Lizard Head

September, 23, 2018
Lizard Head
13,113'


25 miles down yesterday, a huge pizza and a good nights rest later, Laura and I awoke to the crisp morning air and loaded our packs. Today we would attempt to climb a feature that is recognizable from many miles away in just about every direction. Lizard Head is the neck of an ancient volcano and rises about 400' above a pile of choss and broken rock. I had heard it described as crumbly, loose, scary, flaky and just about every other term you can think of for crap. A friend refers to it as ChossHead.

Warming in the sun before the climb

6 am on a Sunday and here we are, walking toward Mr. ChossHead to learn for ourselves what this beautiful feature in the San Juan mountains is really all about. Walking down the road and trail toward Lizard Head, it comes and goes from view, but somehow you can never take your eyes off the upper portions. 4 miles later we come to the grassy slope heading up to the main climb. It's slightly loose, but not bad, and then you get to total junk rock. Every step forward is a half step sliding backwards and the rock and stone crumbles like rotten concrete underneath your shoes. I put my head down and dug in, making the plateau where the rock route begins in about a half hour. Laura was behind a bit, so I decided to warm our shoes in the sun and eat a bit before starting the actual climb. Putting on my harness and gearing up with cams for protection, I knew this route would take my full focus to be safe on.

Testing the rock

1st pitch

The route climbs a chimney and crack system up to a small ledge and then traverses easier ground after that. The first section was slow. I yelled down to Laura, "The amount of scary on this route is F'n scary!" Climbing the initial part of the route, I tested every hand and foot hold and ended up using probably half of them because they would have broken off the mountain if I actually pulled or stood on them.

I shoved cams in cracks where I could and felt good about the amount of safe protection the route actually offered. Every 10' or so is good for me at this level of difficulty, so I didn't think it deserved the unprotectable ratings it gets in the online reviews. Continuing to the top of the first pitch, I reached a nice belay and was greeted by the sunshine once again. Happy to sill have my down jacket on, I finally had a chance to thaw out my hands and warm my feet while Laura climbed.

Wilson group with shadow of Lizard Head

Laura begins climbing the lower portion of the first pitch with frozen hands but quickly learns how challenging this "easy" rock climb will be. About a third of the way to me, she stops and yells up "I don't know how you lead this thing, Justin". My reply, a simple, I told you the amount of scary was scary! Within a few minutes Laura reaches me at the belay and I send her across the loose talus field to the base of the final headwall to the summit.

Final pitch

Upon reaching the final climbing pitch, I realized that there would be little to no protection on this portion of the climb. Just a pull over a rock bulge and then squirm your way up a narrow chimney. Placing a #4 camalot at the bulge and then 30 feet higher, slinging a chock stone, I made my way to the final belay and brought Laura up to join me and the wonderful 360 views. We scrambled to the summit and took time to enjoy our surroundings while reading and signing the summit register.

 

Rappelling down the route was fast and easy and reaching solid ground once again felt good.

Upon reaching the base of the route, I grabbed a piece of rock, and from the wall, it crumbled in my hands. I told Laura that this was a fun climb, but one I don't want to repeat anytime soon.

I felt good about our accomplishment and am very happy to have this special summit on our have done list. It's fun but not easy and sees few ascents each year. Thankfully, we got it!

Vestal and Arrow Peaks

September 22, 2018
Vestal Peak 13,864
Arrow Peak 13,803

The Weminuche wilderness is a special place in Colorado but with its long approaches and being 6 hours from home, Laura and I do not get there nearly often enough. We have a list on our refidgerator at home and several of the peaks and routes listed are here, so we knew we wanted to get there this year before the snow hit. Just two weeks prior, the peaks did have snow, but with the warm temps, I was able to talk Laura into making the trip over to see the conditions for ourselves.

Regardless of if the mountains were climbable, the autumn leaves made the drive worth it. They were spectacular and Laura and I enjoyed the views as we drove thru Ouray and over Red Mountain Pass.

Vestal Peak has one of Colorado's classic lines - Wham Ridge. A 800' 5.4 rock climb on excellent stone. We decided that we would make the 10 mile hike in, climb the two connecting peaks and then make the 10 mile hike out in one long day.

So after driving for 6 hours to the trailhead, we had a beer and fell asleep in the back of the Jeep. Alarm set for 3 am, we had a plan to get to Telluride for dinner. Hiking in, you descend 1,700' from Molas Pass to the Animas River before starting to gain elevation while hiking toward the peaks. We moved quickly, once again enjoying the changing colors of the aspen trees and were catching great views by the time the sun began to light the morning sky. Vestal Basin is a spectacular place and the peaks rise above you with perfect climbing lines.

It's 8 am and we are at the base of Wham Ridge. At low class 5, we felt comfortable climbing the entire route without rope, but we did bring our rock shoes. So on the sticky rubber shoes went and up we climbed. The climbing was spectacular and the rock solid. We followed cracks up the beautiful ridge for several hours, reaching the summit around 9:30 am.

 

Sitting there eating and enjoying the morning, we discussed how long it would take to get to Arrow and back down. We decided that 2 hours would do, but reminded ourselves that we needed to still make dinner in Telluride.

We jumped up and headed off down the awful and loose scree that the connecting ridge between the two mountains holds.

Reaching the saddle, we knew we didn't have any route information for Arrow Peak, but we chose a spot and went for a line we thought would lead to the summit without too much difficulty. The route steepened and quickly became 5.6 - 5.7 climbing. For the next hour, we climbed the interesting rock on a path few likely have before us. We reached the summit of Arrow Peak at 11:30 - right on schedule! We once again ate, enjoyed the views and discussed our intended path off the mountain.

Happy that we didn't have to descend the entirety of the loose scree on Vestal Peak, we found a cairn and our descent path off the mountain. Following a faint path and working our way down the loose hillside, we were soon back to solid ground and were refilling water for our long hike out and back to the car.

Ugg...7 miles later and we're now at the 1'700 feet of uphill to the car. We look up and our legs remind us that we've already climbed 2 mountains today. We stop for salami and cheese at the Animas River crossing and watch the train go by, dropping off several Colorado Trail hikers.

Suddenly, Laura regains energy and motivation and gets up saying "I'm going for it, see you up there". No way in heck I'm falling behind so I stuff trash in my pack, jump up and get going too. The uphill was hard but didn't seem as long as I recalled on the way down in the darkness 12 hours ago.
We stopped several times on our way out to look back at the amazing peaks we had just stood atop of. It was rewarding to know that we were capable of the big days when the others we passed on the trail had overnight backpacks and thought our day trip distance was a bit crazy. We reached the car around 4:45, making a 13.5 hour day - Good training for a 50 mile race, probably?!

Packing up and leaving the parking lot, we made our way to Silverton and then over Ophir Pass that connects close to Telluride. The road not being a real challenge for the Jeep, we were able to enjoy more bright yellow and orange vistas of the autumn colors and enjoy our drive over amid being pretty tired out.

In Telluride, we ended the first half of our adventure eating at Brown Dog Pizza with a gift card from our friends Joe and Mareshah who had just recently spent a portion of their honeymoon in Telluride. 

We were now off to Lizard Head Pass, getting ready for the scary, chossy, crumbly neck of an ancient volcano. This one, however would require ropes...and all the focus I could gather to stay safe. 

Boreas Mountain-Bald Mountain-Mt. Guyout

September 9, 2018
Como-Boreas Pass-Boreas Mountain-Bald Mountain-Mt. Guyout-Georgia Pass-Colorado Trail



My dad gave Laura a new pair of gloves at dinner the other night, so when she said that she wanted to try them out this weekend, I knew I was in for an adventure. Seems like 25-35 miles is the correct distance to properly determine the awesomeness of a new pair of gloves, so we pulled up the topos and started searching.

In all seriousness, we have been looking for longer distance weekends as I am building up to running a 50 mile race in November. After looking over some maps, Laura determined that a good plan would be to park in Como and try to hitch hike back from Kenosha Pass. I was looking forward to the autumn leaves and went along with the plan.

7:15 am and we are parked way lower on Boreas Pass than we had planned. We started off and set a solid pace, working our way up through the yellow and orange changing aspens, 11 miles up to the top of Boreas Pass in just over 2 hours. Taking a 15 minute break, we ate salami and cheese and chatted about the old railroad grade that was once Boreas Pass.

We soon took off toward Boreas Mountain 13,082 along a good trail. Once above tree line, we made our way off trail through the alpine tundra and rock hopped our way to our first summit of the day.

More salami, cheese and a short break later, we were headed down and on our way north toward Bald Mountain 13,690. At the base of the steep climb, I hit the wall. I was exhausted and was ready to skip the mountain and head down French Pass and back to the car. Laura and I stopped for more food and chatted about the problems you need to work through on long runs. I regained my motivation and began working my way up the steep, off trail slope toward the first of three false summits on Bald Mountain.

From Boreas Mountain to the summit of Bald took us just under two hours. Sitting behind a rock shelter, we celebrated our high point for the day and once again ate and relaxed.

The opposite ridge from what we ascended connects Bald to Mt. Guyout 13,376. We continued forward and went down the steep and rarely traveled slope. It took us over an hour to get to the upper reaches of the Mt. Guyout ridgeline, but when we made it, Laura had hit the wall. Once again we stopped to eat and drink before continuing on. For what felt like 10 years, we traversed on loose rock piles just below the ridgeline until finally we saw the upper reaches of the mountain. We were relieved and quickly made our way up the talus to the summit of our third 13er of the day.

An hour of descent on the same loose talus and we were finally back on solid ground. We were both low on water, but rather than filtering, we asked a group of campers who happily allowed us to fill our bottles. We chatted with them for a few minutes and hung out with the herd of about 10 goats in their campsite, but quickly continued as we knew we still had 8 miles to run down the Colorado Trail back to Kenosha Pass.

Well, 6 miles later and we learned that our 8 miles were actually 15. It was getting close to dark and we still needed to find a ride the six miles back to Como. We made the decision to bail onto a road. With 28 miles and over 6,500' of elevation gain for the day, we were happy with our day and honestly both still felt pretty good.

We hitch hiked back to the highway and then on to our truck at Como. Chatting along the way, Laura talked to me about the day and how it would compare to a 50 mile run. We concluded that it was perfect training and that a 50 miler would be totally attainable for me. A few complaints, and a lot of work later, three 13ers in a day is tough to be sure, but it is always fun in the mountains and the autumn colors made it all worth it. We will look forward to a few more long days before November. As the weather cools, I am sure Laura will be happy to get more use out of the gloves she calls "fantastic, perfect and super comfy!"