First La Plata Mountains Summits!
Trip report from last weekend’s jaunt in our backyard mountains!
A few weeks ago, Regan and I tried to get back on the 14ers horse, after the summer of 2019 with none (!) by spending a few days in the shadow of Wetterhorn Peak, between the towns of Ouray and Lake City. In previous years, we spent a few days in that same area, camping and summiting a handful of peaks, including Redcloud and Sunshine, Handies, and Uncompahgre Peak. But the experience this year was different — the drive to “bag” another Fourteener was just not that strong, and due to a late start, some incoming weather, and lingering snow in the dark gullies, we turned back about 400 feet from the top. And we really didn’t regret it.
I have lived in Durango for nearly 8 years now, and Regan nearly three, and while we look up and see the La Plata’s most days of the week, neither one of us had stood on top of one yet. Certainly, we have played up there — from driving up to Kennebec Pass a few times (once to cook a tailgate pasta with mussels and clams dinner!) and a couple of hikes and camping getaways, to winter snowshoe and cross-country skiing outings — but we had never tried a summit attempt in our backyard mountain range.
From Alltrails.com, we poked around and found a route that would take us to the top of two mountains in one push — Deadwood Peak, and Silver Mountain. The route indicated that it was “hard,” but mostly hard in the sense of a pretty big day — 9 miles and more than 4,000 of elevation gain. But with no technical risk and a beautiful, calm Saturday ahead, we decided to give it a go.
Humorously, most of the reviews on AllTrails indicated that the biggest annoyance of the hike was crossing the La Plata River, which most people wrote was knee-deep at the crossing, so bring your Chacos. We followed that advice, but with runoff basically over around here and our snowpack being gone (June 28th) I was able to cross without getting the soles of my shoes wet.
The entire first half of the ascent was on a narrow, steep Jeep road — I am pretty sure I could not drive up this in my Tacoma, but clearly dirt bikes and side-by-sides could (unfortunately) handle it. Loose rock and some tight switchbacks would probably be more than I could handle, even if the truck could technically pull it off. But on foot it is simply a trudge — put your head down, count your steps, and just keep climbing. The pine, fir, and aspen forest is beautiful, with lots of birds, and a sense of a bear around every corner (although on this day, Mr/Mrs Bear were elusive.) Peaceful, calm, cool. Lovely.
Up, up, up…until finally we popped out of the trees and saw the first summit curving gracefully above us and into the distance.
From the top of Deadwood, of course, the view back to the “western” La Plata’s is pretty great. If the La Plata’s are divided in two with the river bisecting them from east and west, the western range is definitely a little taller overall, and more jagged as well. Hesperus Mountain (13,237ft) is the highest in the range, with Centennial, Moss, Babcock, and Spiller all clustered together, and all over 13,000ft.
While we topped out on Silver Mountain at 12,389, we still went up nearly 4,000ft (according to my Garmin Instinct watch, we did 3,812 ft over 9.81 miles.) By comparison, there are 21-14ers with less elevation gain (on their standard route) and 26 of them with shorter distances to travel. And I can tell you, there were a lot fewer cars in the parking lot than on about ANY Saturday in June near a 14er!
The decent was a little more hairy than expected — tired legs plus steep slopes and slippery, chaussy rock down the Jeep road made it frustratingly annoying, but it was fine (my poor 3-year old La Sportiva approach shoes are toast,) but it was still a fun day in the backyard mountains. A refreshing True Blonde at the car, then a quick jaunt over to Mancos for a tasty Fenceline Cider before the ride home was the perfect ending to a super-fun day!
I would like to acknowledge this visit was on the traditional lands of the Ute and Puebloan people and honor with gratitude to the land itself and the people who have stewarded it throughout the generations.
