Windom Peak - 14082'
Sunlight Peak - 14059'
Jupiter Mountain - 13830'

Date: 7/1/07 - 7/3/07

Climbers: George & Abby Barnes, MarkDB

RT distance:  ~21 miles

Elevation gain:  ~9100 feet

RT time for Windom and Sunlight:  ~8.5 hours

RT time for Jupiter:  ~4.5 hours

With 2 fourteeners between me and the so called "Grand Slam", I've been anxious to get down to Chicago Basin and climb my 58th and 59th Colorado fourteeners.  Joey Luther and I made a limited success trip to the Basin in May, and I'd been hot to get back ever since.

Armed with the new Brad Paisley CD and enough freeze dried food to open an REI, Abby and I set out for Durango on Saturday morning.  Abby's turbo Jetta made short work of the twisty roads from US285 to Wolf Creek Pass and we were shaking hands with Mark Brown at the hotel in Durango at the peak of Saturday's mid afternoon heat.

Approach to Chicago Basin:

We boarded the 9AM train Sunday morning with our sack lunches of Subway sandwiches and Gatorade.  The 3 hour ride into the Needleton passed fairly quickly, thanks to cool morning temperatures and a short nap.

At the Durango train station

The train's blazing fast cruising speed of 14 mph

We unloaded our packs at Needleton along with a gaggle of other people, and started making our way up the now blazingly hot and sandy trail to the Chicago Basin trail register.  While Abby and Mark slapped on copious amounts of sunscreen, I signed the trail register and got a lecture from the attendant Forest Service rangers on safe climbing and camping practices.  "Have you been here before, boy?"... well yeah, about 5 weeks ago when it wasn't so darn hot and busy!  I was amused to overhear them tell another party that ice axes and crampons would not be necessary to climb the 14ers above Chicago Basin.  The amount of snow I'd seen a month before and beta from the previous weekend suggested strongly to the contrary.  Not about to be mislead, Mark and I were both carrying axes and crampons.

Abby and I had split up our camping/climbing gear in a way that we hoped would allow us to move at a similar pace.  I was shouldering 60lbs of pure joy, and Abby a respectable 25.  Mark probably weighed in somewhere in between, so we made arrangements for him to charge on ahead and secure a good campsite in the basin, while staying in touch with us via FRS radios.

Abby and George on the trail up to Chicago Basin

Abby and I stopped at approximately 1 hour intervals on the way up to refuel and rehydrate.  I made good use of Needle Creek, soaking my shirt and Chris LeDoux hat in the <50ºF water.  First views of Chicago Basin were drastically different from 5 weeks prior, with much less snow and more vegetation.  Snow or not, this has to be one of the most amazing places in Colorado and I wasn't regretting the repeated trip.

These plants were all over Chicago Basin.  They remind me of "cannas", something I think I've been yelled at for mowing or weed-eatering before.

Finally nearing our campsite

As we neared our new home at 11,200 feet we were greeted by a family of goats on their way up the trail.  They didn't seem too concerned by our presence and removed themselves from the trail on their own schedule.

It turned out that Mark secured a campsite only 100 feet away from where Joey and I set up shop in May.  Despite being a holiday weekend he had no problem finding flat ground near running water with phenomenal views.

Views from camp.  The cocoon sleeping bag liner was my impromptu mosquito netting.

Under the supervision of the same goat family we'd met earlier we cooked our Mountain House dinners and retired with alarms set for 3:00AM.

Windom Peak (7/2/07):

3:00AM is an unholy hour, especially when you're actually sleeping fairly well in a tent.  I choked down a Double Espresso Clif Shot and some water as I crawled out of the tent.  Mark hadn't been on a fourteener since last fall and mentioned not missing this part of the game.

We both expressed concerns about how warm the air was at camp, certainly well above freezing.  We knew we'd need to ascend some moderately steep snow and were hoping for a good overnight freeze to consolidate it for our passage.

We grunted up the steep headwall to Twin Lakes in under an hour, where we were pleased to find well frozen snow covering the trail.  During the previous evening and all morning I was debating which of the two fourteeners I preferred to ascend first (and finish on the other one).  Both sequences had merit, but ultimately I decided I wanted to finish on Sunlight, which has been called CO's hardest fourteener.

As we made our way up Windom we watched the sun rise and soak Eolus and N. Eolus in classic alpenglow.  Finally our early start was paying off!

Views of Eolus, N. Eolus, and Sunlight at sunrise

As we picked our way along the boulders of Windom's west ridge we soon encountered some unavoidable snow of one of the NW face couloirs, I guess it's called the Widowmaker, though I've seen scarier.  The snow here was delightfully hard, and I had the distinct pleasure of kicking steps toward the summit.  Mark followed for a while, then decided that I kick steps much too far apart and he opted to find the rocks on the couloir's left side.  Not about to miss a July snow climb I continued up the snow, which quickly became the consistency of cement.  I hadn't bothered to don crampons, so I chopped a few steps with my axe to reach Mark, who was waiting patiently on the summit ridge.

The summit was a quick scramble from here and turned out to be one of the more interesting summits I've visited.  We snapped shots of Sunlight and Jupiter, then made a quick reversal of Mark's ascent route back down towards Sunlight.

On the summit of Windom Peak, #58/59

Looking at the summit blocks of Sunlight Peak from Windom.

Jupiter Mountain

Sunlight Peak (7/2/07):

Mark and I strapped on crampons about halfway down the Widowmaker on Windom, and were able to keep them on until we reached ~13,700 on Sunlight's Red Couloir.  From here we stowed the crampons but kept the axes handy as we had a few snow slope traverses left on the remaining route.

The summit register and benchmark appeared with alacrity and we seated ourselves as we studied the final boulder moves.  I'd heard mixed reports regarding the difficulty of these final moves and in anticipation had packed my FiveTen Anasazi rock slippers for an extra dose of confidence.  As far as I'm concerned, it's not over until you're on the tippy top and I wanted to make certain nothing kept me off it.

A hop, skip, a nervous leap of faith, and a high step found me seated securely on top of my last fourteener.  The moves turned out to be easier than they looked, though they still received my undivided attention.

Sunlight Peak was absolutely a sweet way to finish the fourteeners, and it was made extra special by sharing the summit with Mark (who I'd climbed 26 fourteeners with over the past 3 years) and a campsite with Abby (who's climbed 15 fourteeners with me).

I hadn't been able to accompany Mark when he finished the fourteeners, but it was a nice consolation to be on the Sunlight with him the first time he tagged the true summit block.  Congrats on "really" finishing, Mark! :)

Heading to Sunlight from Windom

Jagged Mountain

Mark signing Sunlight's summit register

George on #59/59

My Summit Video (~9 MB .wmv)

Mark tagging the summit block

All told we probably dawdled on the summit for over an hour before finally heading down.  I radioed Abby to let her know I'd finished and that we'd safely descended to Twin Lakes.  In addition to cooling off celebratory Newcastle's in Needle Creek she was busy swatting mosquitoes and communing with numerous goat visitors.

Views from the Twin Lakes area

Back at camp we spent the remainder of the day roasting in the sun and running from mosquitoes.  Word to the wise, pack a gallon of Deet and a dozen citronella candles if you plan to visit Chi Basin!

Jupiter Mountain (7/3/07):

Since we knew we'd never be closer Mark and I agreed to run up nearby centennial peak, Jupiter Mountain, before catching the train.  Because Jupiter was a bit closer we allowed ourselves a whole half hour of extra sleep, waking up at 3:30AM to hit the trail by 4.

We made fairly short work of the steep, grassy east slopes, finding ourselves high on the mountain at sunrise.  A full moon over Aztec and a re-run of alpenglow the Eolus Peaks left little to be desired.

Some lazy route finding allowed us to compose a sequence of delectable class 3/4 moves onto the summit of Jupiter at 6:50AM.  We both quickly understood why Gerry Roach calls this "Colorado's mountain of mountains".  The early morning views of neighboring fourteeners and the Weminuche Wilderness were without equal.  I think only climbing Jupiter via the steep (and now somewhat melted out) Io Couloir could make a better experience.

Sunrise on the trail

On the summit

Mark on the way down Jupiter

The hike back to Needleton was again hot but fairly uneventful.  We stopped and killed over an hour dipping our feet in Needle Creek, as we knew we were well ahead of the trains schedule.  The train ride out was fairly miserable due to heat and plastic seats, so we were all pretty excited to roll into Durango.

A quick tally suggests I've walked ~500 miles of trail and ascended over 200,000 vertical feet to complete the fourteeners, no wonder I feel tired as I write this trip report!

Goats, Goats, Goats!!!:

Goat pictures, many taken by "Abby the Goat Whisperer"