Labor Day Week 1998 vacation

"Vans In High Places" / Windom Ascent tour

We took the week of Labor Day (September 5-14) as a van trip vacation this year. Our first stop was the Wheeler Geologic Area near Creede, which is in southern Colorado about 6 hours from Boulder. Then we continued to Lake City and drove over Cinnamon Pass, which is part of the "Alpine Loop" 4WD tour. In Silverton we got on the narrow gauge train and were dropped off at the Needle Creek trailhead for a 3-day backpack into the Chicago Basin. After our hike we returned to the train which took us to Durango, where we were picked up by Britt's family and spent some time at their ranch. We then drove to Ouray, where we soaked in the hot springs, and then drove over Engineer Pass (more of the Alpine Loop, and quite challenging in a VW Westfalia!) back to Lake City. We returned to Boulder via Gunnison, Salida, the bridge over the Royal Gorge, Canon City, and Colorado Springs.

Wheeler Geologic Area

Wheeler Geologic Area is a pocket landscape of strange formations eroded into the soft volcanic rock. We hiked around and through the formations, and up the mesa behind them: WheelerMesa1.jpg, WheelerMesa2.jpg, WheelerMesa3.jpg. We camped along the 4WD access road.

Alpine Loop

Shelf road above Sherman, on the way to Cinnamon Pass
Cinnamon Pass summit; another shot
Looking through a window in an old building in the ghost town of Animas City (also pictured below)

Chicago Basin

One of my big objectives for this trip was climbing Windom Peak, the 34th highest mountain in Colorado (14,082 ft). We also climbed Sunlight Peak, which boasts the hardest single move to attain the summit of a Colorado Fourteener by its easiest route -- the true summit requires a bit of a rock scramble.

Hiking in (Windom is the peak with the steep dark right (east) face, just under the right edge of the big cloud)
Twin Lakes in the basin formed by Windom, Sunlight, and Eolus. When Britt was here in 1977, he took shelter in a cabin here. We saw only a few charred timbers.
Climbing Windom Peak isn't an easy hike
Britt on Windom's summit
Ilana on some spires near Windom's summit (uncropped version of photo to the right); I managed to kneel on the detached spire but I couldn't bring myself to stand.
Ilana on Sunlight's summit, also too tiny to stand on without major mental freakage
The train comes to pick us up

Below is Sunlight Spire (13,995 feet, on the left) and Windom Peak, as seen through the fog from the summit of Sunlight Peak.

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