Scrambled Legs
Welcome back, dearest readers. It’s been a very long time since we used this platform to write about our adventures. Our most recent adventure, however, felt like a good time to share some photos of one of the most grand outings we have experienced in quite a while. We traveled to the San Juans, the most remote mountain range in Colorado. Specifically, we went the Weminuche Wilderness and hiked up into Vestal Basin. There stand five peaks that go at nothing easier than fourth class. It was to be a proper alpine scrambling effort!
The first day we drove the many hours to Molas Pass and hiked the 10 miles up to Vestal Basin, where we set up our camp. The next morning we started bright and early with our first mission: the Trinity Traverse. This traverse has some mandatory fifth class moves, but more than the technical difficulty is the degree to which you have to manage very loose, steep rock. These mountains are gorgeous, but I’ll be honest, they are kinda shitpile-y.
Stats for the Vestal Basin Approach
10.5 miles from the Molas Lake Trailhead to Vestal Basin (Lower Camp) via the Colorado Trail & the Elk Creek Trail
3100 feet of elevation gain from car to camp
3 different types of wild berries consumed: strawberries, raspberries, and grouseberries (alpine wild blueberries)!
Stats for the Trinity Traverse
3 stunning summit views
6.16 miles round trip
3500 feet of elevation gain
100000 smol rocks sliding around under our feets
0 (!!) other humans encountered en route
The Trinities! And Molly! From left to right they are East Trinity, Middle Trinity, and West Trinity.
First up, West Trinity. Just look at all those loose blocks waiting to be pulled out.
Hours later, finally descending off of East Shitpile, er, Trinity. Don’t slip. You’ll probably bounce a lot on the way down.
We did it! Trinity Traverse, accomplished. That’s West Trinity behind Trinity Late, with tomorrow’s mission looming in the background.
Post-traverse frolicking. Hooray for our first successful alpine scramble of the trip!
Before we move forward with the peak bagging, miles counting, and vert ascending, let’s take a moment to take a look at Vestal Lake with West Trinity in the background. Goddamn, nature is pretty!
Day two in Vestal Basin, we turned our attention to the main attractions: Vestal and Arrow Peaks. Wham Ridge, which is really the north face of Vestal, is a pretty iconic alpine climb in Colorado. With a grade of 5.4, it is an “easy” climb, while still falling solidly in the realm of technical alpinism. THAT’S MY FREAKIN JAM.
The way down from Vestal, however, sucked. And I don’t just mean a little. I had read lots of trip reports about how bad the descent off of Vestal peak was. It was still fully worth it (see epic photos below), but truly, no photo can capture the sand-sliding, baseball-sized-rock-rolling, semi-technical-downclimbing-on-loose-bullshit descent.
After Wham Ridge, we turned to the last mountain of Vestal Basin: Arrow Peak. At 5.0, this was honestly the best peak as a whole. The climbing, while not quite as magnificent as Vestal, was super fun, and the way down was surprisingly fun as well.
Stats for Vestal and Arrow
4.41 miles roundtrip
4140 feet of elevation gain
Infinite joy in moving around on rocks
More pretty nature: Vestal Peak (left) and Arrow Peak (right)
And so, on the morning of the third day, we did the damn things. Vestal on the left and Arrow on the right. Molly still makes her presence felt too.
My stoke to climb Wham Ridge is just so high! I know I’ve thrown a lot of names at you in this blog post. If you remember one name from this, it should be Wham Ridge. I mean, just look at that thing!
Let’s scramble!
Molly, about 3/4 of the way up Wham Ridge. It was exactly as much fun (on the way up) as I hoped it would be.
Summit of Vestal Peak after topping out Wham Ridge. Very proud moment for us. We just haven’t yet seen the nightmare that is our descent route.
Last mountain of Vestal Basin: Arrow Peak. Just look at Molly. She is so ready to climb up this ramp.
Obligatory summit selfie on top of Arrow. I know, we’re the cutest.
Turns out, the views from the top are pretty mind boggling. The mountains in this part of Colorado go on and on and on.
The weather was perfect. There were practically no other people in the basin, nor on routes with us. We both felt strong. We supported each other as alpine adventure partners. We accomplished all that we came here to do, and we did it safely. I couldn’t be happier with how this section of the trip turned out.
We stopped many times on our hike out of Vestal Basin to eat many raspberries, which brought us many happinesses.
The next day we hiked the 10 miles back to our car, checked out the tiny mountain town of Silverton, and drove to Ouray, where we camped for our next day’s mission: Mt. Sneffels. While all of our previous summits had been 13ers, we figured we might as well tack on a couple 14ers to the end of this trip. To keep the ethic of alpine scrambling alive, we took the third class route up Sneffels. Since we were solidly into the Labor Day weekend, this mountain was packed. Also, it has a similar level of chossiness as the Trinities. We didn’t really take any photos. Oh well. You’ll have to believe me that it was still fun.
For our last day of the trip we figured we would tack on one final scramble: Torrey’s Peak via Kelso Ridge. We’ve each done Torrey’s a few times, but it was our first time up Kelso Ridge, which is also third class. OMG it was incredible. Great ridge climb. 10/10. Would recommend.
Molly! Kelso Ridge!
The knife’s edge. I loved this part. Great rock. Great stance. Fun moves.