San Juan Splendor- Late summer in Colorado’s Southwest Mountains

Friday, September 24, 2021
Post-PCT I was in communication with my buddy Whistler who I had met in 2017 when I first tried to hike the PCT. He finished the PCT that year choosing to flip to the Canada border and hike south while I opted to do some other mountain stuff that summer after we got pushed out of the Sierra by record setting snowpack. He’s a solid partner in the mountains and we both have fun when we are around each other. Come Friday afternoon, we found ourselves packing up our backpacks for a weekend trip into the Weminuche Wilderness of Colorado’s San Juan mountains. Bags packed and a couple errands ran, we shouldered our packs and left the car at Molas pass to begin the 10mi hike into Vestal Basin around 7pm. The first part of the hike descends to the Animas River on the Colorado Trail then climbs up a tributary. At a beaver pond ~7mi in we left the Colorado Trail and followed a less maintained but distinct trail up into Vestal Basin. By this point we were navigating by headlamp and the trail got rougher and steeper. Around 10:30pm we found a suitable enough campsite about 0.5mi before the popular meadow most climbing parties camp at. We pitched our tarp and ate the burritos we packed out. We chatted and giggled like school boys and hit the hay around midnight.

Saturday September 25, 2021
Because of our late night we didn’t leave camp until 9am. First on the list for the day was Wham Ridge on Vestal’s north face, a route I had been interested in for 5+ years. We hiked up to the high talus field below Vestal and Arrow and cross-country traveled to the lower base of Wham. We started direct on it’s low point and began climbing up. Initially the “ridge,” which was really more like a north facing slope, started off low angle. With approach shoes I was able to walk the first couple hundred feet without using much hands. The rock is quartzite with amazing texture. As the slope steepened we stopped under a ledge and changed to rock climbing shoes. Around there we ran into another party who was roped up and climbing “center shift” a more direct, straight up the gut route rated at 5.6. We stayed climbers right of them and found a few technical bits but nothing out of our wheelhouse. While a fall would certainly be fatal on most of the route, the climbing never became too challenging to make us contemplate retreat. On the approach, the peak’s north face clearly gets steeper up high with the peak looking nearly overhanging from the base. By the time we got to the steepest section, the ridge was blocky and had a multitude of ledges making for easier travel than lower. We scrambled the last bit and topped out on the summit around noon. We hung out for half an hour before starting the descent off the south face. The initial gully wasn’t too steep or loose. We exited it to traverse west to the Vestal/Arrow saddle. From the saddle we made quick work descending the loose slope dubbed “the dues collector” back to the talus plateau. From there we backtracked to Arrow’s NE rib. We began climbing it, a feature similar to Vestal’s Wham ridge with easy walking we called “a Class 3 trudge” until the slope steepened and we used hands. The final push followed cairns to the summit through some large blocks. We topped out around 3pm, savored the sunlight, then descended the same route we took up. We joked that Wham ridge was “the world’s largest waterslide in the rain” and we were glad we had favorable weathet for both peaks. We made it back to camp in early evening without needing to break out the headlamps. We spent the evening eating mac and cheese, hanging out, and reading a bit about the Trinity Traverse tomorrow. We hit the sack early.

Sunday September 26, 2021
The alarm went off at 6am and in the dark I fumbled for my headlamp to get the coffee going. We ate poptarts in our sleeping bags sharing a pot of coffee. Around 7am we headed out for the Trinities. On the way up we talked to three other groups camping. The first group gave beta on the traverse and the North Face of West Trinity, a route similar to Vestal’s Wham Ridge. I stopped at the second group’s camp and spoke with an acquaintance who I met years ago on Humboldt Peak in the winter. He had a big day yesterday, summiting Vestal, Arrow, and the three Trinities in a day. I spoke with him earlier in the week when he posted on Instagram that he had the same climbing objectives for the weekend that I did. We spoke briefly with the third party who was camping a bit higher. It was a chilly frosted morning and they looked cold sitting outside of their tents. We followed a trail that became more and more faint until it dissipated in some willows. We bushwhacked to the base of West Trinity and started left of center. The route up the north face required meandering around a series of ledges at the bottom then relatively easy 5th class climbing to the summit. I don’t think there is any one particular route up the north face, but the lower ledges seem to require some decent route finding to not necessitate ropes. Consensus among guide books, our group, and other groups is that the difficulty stays at or below Wham Ridge. While it’s not as fully aesthetic of a climb it’s a worthy route that in my view should become the standard route for a Trinity Traverse. At the summit we ate some snacks then began the decent to Middle Trinity. We stayed right (south) of the ridge proper and found 3 or 4 successive chimneys that gained access to the “Fourth Trinity” an unofficial subpeak of Middle Trinity at 13,670ft. From there it was an exciting scramble over to Middle Trinity. We sat on the summit for a short period of time before descending the east gully. The rock was a little loose but not too bad. From there, the west gully of East Trinity was obvious. We started up it and roughly 1/3rd of the way up cut left to the ridge proper. We had eyed it while descending Middle Trinity and it looked like it went. We climbed it and found surprisingly good rock to the summit. We considered it class 3 or 4 with some decent exposure in spots to the dropping north face. I nicknamed it “the ridge that whistles” and do recommend it to future parties. At the summit we hung out for half an hour. We looked back west and saw the 5 successive peaks we had climbed in the past day and a half. Clouds began building and we knew the forecast was calling for some rain in the evening. We descended to the Vestal Basin/Trinity Creek Basin saddle then headed down to camp. We packed up camp and were on our way to the car by 2:30pm. We got some light sprinkles but never needed the rain jacket. The final climb from the Animas River to the car was tough but we were at the car by 6pm. We drank a beer stashed at the car then drove back to Durango. Vegetarian Poutine was on the menu at Whistler’s house as well as a shower and some laundry.

Overall we had an excellent 2.5 day trip in the Weminuche scrambling some exhilarating routes that had been on my tick list for years. The weather cooperated and the vibes were casual all weekend. It was a ton of fun hanging and climbing with Whistler.