed, swatted, and got the hell out of there. From the creek, two trails diverged in this deep green wood, "and I--I took the one less traveled by." To the left the Ruby Creek trail continued to ascend the next ridge gently toward the next drainage north, while my route was a barely-distinguishable path shooting straight up the ("brutally steep" in Roach's words) slopes paralleling North Pigeon Creek.

After clawing my way up along the "trail" for a few hundred meters, all semblance of a traveled route petered out completely. From here I had to bushwhack up and along the slopes above the creek. Carrying a full pack, navigating around deadfalls, up steep rocky gullies, and through areas of heavy underbrush while doing an unrelenting ascending traverse of 1,500 vertical feet is far more difficult than it even might sound. To cover that mile and gain that altitude required approximately two and a half hours. That was probably the longest I have ever taken to cover a similar distance.

Immediately after cresting that final rise into the high meadow at the headwaters of North Pigeon Creek (11,700 feet), I knew that the effort was worthwhile. I grabbed for the camera to record the moment, but found to my great despair that it would not work! A trip through some of the most beautiful country in the United States and I had a non-functional camera. It wasn't the batteries--they were brand new, and the camera would work in viewing mode, but the lens would not telescope out for taking new photos.

Fortunately, miraculously, the camera resurrected itself the next morning, so I was able to capture this photo looking out from the meadow toward the Animas River.

I quickly pitched my tent high up in the meadow, tucked up against the grassy slopes that were the start of the route up Pigeon Peak, which rose up dramatically above the meadow.

I got the tent pitched just before the afternoon rains started, at around 4 p.m. Not having cooked dinner yet, I holed up in the tent to plot my route over the next few days and dig into the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that I had brought along for the anticipated long afternoon rainshowers: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Arguably one of the funniest novels ever written, the book had me all alone, cackling madly in the wilderness. I couldn't help but wonder how some unseen observer might interpret the wild laughter of a lone man in a tent in a meadow at nearly 12,000 feet.

After a few hours, the rains abated and I emerged from my comfortable den to cook up dinner--the same dinner that I would be enjoying each of the next four nights: a half pound of spaghetti, some classico sauce, a large dollop of ricotta cheese, and a sliced-up "cheddar-wurst" sausage. This proved to be gigantic, sticky mass of gloppy food. Just what the conditions demanded. Each night I had to eat dinner in three phases in order to get it all down. But get it all down I did. Cleaning up was a simple procedure whereby I poured about a half-cup of fresh water into the bowl/pot and swished it around until it dislodged all the food residue. Then I drank the water. Only mildly nauseating. Finally, I mopped up with a single square of toilet paper. After cleanup I belly-flopped into the tent just as the sun was setting. My plan for the morning was to climb Pigeon Peak.

The morning dawned cloudy and cool. I was concerned by the clouds, as the general pattern is to have clear mornings, with clouds building over the peaks to thundershowers in the mid-afternoon. The skies were not sufficiently ominous to prevent an attempt at the peak, however, so I loaded up the fanny-pack with the newly-functioning camera, some food, a full water bottle, the route description, sunscreen, lip balm, and some extra clothing, and headed up the grassy slopes toward the peak.

The route wound its way across the grass, around the cliffy bands of rock for over 1,500 vertical feet to nearly 13,500 feet. Then it angled across the steeper, rockier slopes in the center of the image until it reached the summit pyramid at 13,700 feet. At this point, the route directly engages the summit pyramid at a "blocky weakness". From here, the final nearly 300 vertical feet alternates between moderate class 3 and easy class 4 climbing. The views from high on Pigeon were spectacular.

After tackling the blocky weakness, I ascended through a steep v-slot, angled along some ascending cliffs, and reached the west ridge just beneath the summit. From here the route drops off the ridge onto the north side, then ascends to the lower of Pigeon's twin summits.


Finally, I dropped down 25 vertical feet and climbed to the peak's high point. I signed the summit register, as always enclosed in a section of PVC pipe capped on both ends with screw-on lids. I was the 12th person to reach the summit in 2006. This contrasts sharply with many of the fourteeners, which may see three or four times that many climbers on their summits on any given summer day. The self-portrait I snapped on the summit showed the next day's peak, Turret, just to the right of my head.

From the summit of Pigeon, I could scope out much of the next day's route, though notably I could not make out the early part of the route from camp to the Pigeon-Turret Saddle. It is from this saddle that I would engage the upper slopes of Turret. This area was hidden behind the steep north face of pigeon, the top of which was not readily accessible from the summit.

What I could see, however, and most clearly, was the entire Ruby Creek drainage. My plan for the next day was to climb Turret, then drop down steep slopes into Ruby drainage and ascend the drainage cross-country to a small lake at the creek's headwaters. The next photo shows the Ruby drainage from approximately the point at which I would drop into it, up to the lake, which is obscured in the high basin just above the rounded cliffs up at the headwaters.

As soon as I had scouted out as much of the next day's route as possible, I descended back to camp without incident. My assessment of Pigeon is that as long as the proper route is followed, there are no real difficulties on the peak. I did, however, on the steeper, rockier slopes below the pyramid, dislodge a large rock from the loose soil. My foot slipped beneath the rock, which continued to tumble along the flesh of my right calf leaving a wide swath of bloody scrapes in its wake. Nothing serious, but a needed reminder of the potential danger of any significant injury. I hadn't seen anyone since leaving Needleton, and it was unlikely that anyone would amble along anytime soon, so I needed to take all care to avoid injury.

Arriving back at camp in early afternoon, I repeated the activities of the prior evening. I read during the early afternoon and through the rains until mid-evening. Then I cooked dinner, eating it in three phases, and finally retreated to the tent for some plotting over my maps and sleep. The shrill cries of marmot sometimes pierced the mountain quiet.

Rosy-fingered dawn graced me with wonderfully cool, clear skies. As I contemplated breakfast I realized that I was developing a minor food issue: I had brought 2 packets of instant oatmeal for each morning, but for the second morning in a row I was nauseated, near-gagging at the mere thought of eating any more oatmeal (it had been a staple of my mountain travels all summer). Thus, again I started the day eating some of my lunch food for breakfast. At this rate I was on a collision course for an uncomfortable choice: eat the nausea-inducing oatmeal or eat nothing at all. I resolved to keep eating lunch food (bagels, cream cheese, cheddar cheese, and clif bars) and cross that bridge when I got to it.

The initial portion of my morning's route was a steep, 850-foot climb up scree and talus slopes to a saddle between Pigeon and an unnamed peak to its north. I packed up my gear and headed up the left-center of the slope, taking a middle-road approach between the longer route just beneath Pigeon's cliffs and making a central beeline for the saddle up the steepest, loosest surface. This proved a dreadful mistake. The proper route is to follow the base of the cliffs where larger more stable rocks are available for footing. I wound up swimming through too-loose, too-small scree. After much frustration, I gave up and traversed back across to the base of the cliffs. And even this was no mean feat. Once I reached the cliffs, progress was much steadier and more satisfying.

From that first saddle, I needed to contour briefly across some grassy slopes to a second, slightly higher saddle, this one between Pigeon and Turret. From here I had impressive views of both peaks. Pigeon is on the left, and Turret on the right.













After stashing my pack on the saddle, I dropped down about 100 feet to more easily gain the lower portion of the ridge that climbs into the rightmost edge of the Turret photograph. I ascended this easy ridge, through some easy cliffy bands in the center of the photo, and climbed gently and easily up the upper portion of the peak to the rounded summit. Unlike the more challenging Pigeon, this peak is largely a walk-up with a few moves that may border on class 3. The summit register for this peak showed maybe 35-40 climbers had reached the summit in 2006 likely reflecting its more moderate difficulty.

To the north I could just make out a short train of climbers slowly making their way over the famed "catwalk" (a highly exposed, narrow, but happily flat stretch of ridge on the route to the summit of Eolus, one of the areas fourteeners). I would find myself creeping along that same ridge 48 hours hence. From the summit of Turret, I snapped a number of photos, among them a self-portrait with Pigeon in the background, and a dramatic shot of Jagged Peak.













The skies remained gloriously clear as I started retracing my steps to retrieve my pack at the saddle. Rather than descend to below the level of the saddle and climb back up the grassy slopes, I took a direct route over a steeper slope of large rocks straight to the saddle. I think this is a better approach.

I was out of water at this point, and thirsty, and I could feel the potent pull of Ruby Creek glistening thousands of steep, unknowably perilous feet below me. I could complete the decent more safely by angling across the steep slopes to the left, reaching a point significantly lower in the drainage, but this would mean more feet descending, and a consequent longer climb to the lake at Ruby's headwaters. I opted to drop straight down toward the point on the creek immediately beneath me.

The top of the route was through loose tiny rocks, where I could see evidence of earlier climbers' passage. Past this brief prologue, I found myself clambering over man-sized blocks down the steepening slopes. I angled a little left, to avoid some cliffs and reached some grassy slopes interspersed with non-navigable walls. I angled back to the right and slowly made my way down a dry, steep, rocky drainage. Eventually the gradient slackened and I walked the final few hundred meters to the creekside, and enjoyed this view up toward the high basin that was my destination for the day:

Here I rested and drank two brilliantly cold quarts of water with a half-shot of gatorade powder in each. Apart from the summits, this spot probably brought me the most pleasure, peace, and contentment of the entire trip. The clouds had not yet assembled, the sun was high and strong, and as far as I could tell, all that I could see in all directions was entirely my own. This was a truly gorgeous, remote, and hard-to-access spot, and I reveled in its beauty and my own isolation.

After my leisurely hydration, I headed up-creek. I figured I had 1.25 miles and 1,400 vertical feet to my lakeside camp. As I approached the broken band of cliffs in the photo, I noted an obvious route to the right of the left-most series of cliffs. The route was pleasant and open, alternating between steep and gentle sections until eventually reaching the obvious rounded cliffs just below the headwaters, noted in the photo of Ruby drainage above. Cutting through these cliffs was a lovely waterfall, captured poorly in the blurry picture below:

The route went around these steep, rounded cliffs on the left-hand side, reaching the lower of two saddles at the headwaters immediately above the cliffs on their left. I knew that I would be able to access Twin Thumbs Pass into Chicago Basin from this saddle, but I was hoping to use the higher one, directly above the lake. The concern was that the traverse from the higher saddle might prove too steep and awkward, and that I would need to retreat to this lower approach to access Twin Lakes. I continued up and to the right, reaching the lake about a hundred vertical feet above the left-most saddle, at an approximate altitude of 12,600 feet. This would be the highest spot at which I had ever camped, eclipsing the previous high (from 20 years ago) of 12,200 feet in the shadows of Mount Yale. The picture below shows the lake with the higher saddle reflected in its clear waters:

As you can probably tell from the photo above, the clouds had started to roll in, and I needed to set up camp quickly and cycle through the normal evening's activities. There was a wrinkle at this campsite, however. Immediately after arrival, as I began to pitch the tent, I could see groups of 4-6 mountain goats assembling on the slopes high above me. Then these multiple groups of goats began converging upon my campsite from all directions. It was somewhat disconcerting, for though they are not known to be aggressive toward humans, they possess fiendishly sharp horns, and an impromptu gathering of 25-30 surrounding your solitary camp is not a whole lot of fun.

Initially I shot a couple of photos of a few of the goats, but as their numbers grew my thoughts grew increasingly to defense of myself and gear. I assembled a modest pile of fist-sized rocks and took up vigil at the door to my tent. As the bolder males approached, I would raise my arms and bellow a violent "HIYA!" while tossing a stone in their general direction (with a nod to Monty Python--if I thought it would help, I would have added "your mother is a hamster and your father smells of old elderberries.") My protective maneuvers kept the beasts at bay until the rains came, at which point they retreated to the protection of high overhanging cliffs.

The remainder of the night passed with one additional noteworthy development. The rains were considerably stronger this evening, with periods of wind-swept hail falling in torrents as well. My tent was perched on a small flat section of grass that grew in high tufts with deep depressions between the tufts. As the rains continued, the deep depression began to fill with rainwater. Eventually, I found that my tent was floating on six inches of water, supported here and there by the higher tufts. Slowly this water began to seep through the aging floor of my tent. Fortunately, I was using a superlight bivy sack inside the tent, providing an additional vapor barrier to protect my down sleeping bag. As I was assessing the water beneath the tent, a bolt of lightning struck less than 150 meters from where my head was poking out of the tent. I nearly wet myself. After the rains abated, I snapped this shot facing toward Pigeon (right) and Turret (center), from the lake's high meadow:


The next morning I got an earlier start, heading out at the break of dawn. The plan was to head up to the saddle immediately above the lake, drop down as necessary to avoid some cliffs and snowfields, and do an ascending traverse up to Twin Thumbs Pass. Then I would drop down to Twin Lakes and climb one or two of the three fourteeners that ringed the lakes. The climb to the saddle was a mere 200 vertical feet, and I quickly found myself looking back down onto my lakeside campsite, with Pigeon Peak watching over, bathed in early morning light.

I shared the saddle with a small group of goats, grazing on the patchy grass sprouting amidst the rocks. Unlike the prior evening, they took no interest in me.


















I surveyed the route across to Twin Thumbs Pass. It looked difficult, but it definitely appeared as though it would go. Though Twin Thumbs was a mere 200 vertical feet higher than the saddle on which I stood, the cliffs and snowfields looked as though they would require giving up approximately 500-600 vertical feet in elevation in the initial portion of the traverse, then gain about 800 traversing further over difficult, steep slopes to reach the pass. And gaining the pass itself looked like more than an easy scramble. From where I stood, it appeared to be class 3 at least. Unfortunately the shot of the traverse route to Twin Thumbs came out inexplicably blurry.

The traverse proved perilous, but manageable. The descent went smoothly, though I took a small additional risk crossing the lowest snowfield directly rather than descending entirely beneath it. I kicked generous steps in the snow to ensure that I wouldn't slide down into the hungry rocks below. Across the snow, I faced another exhausting ascent up loose scree. From my prior experience, I knew to stick to the upper end of the scree field, where it met the cliffs and snowfields, but even here this climb proved unusually arduous. I would move slowly from one distinctive rock to another, gaining 20-25 meters of headway at a time.

Finally I reached the cliffy base of the pass. It was as difficult as it appeared it would be from afar, in fact more so. The main problem was that the steep solid rock was covered in loose, red, tiny rock particles that functioned like tiny ball-bearings, constantly threatening to grease my slide off the solid rock below. This was easily class 3, and I had to negotiate it with a full pack, but eventually I reached the top of the pass at just over 13,000 feet. From here I could look down upon Twin Lakes immediately beneath me.

At this point, I had gone approximately 72 hours without seeing another soul. But from the pass I could immediately see two climbers making their way up along the far side of the lakes toward Sunlight and Windom. I attempted to wave at them, but couldn't manage to attract their attention. In seemingly no time, I was hopping across the rocks between the two lakes to reach the far side, and the trail toward the peaks. I stopped briefly to snap a photo of a lake with spires looming above.
















Next I filled up my water bottle, and tightly wrapped my pack with my plastic tarp and wedged it snugly at the base of a large boulder. My hope was that it would remain there unmolested by anyone or anything while I ascended I peak or two above the lakes.

I climbed up the trail above the lakes toward Sunlight and Windom, still uncertain whether I would attempt one peak or two, or even which peak to attempt first. As I crested a rise I could see the same two climbers whom I had spied from the pass--I had made up some ground on them. They were just ahead of me starting up the South Slopes route on Sunlight. We waved briefly to each other. Somewhere I had read that Sunlight was one of the most difficult fourteeners, and since I really didn't want to feel as though I was chasing the other two climbers, or make them feel like they needed to take me up with them for my safety, I opted to tackle the much easier Windom first and consider Sunlight later. From the top of the rise, then, rather than descend into the small basin below to approach Sunlight, I did an ascending traverse toward the Windom-Peak 18 saddle.

Looking across to Sunlight, I could soon see that I was nearly level with the other two climbers, and I continued to ascend quickly. In seemingly no time, I reached the saddle and began the ascent up the easy ridge. The weather was ideal and I was feeling very strong. The route I followed passed just left of a false summit at perhaps 13,600 feet, and regained the ridge for the final 250 feet to the true summit. Here I snapped some quick photos, including this self-portrait:

At this point, I didn't plan on attempting Sunlight. I had already accomplished much that day, and would attempt another peak the next day, so I felt no real pressure to exhaust myself in quest of another summit. But on my way down, I found myself staring down the northwest face, which dropped straight down to give direct access to the south slopes of Sunlight. Still feeling strong, I opted to continue down this alternate descent route and test out the lower slopes of Sunlight, resolving to turn back at the first hint of bad weather, fatigue, or difficulties with the route.

Negotiating the steep but mostly solid northwest face of Windom, I got a little sloppy in route selection and found myself in a severe, loose gully. One ill-advised step sent two bowling-ball sized rocks careening down the steep gully. They bounced violently off other rocks and gained dramatic speed, the sounds of their tumble echoing loudly from the steep surrounding spires. Quickly they plummeted to the snowfield at the base of the face and gained further speed on the slick, unobstructed surface. Finally, their tumble came to a violent, cacophonous conclusion as they splintered against the giant immutable stones at the base of the snowfield.

I was unharmed, but mildly embarrassed. There were two other climbers (not the same two--they were near Sunlight's summit) descending Sunlight toward Windom, and there is no way that any climbers in the Twin Lakes area missed the dramatic sounds of my dislodged stones. It is generally a bonehead move to unleash a rockfall like that, and this one wasn't inevitable--it had only happened because I briefly got lazy with my route selection. Fortunately there were no climbers beneath me or this could have been a deadly mistake. Another reminder of how unforgiving the mountain environment can be.

I passed the other climbers wordlessly as we crossed paths near the low-point between Windom and Sunlight, and I began heading up the easy lower slopes of Sunlight. I made rapid progress and soon found myself at the point where the slopes become a ridge and the climbing becomes more challenging. Just at this point there is a small alcove where I found a pack with some attached trekking poles. As I looked over to the class 3 traverse above, I saw "Ranger Bob" from the train descending back toward the pack.

He noticed me at nearly the same moment and called over to ask whether I was headed up or down. I said "up" and he disclosed that he was lost. I assumed that he was lost on the way down, since he was descending, but it turns out that he could not follow the route above and so was abandoning his climb.

We both realized immediately, though, that we would be better off sticking together and attempting to complete the upper portion of the route as a team. This was fortunate for us both, as I intended to turn back at the first sign of difficulty on my own, but would be far more likely to complete the climb with the safety of a partner. To the left is Bob on a class 3 section on Sunlight.

I quickly traversed to Bob's location and resumed routefinding above. He followed and together we were easily able to discern the class 3 (maybe some class 4 moves) route traversing around some towers on the ridge to just below the climb up to the final summit blocks.

At this point we met up with the two climbers whom I had seen from Twin Thumbs Pass, and who had ascended Sunlight as I opted to tackle the easier Windom first. They advised us on the route above while they were taking a rest and perhaps eating a snack.

From their position, we ascended a brief class 4 stretch, turned left and passed beneath some cliffs to reach a steep chute capped by a chockstone that created a "window" through which the route passed. The following photo is taken from above this chute, looking through the window.


Just beyond the window was a final brief traverse to the dramatic and infamous Sunlight summit blocks.

There are two moves required to attain the final summit perch, and the penultimate move is the trickier one. It requires you to step across a highly exposed gap while committing your hands to a dynamic hugging friction-type grab around a large block. From here it is an easier final move onto the peak's highpoint. Here I am just having completed the tricky second-last move and preparing to step across to the true summit (courtesy Ranger Bob):

As I was preparing to complete the unnerving penultimate move, I got unexpected encouragement from the two climbers we had just recently passed. They had crossed to a position from which we were visible, and were shouting advice on the best way to negotiate the maneuver. Shortly thereafter I successfully lunged across the gap, but on turning back was disappointed to discover that my supporters had passed out of sight. I later learned that one had said to the other after their words of encouragement "let's get the hell out of here--I don't want to see him fall." Bob, who wisely opted to skip the final mini-pitch, instead stopping at the register just below them, snapped this photo of me straddling the summit block:


Several people have commented that I appear tired in these summit photos on Sunlight. I assured them that is not fatigue they see on my face, but raw, naked fear. My right leg dangles over a vertiginous 2,000 foot cliff. I would not recover from the shock of peering down that dramatic precipice until I retreated from the summit block. After doing just that, I snapped the picture on the left of Windom Peak from Sunlight.

Bob and I enjoyed a brief few minutes atop Sunlight, but as the clouds were starting to build and we had some distance to cover to get to our camps for the evening, we headed down relatively soon. We quickly reached the base of the more difficult climbing, where Bob's pack was stashed, and we opted to stick together for the entire descent.

We traded 10-minute summaries of our life stories, and Bob told a funny anecdote about someone who once advised him away from his lifelong forest service dreams, suggesting "forget that ranger nonsense and become an actuary." I congratulated Bob on his foresight in not following the executive's well-meaning but dreadfully bad advice (he didn't wind up a ranger by profession, but was a water-quality scientist working with the EPA--and he has even developed some publishable ground-breaking statistical methods of analyzing water quality data).

Conversing comfortably, we soon reached my pack's stash location. I commented that it appeared unmolested, but as I got within three feet of the tarp-wrapped gear, a large marmot scurried out from beneath the tarp. Filled with terror, I imagined everything destroyed--food gone, sleeping bag and tent shredded, and backpack an unusable mass of holes. When I uncovered the pack, I was relieved to discover that the pesky creature had merely chewed at the sweat-soaked back padding and shoulder and waist straps. While the pack looked a mess, it was still functional, and all of my other gear was unmolested. A lucky break, but still was I cursing that damn marmot. Until, that is, I was hit with the epiphanal realization that for a day as glorious as that one, a gnawed-up pack was a small price to pay indeed.

Bob and I continued to stick together for the final steep mile down the trail from Twin Lakes to upper Chicago Basin. From here we began to see many other hikers and climbers. This was the overpopulated area that my impulsive route change from the train had enabled me to avoid for three days. Bob pointed out a campsite as high up as camping is allowed (it has been restricted above the basin and in the Twin Lakes area to prevent overuse), and left me for his established site lower down the trail.

I followed my normal evening procedure, setting up camp, reading through the afternoon thunderstorms, and finally making dinner when the weather broke around seven or eight. Eventually a pair of climbers from Denver asked if they could pitch their tent in (really) close proximity to mine, and I assented. I would be rising early to attempt Eolus, the third fourteener from the lakes, and would then be headed directly for the train. Plus I'd had my three days of solitude, so I could tolerate a pair of too-near fellow-campers.

I awoke early to ominous, misty, foggy conditions. At this point I had reached the food dilemma--all food was gone but the oatmeal. I elected to climb on an empty stomach rather than gag down some nasty glop. Hungry, but still strong, I climbed quickly back to the lakes, passing two pairs of climbers en route (one pair--headed for Eolus also--was the duo whom I had crossed paths with at the lowpoint between Windom and Sunlight the day before).

From the lakes I immediately spied the climber's trail up toward Eolus and began the steady climb toward the Eolus-North Eolus Saddle. Much of the morning I climbed through misty, cloudy conditions, such as those pictured below:


Just beneath the saddle, I had some route-finding problems. I over-estimated the difficulty of a v-slot that (unbeknownst to me from below) led directly to the saddle. Instead I investigated potential routes to the left and right, ultimately opting for a friction climb up some slabs that led to the ridge to the right of the saddle, on the North Eolus side. An easy traverse along the ridge brought me to the proper saddle.

At this point there is a narrow, highly exposed traverse for a few hundred meters to the final ridge. As mentioned above, this stretch is called the "catwalk." The weather was cloudy and ominous on the Chicago Basin side, from which I'd climbed, but relatively clear on the other side of the peak, toward Pigeon and Turret. Though this photo doesn't show the early section of the catwalk, it captures the end of it and the final ridge up to the summit of Eolus:

Once across the catwalk, the routefinding difficulties continued. The route does not ascend directly up the ridge, as this line is too difficult. Instead it zigzags up a series of ascending ramps on the ridge's east (left) side. The easiest route is hard to follow, and I found myself too soon ascending back to the ridge and carefully making my way up the final 75 vertical feet on the ridge's crest. This was not optimal, but it was beautiful. I snapped the following photo from the summit of Eolus, my fifth summit in five days:


From here I made my way carefully back the way I'd come, though I stayed more on-route on the descent, finding the proper sequence of ledges to reach the catwalk, and descending directly from the saddle on the easier-than-it-looked class 3 section. From there it was a quick walk back to camp, a rapid packing, and then a forced march down the final seven miles to the train. I was uncomfortably hungry at this point, but I still refused to knuckle under and eat the damn oatmeal.

I reached Needleton about two hours before the train was due to arrive, and soon was met there by the two climbers who had encouraged me on the final moves up Sunlight. They gave me some beef jerky and a powerbar, which felt like a king's feast to me at that point. I learned that their names are Jeremy and Nao, and we talked waiting for the train and all the way back to Durango, becoming (I think) fast friends. It was Nao who wanted to bolt from the ridge so he wouldn't have to see me fall!

Bob also eventually ambled in to Needleton, and spoke with us some on the train. He is a hell of a guy, and I wish him all the best in his outdoor pursuits and life generally.

I challenge anyone to convince me that they have had a better five-day trip of any kind, at any time, anywhere on the face of the earth.