Climbing La Plata Peak--Colorado's 5th Highest at 14,336'--with Gene

We had a cool start—high 40s. We began walking at 7:38. Valley fog and / or high wispy clouds on peaks; wonderfully fresh air and quiet forest sounds: river (rusty color), jays or squirrels chattering, breeze in trees. The sky cleared to pure blue by 8:30. Gene realized upon looking at his GPS that we’d missed the trail--lost ~30 minutes.

Break 10 a.m. at 11,988’ (above timberline) overlooking the creek valley, called La Plata Gulch. The bottom of the valley was 11,200’. After more than 30 switchbacks on what might be an avalanche chute, we gained over 700’ elevation. Before and after this point, we noticed an odor on the trail and what turned out to be marmot scat. I first thought it might be a sort of stink weed. We later saw the marmots in the open area just above timberline, who were the offending party.

As we began a stair step section up toward another ridge, we encountered AHS grads ET, now attending Az, and AH, sophomore at ZU. When ET came toward me on the trail, she looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her. AH took a few seconds to recognize me under my Pirates hat, sunglasses, and backwards Camelbak. We talked for a few minutes and when Gene got up to us I introduced him as another ZU man. AH and ET said they had made the ridge above us overlooking Ellingwood Ridge by sunrise, though they had hoped to be on the summit by that time. We were still about 1.5 hours from that the peak, as it turned out. So they were easily three hours ahead of us. They must have gotten an early start. They were about the fifth party down and only a few minutes behind the leader.

At 11:00 we took a break among the switchbacks in the rock field. We saw some picas scurrying about. I was dealing with a blister on my left heel due to a tear in the liner of my boots. I bandaged it a few times and didn’t have any real problems as a result.

We made the summit by about 12:10 and hung out there for about 20 minutes. When we arrived, there was a man and woman each with a dog, but they departed as soon as I sat down on the rock cairn next to the hand-made cross and replica Buddhist flags. We were the last summit of the day, which I had guessed. As usual, the view was expansive. The benefit of climbing mountains is seeing your self in scale to the wide world and not merely in a human environment. Mt. Elbert was easily seen to the north. Gene could name most of the mountains in all directions, particularly the Collegiate Peaks to the east. The sky was mostly overcast and there were some clouds and signs of rain in the distance so we didn’t linger past getting a good view, taking some photos, eating a little applesauce for me, and tightening our boot laces.

Despite going down hill, my legs were more tired going down than climbing up. On the way down, though still above 14k, I noticed a red cabbage flower. Also at this elevation, I noticed a bee on a yellow flower; I considered the presence of each rather surprising. I slid down two separate snowfields in a couloir to save some steps. At 1:05 a dark rain cloud was still at work toward Twin Lakes and Leadville. That storm generated a tornado at Elevenmile Reservior later in the day. By 1:53 we made the staircase where we met AH and ET. Though Gene wasn’t feeling well, we made steady progress because we weren’t sure what the clouds might bring.

The way down featured this terrain: peak, boulder fields, slippery loose dirt on steep face, ridge line, rock steps, and a big limestone rock in the marmot meadow. The path then meandered through thick, 4” tall grass in the meadow, the edge of which was tinctured by snow.

At 2:08, we were at the spot where we took at break at 10 am. Sprinkles started at the timberline point of 11,900’ at the top of the scented switchback section. The switchback section looks across the valley with the creek at the bottom toward two avalanche chutes.

The bushes next to the creek obscure the view but not the pleasant sound. As we continued down closer to the creek we reached a flat area amidst the pine trees. This section alone would be worth the drive and hike to reach it. The trail took a steep descent down the hill next to the cascading white water of the creek. We came up on a struggling but intrepid woman while we traipsed down the steep stair steps where the creek dropped down. She declined our offer of help, saying she was just taking things slowly due to recent knee surgery. Since she was using the trees to manage the steps, we thought she was in some distress. However, shortly thereafter a couple of her compatriots came up the trail and asked how far back she was. One later passed us going down on her way to bring their car closer to the trailhead while the other helped her down the trail.

We completed the hike, tired but pleased.