Download Agreement, Release, and Acknowledgement of Risk:
You (the person requesting this file download) fully understand mountain climbing ("Activity") involves risks and dangers of serious bodily injury, including permanent disability, paralysis, and death ("Risks") and you fully accept and assume all such risks and all responsibility for losses, costs, and damages you incur as a result of your participation in this Activity.
You acknowledge that information in the file you have chosen to download may not be accurate and may contain errors. You agree to assume all risks when using this information and agree to release and discharge 14ers.com, 14ers Inc. and the author(s) of such information (collectively, the "Released Parties").
You hereby discharge the Released Parties from all damages, actions, claims and liabilities of any nature, specifically including, but not limited to, damages, actions, claims and liabilities arising from or related to the negligence of the Released Parties. You further agree to indemnify, hold harmless and defend 14ers.com, 14ers Inc. and each of the other Released Parties from and against any loss, damage, liability and expense, including costs and attorney fees, incurred by 14ers.com, 14ers Inc. or any of the other Released Parties as a result of you using information provided on the 14ers.com or 14ers Inc. websites.
You have read this agreement, fully understand its terms and intend it to be a complete and unconditional release of all liability to the greatest extent allowed by law and agree that if any portion of this agreement is held to be invalid the balance, notwithstanding, shall continue in full force and effect.
By clicking "OK" you agree to these terms. If you DO NOT agree, click "Cancel"...
Originally I had planned on gathering beta on and hopefully climbing Hamilton Peak, the Sierra Blanca's southern most 13er (an unranked one at that). There's a bunch of roads to the south of the peak that, on a map, looked like they'd give reasonable access to the peak. They all turned out to be private roads. With winds of 60 miles per hour predicted for Blanca I knew going over Blanca to reach it would probably be a bad idea as well. My friend Whiley was climbing farther north in the Sangre and recommended I climb the Twin Peaks just to the north of the Blanca group so after packing up from camp on Lake Como Road (and thoroughly de-dusting the layer of grit blown into my tent overnight; my mouth was crunchy in the morning) I drove to the Zapata Falls trailhead. Clouds over most of the Sangre looked black and ominous and the peaks themselves were mostly obscured by said dark clouds. I figured I'd be walking into a snow storm to reach the top.
Looking northeast towards the sand dunes and Crestones.Up towards Twin Peaks. Or rather there's supposed to be some mountains there.About thirty minutes later. Still partially cloud covered. Twin Peaks are on the right.
The route up the Twins is easy enough; take the Zapata Creek Trail to South Zapata Lake, turn to the west/right, and hike up to the summits. The trail from the parking lot is good, though it is confusing and unclear near the bottom where it splits: left for Zapata Falls, right for Zapata Creek. I didn't see signs distinguishing this on either ascent or descent, but I didn't look that carefully either. (A trailhead report from about a month earlier mentions the sign is missing.) It was only 100 or so yards from the entrance to the Falls slot canyon through some brush to the Zapata Creek Trail so I made my way to the proper trail and began ascending into the mouth of the combined Zapata drainage. Along the way I crossed the creek and found a few old cabins, one of which was still in surprisingly good shape.
There was another cabin just to the right of this one that was in total ruin.
Most of the views on the lower part of the trail were obscured by trees but occasionally I'd get glimpses up canyon.
Twin Peaks are behind the kind of nondescript "peaks" on the right. The ridge on the left leads to Point 13,660 A.
While the trail follows the drainage it does not follow directly alongside the creek. Generally the trail stays far above the creek on the northern side. A good map and other photos can be found on the Ellingwood Point North Ridge route description, if one wishes to see more. One of the neater features on the trail was a small shelf in between two slightly staggered layers of cliff, one above and the other below.
Chossy granite. There's another cliff to the right.
The peaks were nice and frosty when the clouds lifted enough to finally see them. Snow, however, had mostly managed to miss the Sierra Blanca. The Culebra range to the south was blanketed in snow but the Blanca were mostly dry. There was a little bit of snow (from patchy to maybe an inch deep) starting at 10,500 feet and it was all heavily faceted.
Grainy.
The snow would only pose a problem on a route variation I took, but more on that later. The winds throughout the day were howling but I stayed comfortable in just base layers, softshell pants, a light jacket, and windproof liner gloves. The trees did help some but it was still probably in the 20s and felt cool.
As I continued climbing on the trail I kept looking for both ways to gain the north ridge as well as descend it. I was pretty sure the ridge would go but only very low down closer to the parking lot. Much of it was steep talus fields and broken cliffs with ugly looking gullies, plus I was on the wrong side of the drainage to reach it anyway. It would be a far more probable descent route as long as one liked bushwhacking and potentially some scrambling on what looked like death choss.
Most of the ridge looks like this. Staying on the crest though one could descend into the trees on the right down gradual slopes until the ridge peters out. There were some cliffs in the trees so I don't know what the scrambling down would be like, if there is any.Continuation of cliffs and talus. I thought this saddle might have been a way to access the ridge/upper slopes but the trail continues on for a ways past this point, which is all still cliffs above the talus.
At treeline I stopped to put on my hardshell jacket and a pair of ice climbing gloves. Without the trees to block the wind it was bitterly cold.
Northwest face of Ellingwood Point from treeline. It's a bit hard to distinguish but there's a long ridge just in the foreground of Ellingwood that connects to Ellingwood's north ridge but is otherwise separated from the peak by Pioneer Basin.
I hiked nearly to the lake and got my first views of a reasonable route up the peaks. The east slopes were really the only way up after miles of talus-cliff sandwich.
The higher of the two summits is the obvious one on the right. The barely-there bump left of center is the lower, unranked south summit. The entire route could be kept to Class 2 with moderate route finding.
I hadn't really seen the lake from where I cut off the trail so I checked it out on the way up as I weaved across talus, boulders, slabs, and grass.
South Zapata Lake and Ellingwood Point. The aforementioned ridge is now more obvious.
The route up was broken into sections of steep slopes with relatively flat, broad benches between them.
Looking up from one of the benches. The trail is a few hundred feet below.
At one point I was scrambling up a Class 2+ slab (could have kept it to pure Class 2 but that wouldn't have been as fun) and was startled by a bighorn sheep not even ten feet to my right. He gracefully bounced down loose, steep terrain and across the grass to meet his flock. He was too quick for me to get a video of but I got some pics while they patiently waited and watched me climb.
Just above and left of center.A cropped version of the other. Look at him take charge!
From this bench there was an obvious grassy gully I could take to keep things simple but I wanted to spice things up a little bit. With snow already on the ground and more to come this might be one of my last opportunities for some fun and less sketchy scrambling. To the north/right of the obvious grassy gully was what looked like a Class 3 gully/slab combo with Class 2+ access.
The view in question with options drawn in. 1) The easiest route. Class 2. 2) The route I ended up taking after getting to option 3 and reversing due to ice on the rock. Class 2, possibly Class 2+, and steep. 3) Broken slabs that could be climbed when dry. Class 3.
I hiked across the talus field to below the cliffs. To access what appeared to be the only non-vertical rock there I'd have to ascend up a grassy ramp below a cliff and then turn 180 degrees to ascend another ramp on top of that cliff, whereupon I could access the scrambling.
Access ramps are visible in the center of the photo. The scrambling would take me up the corner under and to the right of the point on the left.
Because of the north facing nature of this section there was more snow than in the open areas. The shadier parts had an inch or two in spots.
Across this terrain, which was exposed to the left, and up the shallow inset below the point on the left.
I got up to the bottom of the vague, slabby chimney and discovered a lot of the rock was covered in verglas not visible from below. The shady northeast aspect collected and concentrated what little melt there was. Typical! I contemplated going up it anyway but the ice was hard to see on the black rock and there was a cliff below me if I should slip, so I decided to climb back down and traverse across the steep talus to easier and presumably less icy terrain. If the chimney were dry it would probably go at about Class 3.
I down climbed back to below the first cliff and headed across option 2 towards option 1 in the photo above.
Southern summit visible from around where the easy terrain started again.Looking towards the higher northern summit. Grass with talus mixed in turned to full time talus higher up.
From this point the remainder of the ascent was a simple Class 2 affair on talus. The wind was relentless but not as bad as I had expected. At no point was I blown over, just lightly pushed around and cold. Slogging uphill on nearly uniform terrain I hit the summit and had views of the north ridge and ridge south to Twin's unranked subsummit, as well as incredible views of the Sierra Blanca 14ers - the views from the subsummit were even better though.
North ridge. Possibly a route one could ascend or descend, though the terminus is somewhat indistinct. The shelf below the ridge might be a better way, but still not as easy as the trail.Easy ridge over to Twin Peaks A South.Sand dunes, Crestones far in the distance, and California's tiny little nipple up there.
I spent about five minutes on the true summit taking photos and attempting to find a summit register in one of the three summit cairns (why there's three on such a low-traffic peak I don't know) before hiking south towards Twin's twin which took all of eight minutes and one second. The Blanca group looked spectacular and intimidating from the vantage point of this lowly unranked peak, better than its higher twin. The hike to this subsummit is worth it all by itself just for the views.
Left to right: Lindsey, Ellingwood, Blanca, Little Bear-Blanca traverse, Little Bear. Basins left to right: Zapata Creek, Pioneer Creek, Lake Como.Look back on the true summit of Twin. California on the right looks like it's getting rained on.
Absorbing the views momentarily I quickly dropped back towards South Zapata Lake. The winds were remarkably consistent and cold. On a summer day I would have spent some time up there gathering energy from the surrounding immensities of the mountains and San Luis Valley but today was a day to tag the top and go.
Looking down from Twin South. The obvious first gully in shade was the way I'd come up and would thus descend.
The top was the steepest part and I made short switchbacks down it instead of descending directly. Once through the first gully the angle relented for the majority of the remaining hike out.
Talus and grass, ubiquitous.Finally returned mostly to grass. The ramps down to the lake are hidden from here but easily identifiable in proximity.Final look at the dark, foreboding northwest ridge of Ellingwood.
The remaining hike out back to the falls and the trailhead was uneventful, as one would expect of a good Class 1 trail. The only thing I want to mention for those reading this as a beta report is that there's a few hundred feet of regain in the middle of the trail that might go unnoticed during the ascent - I didn't notice the drop on the ascent that I would have to reclimb on the way out, so be aware it's not all downhill from the top.
Once at the bottom, at the falls/lake junction, I split right towards the falls. I knew it was close and what better way to end a great hike with a waterfall? Though the flow was low there was no easy way to the falls as the rock hop to get there was almost entirely covered in thin, clear ice. Some old bolts and cables attached to the wall indicated a previous attempt to make the hike easier but many were missing. Unable to find a dry path to the falls I simply jumped in, mesh trail runners or not. The ice cold water felt good and though my feet eventually went numb I was only in it for five to ten minutes anyway, so no big deal.
Zapata Falls. I wonder if there's ice to climb here later in the season.
I hiked back to my car and changed footwear to dry sandals. A barbecue place (Rendezvous BBQ) in Fort Garland caught my attention on the way to La Veta Pass so I stopped and had a brisket sandwich. It hit the spot and kept me topped up for the long drive home.
Twin Peaks A on the left, Twin Peaks A South on the right.
Statistics
Climbers: Ben Feinstein (myself) Trailhead: Zapata Falls Total distance: 12.95 miles Total elevation gain: 5,445 feet Total time: 7:12:05 Peaks: Two thirteeners (one ranked, one unranked)
Twin Peaks A, 13,580'
Twin Peaks A South, 13,534' (unranked)
Splits:
Starting Location
Ending Location
Via Time (h:mm:ss)
Cumulative Time (h:mm:ss)
Rest Time (m:ss)
Zapata Falls Trailhead
South Zapata Lake¹
2:17:17
2:17:17
0:00
South Zapata Lake
Twin Peaks A
1:43:37²
4:00:55
5:29
Twin Peaks A
Twin Peaks A South
0:08:01
4:14:25
0:00
Twin Peaks A South
Zapata Falls Trailhead
2:57:41³
7:12:05
Trip End
¹Approximate location. I turned east not far from the lake but didn't go to the shore itself. ²Includes time spent attempting scramble and reversing course to easier terrain. ³Includes time spent making short detour to Zapata Falls instead of directly back to the car.
My GPS Tracks on Google Maps (made from a .GPX file upload):
@DaveLanders: Cool, good to know. I'd imagine from looking at it even briefly from the summit that it wouldn't be a lot of fun in general - it looked like endless blocky talus as shown in photo 21.
Caution: The information contained in this report may not be accurate and should not be the only resource used in preparation for your climb. Failure to have the necessary experience, physical conditioning, supplies or equipment can result in injury or death. 14ers.com and the author(s) of this report provide no warranties, either express or implied, that the information provided is accurate or reliable. By using the information provided, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless 14ers.com and the report author(s) with respect to any claims and demands against them, including any attorney fees and expenses. Please read the 14ers.com Safety and Disclaimer pages for more information.