DE ANZA PEAK (13,362’)

GIBBS PEAK (13,553’)

June 27, 2013

By Tim Briese

21.1 miles, 6100’ elevation gain, 14:10 roundtrip time

Brian and I left Salida at 4:30 a.m. and headed over Poncha Pass toward the Cotton Creek Trailhead. We saw a flicker of flames from a small forest fire high in the Sangres near Hunts Peak in the early twilight as we drove down Highway 285. We were concerned that smoke from the far larger West Fork Fire near South Fork might bother us today. We pulled in at the trailhead and at 5:45 began hiking up the excellent Cotton Creek Trail.

one of our five crossings of cotton creek

After a couple of hours we reached a trail junction and headed left on trail no. 856, which climbs up over the crest of the Sangres and drops down on the other side. We followed a seemingly endless number of long sweeping switchbacks up this nice trail, which made for easy hiking but added at least a couple of miles onto what a steep bushwhack would have otherwise entailed. This was my first serious test of my knee after recent arthoscopic surgery, and the gentle trail was very welcome because steep terrain was not what my knee needed. Fine views opened up when we made it to timberline.

mt. owen across the valley

the view down the cotton creek drainage that we hiked up, the san luis valley lies in the distance

the view to the south of the upper reaches of the cotton creek drainage

some of the trail switchbacks

Eventually we reached the range crest at about 12,800 feet, where we turned to the right and made an easy grassy ridge stroll a little less than a mile to the summit of DeAnza.

deanza peak, at left center; gibbs peak is beyond at the far left

along the ridge to deanza

It was 12:15 when we arrived on DeAnza. We had hiked a surprisingly long 10.5 miles to get there, thanks in part to all those switchbacks. The hiking so far was quite easy but nevertheless a long grind. It was a beautiful warm and sunny day and thankfully smoke turned out to be a non-issue. While sitting on the summit I could see wisps of bluish-gray smoke drifting through the air above. Apparently the air currents today were lifting smoke from the big fire to loftier levels above us. Gibbs Peak was about a mile and a half away to the southeast and it seemed like quite a ways away. After consulting my map I noted that it was going to take some 900 feet of elevation regain to get over there, somewhat more than I had anticipated.

gibbs peak, at the upper left

At 12:30 we left De Anza and dropped down the ridge to the saddle to the southeast. 

the saddle between deanza and gibbs.  gibbs is off the photo to the left.  mt. marcy is at the right.

the ridge up to the summit of gibbs

We arrived on Gibbs' summit at 2:15. We had previously considered approaching Gibbs from the east side of the range but were dissuaded by the lengthy approach and bushwhack required from that direction. This remote peak does not yield itself easily.

on the summit of gibbs

view of the crestones to the south.  Rito Alto peak is at the far right.

After lounging on the summit for well over half an hour we left and headed down. Fortunately we had excellent weather for this lengthy hike today. Brian pondered a run over to Mt. Marcy but decided against it. We elected to make a bushwhack descent directly back down to the Cotton Creek drainage to shave some time and miles off of our return. We descended about a thousand feet on steep grass into the Middle Fork side drainage east of Cotton Creek. That was simple enough but things got more interesting when we got into the woods lower down. We encountered a lot of deadfall for a ways that we were mostly able to skirt around and then we found ourselves in the bottom of a nearly impassable gorge and found it necessary to climb steeply back up out of it to the north to a place where we found a very faint trail that we followed westward back to the Cotton Creek Trail. It was 5:30 at this point and we still had over five miles to go back to the trailhead. I was getting pretty beat by this time but we hiked rapidly down the excellent trail and got back to the truck a few minutes before 8 and headed back to Salida.