Harry - "I was expecting the Rocky Mountains to be a little rockier than this."
Lloyd - "I was thinking the same thing. That John Denver's full of shit, man." - Dumb and Dumber
Believe it or not, there are still places in Colorado where you can beat the crowds, even on a beautiful weekend in late June. Far from 14ers, but replete with 12ers, low 13ers, and high alpine lakes, the South San Juan Wilderness offers solitude for those who are willing to find it.
History
The South San Juan Wilderness encompasses an area in south-central Colorado and is roughly shared evenly by the San Juan and Rio Grande National Forests. Like much of Colorado this area has some mining history, but human history seems to be relatively limited. This region is described as the "wildest place in Colorado", though I saw few signs of wildlife. Perhaps its greatest claim to fame is that Colorado's last confirmed grizzly bear was killed here in 1979, though unconfirmed, but not unreliable, sightings of remaining grizzlies have persisted.
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| Looking towards Conejos Peak from FR 250 |
The landscape of the South San Juan is of a type somewhere between that of stereotypical Colorado and Northern New Mexico. Rugged granite peaks dominate the horizon toward the west, but the eastern edge of the Wilderness is more of the high rolling hills type you would see in the New Mexico mountains near Taos. This is exemplified in Conejos Peak, one of the tallest mountains in this area and the Conejos County high point, which is a non-technical walk-up. Everything here is far greener than New Mexico, although bark beetles have devastated the Colorado wildernesses nearly as bad as forest fires have devastated New Mexico's. Speaking of forest fires, much of the motivating factor to making the drive to southern Colorado, apart from the spectacular beauty, is that nearly all of New Mexico's public lands are closed due to record-breaking drought. It is likely quicker to name all the areas that are not closed. All state parks, national monument backcountry, and even county trails here in Los Alamos are closed. The Santa Fe National Forest, the primary recreation area for those in Los Alamos and Santa Fe, closed in early June because over 100 illegal campfires were found during Stage II fire restrictions. The Carson National Forest near Taos closed last week after a human-caused fire escalated into the Sardinas Canyon Fire during Stage II fire restrictions. Most of the other national forests in NM within a reasonable drive from Los Alamos are also closed because the heat and dryness only get worse as you move south. They will require "significant monsoon rain" before reopening, which I would guess means they will stay closed until some time between late-July and mid-August, though if monsoon fails to deliver (early monsoon predictions already appear to have been false, as it's already early July and we are most definitely not in monsoon) they could stay closed until fall. A nation-wide heat wave certainly doesn't help, especially since fires that happen in other states will continue to drain federal resources. The only places that are open are places that have no fire danger, i.e., places that have no water, trees, or bush and would be extremely hot and dangerous to hike in during a heat wave. Southern CO is not free of fire danger, but the only closures I know of are due to the gnarly 416 Fire northwest of Durango.
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| Not much snow even for late June after a bad snow year |
There are many access points for hiking in the wilderness stretching from Trujillo Meadows near the NM-CO border to the small community of Platoro, CO. Forest Road 250 acts as a gravel highway running north-to-south off of which trailheads and dispersed camping are abundant. Our trailhead is at a bend in Forest Road 105 about 6 miles from where it meets with FR 250. Please note that while trip reports on SummitPost and other sites say that FR 105 is a low-clearance, 2WD road, these are either outdated or highly misjudged. Rather than taking my Jeep, we took my hiking partner's Nissan Altima based on the info in these trip reports and nearly got stuck and then some. As I type this I am waiting for manual confirmation for my SummitPost account so I can comment on the Conejos Peak page and keep others from making the same mistake. It took us 90 minutes each way to traverse this 6 mile road, and that was with significant route-spotting from outside the car.
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| Trailhead | |
Trip Report
Day 1
We had no particular goals on this hike apart from summiting Conejos Peak. Ideally we would have made it all the way to Blue Lake near the Continental Divide, but as you can see from this map, that did not happen. We started hiking at around 9:00 AM and were immediately greeted with a serene forest teeming with wildflowers. The first 2/3rds of a mile or so takes you to the lower portion of the wide bowl rimmed by the northern ridge of Conejos Peak.
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| Footbridge |
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| Damage from bark beetles is evident in this photo |
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| Odd rock structure for which I have no explanation |
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| Bowl formed by north ridge of Conejos Peak |
Shortly after crossing Saddle Creek we made our first of many blunders of the day. For whatever reason on this hike we lost the trail at least half-a-dozen times. Without my GPS I wonder how much we actually would have hiked. In searching for excuses, the best I can come up with are either the horse traffic has worn down wrong turns to make them appear more like actual trail or our dog was more likely to lead us down the wrong path without us noticing. After climbing up an incredibly steep trail (likely a game trail) we rediscovered the real trail and got above treeline to get a view of the bowl we just hiked out of.
We hiked above treeline over a saddle until we determined a good point to turn north and walk up Conejos' south ridge.
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| Near the saddle |
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| First glimpse of the other mountain ranges in the South San Juan |
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| Conejos' north ridge from the summit base |
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| On the way up to Conejos |
I should say here that a quicker route to Conejos Peak, if that is your only goal, is the Tobacco Lake trailhead, which is a couple miles further up FR 105 and requires 4WD. The actual hike up Conejos Peak is not technical, but I found myself uncharacteristically worn out by the trek. For example, several weeks ago I hiked up Jicarita Peak (12,835') in NM, which was 7 miles one-way and required 4000' of elevation gain. Yet I was far more exhausted climbing up Conejos, which was only 4 miles from the trailhead and required 2000' of elevation gain. Unless the air is that much thinner 300' higher, something clearly was not right with me. Upon summitting Conejos I had to take a long breather and unwind before eating a Clif bar and taking some pictures.
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| Looking south from Conejos |
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| Looking back down the southeast ridge |
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| Looking at Tobacco Lake |
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| Looking west toward Gunsight Pass (very cool name) |
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| Looking east |
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| Looking southwest, but I can't tell what these peaks are. Banded Peak and Gramps Peak, maybe? |
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| Looking south to where our hike continues |
We sauntered back down the eastern ridge and enjoyed the scent of wildflowers at the top of the mountain. Route finding was a little bit easier going down and was less stressful on the legs than going up.
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| Cairn marking the last 100 yards to the summit |
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| Wildflowers at the ridge |
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| Hiking toward the trail marker |
We somehow missed the trail again and had to bushwack down a steep slope of thick bushes and muddy dirt. Thankfully none of the plants were thorny, and I survived with few scratches. After crossing Hansen Creek at approximately 6 miles, we enjoyed a relatively flat hike past unnamed high alpine lakes.
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| Looking back at Conejos |
We arrived at the intersection with Glacier Trail, Rincon Trail, Timber Lake Trail at approximately 2:00 PM. By this point I was sufficiently exhausted. I had not recovered from the climb of Conejos Peak, and the constant bushwacking only wore me out more despite the large stretches of flat trail. Horse traffic has also torn up most of the trails in this area, which puts a lot of pressure on the ankles. We were still over 4 miles away from Blue Lake, so after 8 miles of hiking we decided to set up camp. I will not lie; this was a blow to my ego. A lot of trips I've been planning are in the 10-12 mile/day range, and this 8 miles of hiking wore me out more than objectively more strenuous hikes have in the past. We set up camp, I ate a candy bar, and napped for an hour, and that more or less normalized me. Unfortunately, the bark beetle infestation has left about 75% of the trees dead, meaning that anywhere you set up camp in a sheltered area has a risk of treefall. I woke up to a minor fly infestation in between my tent and rainfly, and, by the way, the mosquitoes are terrible here.
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| View from right outside camp |
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| At the trail intersection near camp |
After my nap I made dinner (Knorr "Asian Sides" Lo Mein. Good, but not better than asian ramen) and refilled my water bottles while enjoying the flowing creek and columbines. Enjoy my cheesy video.
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| See if you can find my tent (on the left) |
Day 2
After some much-needed sleep during a not-too-cold night with a full moon, I woke up to catch the early morning alpenglow against the ridge while making breakfast.
After packing up we decided to hike without packs to Glacier Lake about a mile away, but once again we lost the trail and walked back with our tails between our legs. However, here we saw the only other hiker on the trip, a testament to the South San Juan's seclusion. We filled up water and hiked to Twin Lakes, which we had only glanced at the day before.
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| Looking back into the meadows on the trail to Glacier Lake |
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| Larger of the two Twin Lakes |
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| One of the many deep canyons in this beautiful area |
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| Saying goodbye to Twin Lakes |
From Twin Lakes we managed to stay on trail the whole way and found that it was worlds easier than all the bushwacking we had been doing the day before. Even spending time to take many pictures, we were able to cover the 5.5 miles back to the trailhead by about 10:15 AM after an 8:00 AM start.
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| Walking towards Conejos Peak again |
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| The only snowfield we had to cross |
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| One last look at the beautiful high country before descending into the trees again |
We began the harrowing drive back to FR 250, taking a long time to do it. I dare say that the drive down was worse than the drive up, but not by much. Luckily our great hiking pace meant that we had time to grab lunch at the Elkhorn Restaurant (formerly the Elkhorn Cafe) in Chama, NM. This was recommended by the YouTube channel The Southwest Backpacker. While the service left a bit to be desired, though I give them the benefit of the doubt since much of this was due to one large party, and once they were gone the service was much better, the food was excellent. I got a green chile and chicken chimichanga, which was perfect after this strenuous hike. For a town with about 6 restaurants, you can't ask for much more than that.
Conclusion
The South San Juan Wilderness is incredibly beautiful and isolated. If your vehicle has the capability, I would highly recommend summitting Conejos Peak. However, if I returned to this area, I would look at the Three Forks trailhead, which, though a little bit farther, has more options for loop hikes and less elevation gain and loss. We were very lucky in that this area is known for daily thunderstorms, yet we enjoyed clear skies the entire time we were there.
Miscellany
"I have made it my goal to do an overnight trip every weekend, if possible, so expect a lot of posting (I hope)!" Hah! That was from my last blog, which was published around Memorial Day. I will probably post this on July 2nd, meaning that you probably don't believe I've been true to my word, but, as usual, I have deep pockets when it comes to excuses! On June 2nd I did a long dayhike with my housemate to Jicarita Peak near Rodarte, NM. I chose not to do a backpacking trip because early morning storms were in the weather forecast, which later turned out to be accurate. I did not make a separate post for this because I've been trying to only post for overnight trips or if I do a lot of day hikes in one weekend. On June 4 I flew to Ann Arbor, MI, for the UPR 2018 meeting to present a poster. After the meeting ended I flew straight to Raleigh to celebrate my anniversary with Lindsey over the weekend of June 9. I considered doing a dayhike on June 16, but forest closures meant that the nearest reasonable option for a peak would have been near the Taos Ski Valley, over a 2 hour drive away. With rain in the forecast, I decided that would not be worth it and bar-hopped in Santa Fe instead. June 17 I went to the ANS Annual Meeting in Philadelphia to give a presentation, then spent the following weekend in Raleigh again. So as you can see, I have been incredibly busy and haven't had great cooperation from nature and the USFS on the days I am not. With the Santa Fe National Forest being closed, day hikes are hard to come by, and now that Carson is also closed I don't expect to do any nature trips that aren't backpacking trips. Nor do I expect to do any backpacking trips that aren't in Colorado. I will be spending Independence Day weekend in Raleigh, so the next time you may hear from me is mid-July! After that, Lindsey is visiting and I only have a handful of weekends in Los Alamos left. I can't believe the summer is flying by so quickly! I don't expect the forests in NM to open back up before I leave, so I reasonably only have 1-3 trips before I go back for the summer. However, I'm looking at the Chicago Basin and Squaw Pass areas in the Weminuche Wilderness as options for 3 day trips with my remaining two Fridays off. I may not have the energy to drive to CO for mere 2 day weekends, though, so I don't think my "every weekend" goal will be met thanks to the local forest closures.
Also, I am getting very frustrated with Blogger's system. My blog doesn't look the way I want it to look despite having the settings presumably correct, and the fonts keep changing sizes making things too small or too large. I may change platforms in the near future.
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| Jicarita Peak (left) and Truchas Peaks (right) |
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| Me on top of Jicarita Peak |
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| Independence Hall |
