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Point 13832 and Point 13811 Silver/Grizzly Gulch trailhead
12.8 miles & 4727 vertical gain
With time on my hands and minimal snow in the San Juans I decided it was time for a little trip down south. I picked up my friend Brian on Thursday evening and we headed down past Lake City to a campsite at the trailhead. Brian had decided to relax the next day so I planned to head out solo and set my alarm for a semi early, casual style start.
The morning light revealed no snow in sight so I ditched my snowshoes and started hiking. I made good time up the familiar trail and found myself at the saddle of Redcloud/13832 in under two hours. I had crossed minimal snow at this point with only a few postholes at the edge of a snowfield in the upper basin. A look ahead confirmed that leaving the snowshoes behind had been the right choice and that I probably could have left my ice axe as well. 13832/13811 and most likely Recloud/Sunshine can be easily done with no snow gear at this point.
I started up the ridge and soon after skirting to the right of the first point on the ridge had a view of my first summit of the day looking much closer than I had expected.
Feeling strong I made short work of the remaining distance and soon stood atop of point 13832. However, the view of the route over to 13811 and back from here was sobering. I guess I hadn't come quite as far as I had hoped and a good portion of the day's vertical still remained unclimbed.
After a quick lunch break I began the hike over to point 13811. The terrain was easy and I made the summit at about 4 hours from my start time. I was definitely starting to get a little tired though and was not looking forward to the long climb back up over 13832 into the correct basin.
The great views of Uncompahgre and the backside of Redcloud/Sunshine helped keep my mind off of the long slog back to the trailhead. Soon enough I was celebrating my 67th and 68th centennials with an icy beer and some comfy flip-flops back at the car.
Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
Thanks for the report Kevin. Things are starting to look pretty nice up there as more of the brown melts away.
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