This is part of a series of blog posts from attempting the 4 great Traverses of the Colorado 14ers. Our trip occurred in August of 2018 but I wrote them in April 2021, so some details are fuzzy.
INTERMISSION from the traverses: Climb of Mt. Sneffels
Whistler and I headed South to the San Juans after a quick dip in the Penny Hot Springs. We decided on climbing Mt. Sneffels via the SW ridge as I had excellent memories of the last couple hundred feet of exposed easy scramblin’ on good rock. Plus the peak is just stellar to look at. We had a great climb, awesome views on the way up, and good scree skiing running down the standard route. Once again I felt myself entering the flow state scrambling the last bit of the SW ridge to the summit.
(INTERMISSION: Part 2)
My car had been having on and off trouble starting in the past few months. It hadn’t crapped out on me completely until the last few days. After a number of conscientious parking choices, Whistler would give me a push start (the benefits of manual!) Coming down from Sneffels it was clear I needed to take care of this. We got the car rollin’ and headed to the closest autoshop in Montrose where they could take care of me ASAP. Dwayne at Black Canyon Auto was awesome, he was able to replace my starter motor the next day, allowing us to get back on the road and back onto some high peaks!
The Wilsons and El Diente
Click here for a route description and map from 14ers.com
If you have looked at a map for these peaks, you will realize that there is no easy way to do these guys, especially if you want to tag all 3 summits. We settled on accessing the basins (yes plural!) from the south with the Kilpacker TH approach. We packed up and started hiking after eating a big late-lunch/early dinner. The nice thing about hiking with another thruhiker is that you know how long a mile will take and while hiking in the dark isn’t preferred, it sometimes needs to be done. We crashed in the basin somewhere still in the trees, a bit beyond a trail that connects Kilpacker to Navajo Lake trail. The next morning came early, as they always seem to, and we packed up quickly, leaving our tent and sleeping bags behind. We headed up El Diente with gorgeous early morning light. We started the traverse over to Mt Wilson with a few other folks nearby. While this traverse certainly had some sketchy, loose rock, we found good rock when we needed it most. Somehow I managed to slip while standing still on a rock with a thin sheet of ice on it. I gashed my leg pretty bad, a few inches across and deep enough to possibly warrant stitches…though we were on the move so no time to dawdle. We summited Mt Wilson and began a bummer of a descent down into the Navajo Basin. Weather was holding so we scampered up Wilson Peak (why such similar names, and right next to each other?). The hike up Wilson Peak wore us out, and we still had a long descent back to the car. We hiked out, took the connector trail back to the Kilpacker Basin, picked up our camping equipment, and hoofed it outta there. That night we stayed awake long enough to cook some dinner (I am sure it was Mac ‘n Cheese as that’s what we mostly ate!) and crashed in the car at the trailhead.
Samuel D. Parks 
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