Non-Standard Combination class 2 ~ 9 miles, ~4250 ft
After successfully summiting Mt. Sneffels with Jen the week before I realized the 14er bug had once again bitten me and I was revving to get up a couple more peaks. To this end I decided to return to the San Juans for Sunshine and Redcloud Peaks. I figured these would be easy summits in a beautiful setting and would be a great way to build up Jen's acclimatization to altitude (this is important as I plan to have her with me on all class 4 and below trips for the rest of the summer). After some convincing Jen finally agreed to drive out to Lake City after work Friday, climb Saturday, and come home Saturday night.
Jen and I left Boulder around 4:00 in the afternoon, Friday, July 8th. The drive to Fairplay only took 1.5 hours and we kept on until Gunnison where we picked up some drive through from Sonic. Near 7:45 we arrived on the road to Lake City and headed down. I had not been through this way during daylight hours before and was amazed at how beautiful it was. I would happily live down there if I could find a job. We finally arrived in Lake City around 9:00 and I was amazed to see how big the trees were, it felt quite allot like a quaint little New England town and I plan on buying property near there some day.
The road up to the Silver Creek Campground went quickly and Cinammon pass was quite manageable. Jen and I arrived by ten for a total driving time of 6 hours. We quickly set up our beds and dozed off by 11:00. It was rather unfortunate that the biggest asshole I have ever had the misfortune to be exposed to pulled in a short 45 minutes later. I tend not to use profanity in these reports but no other word fits. Even though the sign on the pass clearly said 'No Trailers' this guy towed his huge camper up. He then proceeded to leave his lights on for the 30 minutes it took to back in, all the while his children were screaming and yelling as a whole campground tried to sleep. Once this idiot pulled in the worst was about to start. His children, he, and his obnoxious wife commenced to loud conversation which made it impossible to sleep. A short while later several of his friends showed up and this group, the rudest I have ever seen (not quite true I have seen much worse but I left Philadelphia and the east coast because of this type of behavior), spent the next 3 hours talking and drinking. Needless to say this made it impossible for us to get more than about 2 hours of badly interrupted sleep. I would have said something but at that point I was incensed enough to stick my axe in his head and I figured since they were all drinking the situation wouldn't go anywhere pleasant if I confronted them. I would learn later on that a good many other campers felt exactly the same way I did.
In any event by 4:00 (about 30 minutes after the obnoxious group shut up and went to bed) I figured Jen and I better get heading since we were coming home the same day so we ate, dressed and started out at about 4:50. The trail was quite mild and we took our time and enjoyed the solitude. We missed the trail up Sunshine's North Slopes as we were quite sleep deprived and didn't look carefully (we passed it before sun up). For reference it is about 50 feet past the first large snow covered portion of the trail. Rather than spend a great deal of time we headed up a ridgeline between the slopes to Sunshine and the standard Redcloud route. The ridge as pretty steep and contoured over a cliff band but lead directly to Redclouds summit.
Once
on the summit the path to Sunshine appeared to be quite easy and rather
than linger on Redcloud we headed right over.
We
spent awhile on Sunshine and spent some time talking with a nice
gentleman from Grand Junction who had just started the 14er's with
these two peaks. Jen and I had made it over to Sunshine by
9:45. Since we were both exhausted and a bit beffudled from
lack of sleep we decided to head back the most direct way we
could. To drop we went down a trail at the higher of the two
connecting saddles and contoured east down talus. We skipped
the route over which the dangerous cliffs sign lay in case there were
indeed cliffs. Our descent took us to a high basin below Sun
Dog but above the basin Roach reccomend for camping. I
climbed up to the top of a tower and scouted out the several gullies
which presented opportunities for descent. It turned out that
most all of them were viable options and we quickly headed down the
middle one in the picture below. I had used the rock outcrop
just right of center below to scout out our route and unfortunately
could not tell that the snow filled gully was safe. This was
to bad as it would have made for a great and safe glissade.
Since I could only see to the bottom of the center gully we choose to
descend this one. The descent was nasty steep and any
movement created showers of rock avalanches so we descended one at a
time.
Once
we had dropped down into the lower basin it was a simple matter of
traversing some rocks and staying on the snow as much as
possible before the final descent through some trees to the
first trail. By this time some clouds had started to build
but we were quite secure in our position.
In
no time Jen and I had descended back to the car, packed up, and headed
out. I was sort of upset that I had not seen any marmots and
thought my obligatory shot would not happen. As luck would
have it we spotted a first, baby marmots, on the road down.
The picture below shows my first baby marmot shot and fulfills the
obligatory shot for this report.
Jen
and I made our way home and arrived back in Boulder at about 7 at
night. These represent my 39th and 40th of the 59 14'ers and
Jen's 15th and 16th, I'm going for 50 of the 59 for myself and 25 for
Jen by summers end. This week I'll be trying to climb Lone
Eagle Peak and the Keiners route on Longs Peak but I am back
in the mood to climb 14er's.