Turret Peak
Sep. 4th, 2013 05:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ilanaramaBritt and I always get out of town during Labor Day Weekend. This year, we decided it was a good time to climb Turret Peak, at 13,835 feet the 89th-highest mountain in Colorado, which we have often viewed from our local ski area and on other backpacking trips. It sits next to the slightly higher Pigeon Peak, which we climbed in 2008. These two mountains are often climbed together, but we hadn't had the time or energy to go up Turret on that trip. No big deal; we'd really enjoyed camping in the beautiful meadow below, and had decided that we'd just have to come back for the other peak, and enjoy it again.
Back in June we did a backpacking loop that ended at the Needleton flag stop of the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Train, and thinking ahead to this trip, we bought season passes, which cost less than two train rides. It's a lot of fun to hike to the train station in town to start a backpacking trip! Pretty amazing, too, how many hikers use the train to access the wilderness. Most of them were going to Chicago Basin (where we camped the last night of our June trip) to climb the fourteeners Aeolus, Windom, and Sunlight; only one other pair of hikers were headed toward Pigeon and Turret, and they were going to camp up North Pigeon Creek, west of the peaks, rather than up Ruby Creek to the north as we were, so our trails would diverge a couple of hours in.
It's a brutal hike to the meadow above Ruby Lake, where we planned to camp. The trail is about as far from a Forest-Service-standard constructed path as you can get; it's really just a use-route, often obscured by downfall, frequently angling straight up the steep hillside. Occasional cairns gave us reassurance we were on the right track, which was a good thing as we only got lost twice - compared to our 2008 hike in which we probably spent more time off than on the trail!
After a couple of hours we broke out over the Animas River. The bridge where the train had dropped us off (near the lower right of this photo) looked to be farther away in vertical distance than in horizontal:
Then the route crossed over the ridge and turned up Ruby Creek, where we gained another thousand feet or so to Ruby Lake. Climbing over the lake we finally got above treeline, which made the going a little easier - but we still had willow thickets and rock jumbles to contend with.
It was getting late and threatening rain by the time we made it to the meadow where we intended to camp, an incredible high basin at 11,600 ft, surrounded by jagged cliffs. When we'd been there in 2008, we'd caught one glimpse of a mountain goat high up on a ridge, but after seeing so many goats in Chicago Basin on our June trip, we expected we might see some in the meadow - and we were right. Shortly after we set up our tent, the white spots we'd noticed on the surrounding rocks began drifting into our camp. There were nine of them, mostly males (one with a radio collar) but two females with kids were among them. The males made dominance displays at each other while the kids chased each other around and generally entertained us.
The morning dawned beautifully clear, with no clouds in the blue, blue sky - but we knew we couldn't dawdle until the sun hit our tent and warmed things up, as we didn't want to get caught in the inevitable afternoon thunderstorm. Our 8:15 start was late by alpine standards, though, and we saw the first wisps of cloud forming as we headed up the incredibly steep grassy ramp above the meadow. By the time we reached the ridge between Pigeon and Turret, the clouds were big and puffy.
(In the second picture, our tent is in the shadow on the far side of the small stream, just to the left of center. The bright white spots around it are mountain goats.)
We hit the summit around 10:40 and had a snack. On the ridge below us we could see the two guys who had camped in the basin north of Pigeon Peak, heading up towards Turret. When they arrived at the peak perhaps half an hour after us, they said they'd left their camp shortly after 5am so as to be able to make both peaks before the weather moved in. They were kind enough to take our photo:
Then we headed down the long, steep descent to our camp. I've indicated our tent in the second photo - gives you an idea how far 2000+ vertical feet is!
We had a late lunch and then goofed off, reading and - I admit it - napping. That night it rained pretty hard, and though it was clear the next day we had to work to dry our things so we wouldn't carry too much water back down with us.
Ruby Lake shone beautifully in the sun:
It took far less time to descend the so-called trail than it had to ascend it two days before, and we only got off-course once. We made the 3:35 pickup with half an hour to spare; we arrived at the Durango station at six and then it was time for the last bit of hiking - the ten blocks home.
All the photos at Flickr, none of the jibber-jabber
Back in June we did a backpacking loop that ended at the Needleton flag stop of the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Train, and thinking ahead to this trip, we bought season passes, which cost less than two train rides. It's a lot of fun to hike to the train station in town to start a backpacking trip! Pretty amazing, too, how many hikers use the train to access the wilderness. Most of them were going to Chicago Basin (where we camped the last night of our June trip) to climb the fourteeners Aeolus, Windom, and Sunlight; only one other pair of hikers were headed toward Pigeon and Turret, and they were going to camp up North Pigeon Creek, west of the peaks, rather than up Ruby Creek to the north as we were, so our trails would diverge a couple of hours in.
It's a brutal hike to the meadow above Ruby Lake, where we planned to camp. The trail is about as far from a Forest-Service-standard constructed path as you can get; it's really just a use-route, often obscured by downfall, frequently angling straight up the steep hillside. Occasional cairns gave us reassurance we were on the right track, which was a good thing as we only got lost twice - compared to our 2008 hike in which we probably spent more time off than on the trail!
After a couple of hours we broke out over the Animas River. The bridge where the train had dropped us off (near the lower right of this photo) looked to be farther away in vertical distance than in horizontal:
Then the route crossed over the ridge and turned up Ruby Creek, where we gained another thousand feet or so to Ruby Lake. Climbing over the lake we finally got above treeline, which made the going a little easier - but we still had willow thickets and rock jumbles to contend with.
It was getting late and threatening rain by the time we made it to the meadow where we intended to camp, an incredible high basin at 11,600 ft, surrounded by jagged cliffs. When we'd been there in 2008, we'd caught one glimpse of a mountain goat high up on a ridge, but after seeing so many goats in Chicago Basin on our June trip, we expected we might see some in the meadow - and we were right. Shortly after we set up our tent, the white spots we'd noticed on the surrounding rocks began drifting into our camp. There were nine of them, mostly males (one with a radio collar) but two females with kids were among them. The males made dominance displays at each other while the kids chased each other around and generally entertained us.
The morning dawned beautifully clear, with no clouds in the blue, blue sky - but we knew we couldn't dawdle until the sun hit our tent and warmed things up, as we didn't want to get caught in the inevitable afternoon thunderstorm. Our 8:15 start was late by alpine standards, though, and we saw the first wisps of cloud forming as we headed up the incredibly steep grassy ramp above the meadow. By the time we reached the ridge between Pigeon and Turret, the clouds were big and puffy.
(In the second picture, our tent is in the shadow on the far side of the small stream, just to the left of center. The bright white spots around it are mountain goats.)
We hit the summit around 10:40 and had a snack. On the ridge below us we could see the two guys who had camped in the basin north of Pigeon Peak, heading up towards Turret. When they arrived at the peak perhaps half an hour after us, they said they'd left their camp shortly after 5am so as to be able to make both peaks before the weather moved in. They were kind enough to take our photo:
Then we headed down the long, steep descent to our camp. I've indicated our tent in the second photo - gives you an idea how far 2000+ vertical feet is!
We had a late lunch and then goofed off, reading and - I admit it - napping. That night it rained pretty hard, and though it was clear the next day we had to work to dry our things so we wouldn't carry too much water back down with us.
Ruby Lake shone beautifully in the sun:
It took far less time to descend the so-called trail than it had to ascend it two days before, and we only got off-course once. We made the 3:35 pickup with half an hour to spare; we arrived at the Durango station at six and then it was time for the last bit of hiking - the ten blocks home.
All the photos at Flickr, none of the jibber-jabber
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-05 02:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-05 11:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-06 12:26 am (UTC)I haven't figured what races I plan to run after Detroit next month. I might need a low-key vacation as a break from everything else going through the end of next year.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-05 03:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-05 11:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-05 05:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-05 11:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-05 05:18 am (UTC)Almost got vertigo just looking at some of the pictures - I could never do that hike with my vertigo and being out of shape, boo.
Gorgeous, beautiful, amazing pictures - love all the hikers getting off the train with you. They might be out-of-towners, but your towns people really were generally fit!
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-05 11:55 pm (UTC)I think most of the people who use the train to access backpacking trails are either locals or from elsewhere in Colorado. Most of the people who make it a goal to climb all the 14,000+ ft peaks in the state are Coloradans. And I think that generally if you are not fit you can't even imagine doing such a trip. But the other passengers on the train, who were just going up to Silverton for the day and taking it as a tourist trip, were more typically average Americans.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-05 10:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-05 11:56 pm (UTC)Beautiful!
Date: 2013-09-06 02:10 pm (UTC)Re: Beautiful!
Date: 2013-09-06 06:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-07 02:32 pm (UTC)Aimee
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-07 10:52 pm (UTC)Our house is at 6600ft, the trailhead the train took us to is maybe 8200? Most of the trailheads we use are higher, though - 9.5 to 10.5.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-09 05:43 am (UTC)