JAGGED MOUNTAIN
13,824'
August 16-18, 2005
By Tim Briese
Jagged Mountain is one of the most difficult of Colorado=s highest 100 peaks to climb, yet at the same time it is one of the most rewarding. It stands in rugged splendor deep in the heart of the San Juan Mountains, far from civilization. True to its name, the mountain consists of a jagged half mile long ridge of soaring towers and spires, unlike any other Colorado mountain I have seen. The climb involves a multi-day backpack, and a summit climb fraught with routefinding challenges and some low 5th class technical moves. I regard this climb as one of the premier mountaineering adventures I have undertaken.
Brian and I agreed to save Jagged for our last centennial peak, partly for practical reasons, in order to build up to a level of skill to handle such a remote technical climb, and partly for aesthetic ones, to save one of the best for last.
We considered two different approaches to the peak, either backpacking up Noname Creek from Needleton, after a ride on the train from Durango, or going down the Vallecito Creek drainage from the Beartown Trailhead and then up Sunlight Creek. We settled on the latter, even though it involves a little more distance and elevation gain, because the outing can be done this way with only two nights of backpacking. The Needleton approach would have taken at least a day longer because of the train schedule.
I met Brian on Monday evening in Creede, and we enjoyed a delicious dinner at the Bronco Grill. Afterwards we drove to the Rio Grande Reservoir Trailhead, where we intended to stay overnight. In the morning we planned to leave Brian=s car there and four-wheel in my Tundra on up to the Beartown Trailhead. A few minutes after we arrived at dusk, though, a campground host from the adjacent Thirty Mile Campground approached and informed us that staying overnight at this trailhead parking lot was prohibited. After we explained our objective he suggested that we drive up the road another six miles and stay at the Ute Creek Trailhead, which we promptly did. Although it was dark when we pulled in, it was obvious that this was one of the largest trailhead parking areas that I had ever seen. It could probably accommodate a hundred vehicles or more in its spacious grassy meadows, although there were only a half dozen or so scattered around here tonight.
A little rain pattered down during the night, and the next morning when we rose at dawn we were greeted by a dull leaden sky filled with heavy, low clouds. At 7 a.m. we took off in my truck and drove west on the Rio Grande Reservoir Road. The first few miles of the road were gentle and easy, until we reached the base of the infamous Timber Hill. I had heard about its bad reputation and was concerned that it might give us problems, but it turned out to be easier than I expected, even though the surface of the rough road was wet. I merely put my truck in low range 4WD and lugged right up the steep winding road through the dense woods. After three more miles we turned left on the Beartown Road and four-wheeled another five and a half miles to the Beartown Trailhead, at 11,700'. We arrived there about 9 a.m. This was one of the most remote places that I had ever driven to in Colorado, for we were a two hour drive away from the Rio Grande Reservoir, and three hours out of Creede. We found three or four other vehicles parked there.
A few minutes later we shouldered our packs and headed south up the Vallecito Creek Trail toward Hunchback Pass. Within five minutes a cold rain began falling and continued for over an hour. I made the mistake of not putting my rain pants on right away, choosing to put up with water running down my soaked hiking pants, and I soon had wet socks and feet, an annoyance that would stay with me for the rest of the trip, as it turned out. After 45 minutes we reached the 12,500' pass and started the long six and a half mile descent down the Vallecito Creek drainage to Sunlight Creek. After a while we met a party of rain-soaked and bedraggled-looking backpackers on their way up to the pass. The weather gradually improved and later on we were treated to impressive views of the Guardian (13,617'), its summit towering through broken clouds across the valley.
When we reached Rock Creek, a tributary of the Vallecito, we found it necessary to remove our boots and ford its icy waters. Brian had some sandals along to wade in but I had no choice but to go barefoot. We met an older man backpacking by himself and three young fishermen also fording the creek when we arrived there, with all of them traveling in the direction opposite that we were going. It seemed a rather odd coincidence for three parties to be simultaneously in the same place in this remote wilderness.
It was evident that these mountains had received a massive amount of snow during the past winter. Creeks were raging unusually high for mid-August, and we crossed a bank of snow that still remained across the trail from an avalanche. From time to time we could hear the Vallecito thundering in the woods nearby as we hiked down the valley, and I wondered how we were going to get across it.
As Brian and I continued down the trail we studied our maps and GPS readings closely to determine where to leave the main trail and cross Vallecito Creek to head up the Sunlight Creek drainage. Eventually we found a faint trail that took us down through the woods at about the right place and we made our way to the banks of the raging creek. It was immediately apparent that crossing this torrent was going to be a problem!
The creek was generally 50 feet or more across, with an apparent depth of up to four feet or so, and cold white water viciously rushed and swirled around boulders. It could well have been called a river rather than a creek! An attempted crossing looked very dangerous to me. We walked up and down the creek, pushing our way through tangled undergrowth in the woods, looking for an acceptable place to cross. After 20 or 30 minutes of searching, we went downstream a ways and found a place where the stream was much wider and shallower, and we were elated to see that someone had strung a rope across above the water here to assist in crossing. The creek was perhaps 100 feet across here, with a maximum depth of about two feet, but the water still moved very swiftly. Brian put on his sandals and proceeded to ford the creek, balancing himself with the rope in one hand and a trekking pole in the other. I considered going barefoot again but decided that slipping on a submerged rock could be treacherous in this fast-moving water, so I just plunged in with my hiking boots and waded right across.
Once we were safely across the creek we sat under a tree and took a break. Rain began to fall again and thunder rumbled through the valley. I poured water out of my boots and wrung out my socks as best I could. After a few minutes we proceeded up a trail we found along the west side of Vallecito Creek, past a meadow that held a couple of tents. After going a couple of hundred yards we reached Sunlight Creek, a tributary of the Vallecito that we wanted to follow up to the west toward Jagged. We needed to cross to the creek=s north side and find a trail that reportedly went up the drainage. I thought that we could surely find a way to cross this much smaller creek without fording it, but I was mistaken, for it, too, was a raging torrent! After fording the knee-deep water I again pulled off my boots and wrung water out of my socks. I began to realize that I would not have dry feet again until this expedition were over!
We had already backpacked about eight miles, and considered camping here in the lower Sunlight Creek drainage, but elected instead to push on up the drainage a ways to get ourselves in a better position for a summit attempt in the morning. We found a nice trail along the north side of Sunlight Creek and followed it briskly uphill through the woods. After a half mile or so we came to an open area where an avalanche had knocked down a swath of aspen trees across our route. We laboriously worked our way across the downed logs for about two hundred yards and were relieved to finally re-enter the standing timber on the other side. Little did we know that the worst still lay ahead! We found the trail again and followed it through the woods a short distance before we reached another, far more vast, expanse of fallen aspens. We were dismayed to gaze across a half mile or more of downed logs that lay before us! This appeared to be the result of a recent avalanche that occurred last winter, because many of the downed trees still had green leaves on them. The logs had not yet settled down close to the ground, either, but often lay four or five feet above the ground piled on top of each other, in one vast, twisted mess! We began to tediously crawl across and around the logs, at a relative snail=s pace. It was very tiring and somewhat hazardous doing this with full packs. At one point I slipped and gouged my shin on a sharp rock. We met two young hikers on their way down from Sunlight Lake who dismally reported that we had a considerable distance to go yet before we reached the end of the downed trees!
I had read trip reports that mentioned the first, older area of downed logs that we encountered, but not this vast new tangle of them. We saw no reasonable way around this considerable obstacle, either. The trail very likely won=t be cleared anytime soon in this remote place, so it must be concluded that the viability of the Sunlight Creek drainage as an approach to Jagged has been drastically diminished for the foreseeable future!
After a long hour or more we finally reached the end of the logs and continued up the drainage on easier terrain. We had long since lost the Sunlight Creek Trail and it was nowhere to be found. We found other faint trails, however, that took us up the drainage, and we climbed upward through the woods, on terrain well above the north side of Sunlight Creek. We climbed higher and higher on steepening slopes, now mostly bushwhacking through the woods, on terrain that became increasingly cliffy, until we finally reached a point around 11,500' where we could look far down below at Sunlight Creek, tumbling down a canyon several hundred feet below. My heart sank when I saw a well-defined trail along the south side of the creek. How I wished we were on it! We looked for a way to get down there from here, or to advance further up the drainage, but we were cliffed out! It was now early evening, and we were very tired, thirsty, and ready to set up camp, but we were considerably off-route and darkness was fast approaching. We tersely discussed our rather desperate situation and decided that the best alternative at this point would be to retrace our steps and get back down to the creek. We pushed our way back down through the steep terrain and about a half hour later found a way down a steep, loose slope to return to the creek. We lost about 500' of precious elevation gain in the process! In the rapidly waning light of dusk we forded Sunlight Creek again and found a decent campsite nearby in the trees, on a small hill above the creek, at about 11,000'.
It was almost dark as we set up camp at 8 p.m, and then it began to rain again. Water dripped on us from the treebranches above as we cooked our dinner and ate outside. I was uncharacteristically grouchy and sullen. What a challenging and miserable backpack it had been! We had tramped about 12 miles in 11 hours, carrying full packs, fording rivers, crawling tediously across a massive jumble of logs, and getting off-route in rugged terrain, only to arrive here at dark and eat in the rain! In spite of all this, however, we were now in a position to attempt Jagged in the morning, which was our ultimate objective today!
We rose at 5:30 the next morning and a few minutes later headed up the trail in the dark with our headlamps. We took the nice trail along the south side of Sunlight Creek up the valley and switchbacked up a hill to a flat area at 11,500'. We crossed to the north side of the creek here and followed the trail about 200 yards further before we left it and headed off to the north up a steep side drainage. The sky did not look too promising this morning, with some low clouds drifting around the nearby summits. The eastern ramparts of Jagged presented an impressive sight as the sun rose. We climbed a mile north up steep grass and flowery slopes to a lake at 12,700'. I was dragging along moving more slowly than usual this morning, slowed by the extra weight of technical climbing gear that I was carrying and by my heavy, wet boots, and also because of the big day that we had had the day before. When we got to the lake, however, Jagged=s north face came into full view, and a rush of adrenalin began to revitalize me!
After a break at the lake we left at 8:45 and rapidly climbed west up to Jagged Pass (13,020') in only 20 minutes. I paused for a moment to gaze down into the Noname Creek drainage on the other side before turning my attention to Jagged=s impressively rugged north face. We traversed across a slope a quarter of a mile to the south past a large bank of snow and came to the base of Jagged=s complex north face. Here we stashed our trekking poles and launched forth on the climb. We went up a Class 4 crack and then up a sloping Class 4 ledge that Roach describes as the first crux of the route. This was easier than I expected, and, in fact, we didn=t even recognize it as the crux until after we=d climbed it! Then we proceeded upward just to the right of a big snow-filled couloir on nice grassy ledges that were somewhat exposed. I expected to find a lot of cairns marking the route but we actually found only a few. It didn=t matter, though, because Roach=s directions were fabulous. The second crux, a Class 4 crack, went smoothly, and we soon came to the third one, a low 5th class pitch that presented a couple of options. We chose the one to the right, a 10 foot climb up a nice crack. I went up first, and used our rope to bring up our packs before Brian climbed up to join me.
We had a 60 meter rope and a small rack along, but as it turned out, a 30 meter rope and a few slings would have been adequate. We found the rope more useful on the descent than it was going up. Jagged is sometimes climbed with no rope at all, and we could have perhaps done so as well. It seemed prudent to us to err on the side of caution, though, for even a minor slip could have been disastrous, especially since help was a long, long way away.
Upon reaching a big notch in the ridge we turned left and proceeded to climb along Jagged=s upper south face on very exposed ledges. We soon came to a point that required a short downclimb with a very exposed step across to a block. I was spooked by the extreme exposure here, for the implications of even a slight misstep were obvious. After looking for a better way, we found none, so we decided to put on our harnesses and belay each other across the step. This worked out well, and the move seemed quite easy with the comfort provided by the rope.
After traversing a few more feet on the ledges we came to a nice 40 foot, 3rd class crack that Brian scampered up first. Then it was a fun 100 foot scramble to the north on solid blocks up to the summit. Brian arrived first, and graciously waited for me to arrive so that we could simultaneously place our hands on the crest of the highest rock, thus completing at the same moment our goal of climbing all of the centennial peaks!
What a dramatic moment it was, too, the culmination of years of climbing, finishing on such a spectacular peak! There was a large flat block on the summit, perhaps 8 feet by 10 feet, which afforded a perfect spot to sit and gaze at the rugged wilderness surrounding us, as we basked in the warm glow of our achievement. There were fine views of numerous magnificent peaks that we had been on in recent years, including Windom, Sunlight, Pigeon, and Arrow and Vestal.
We arrived on the summit at 11:10, and enjoyed it for about 15 minutes before heading down. Clouds were building in the sky, but even though they were not too threatening yet, we certainly didn=t want to be rushed by bad weather on the descent! We climbed down slowly and carefully, using the rope again at the step on the ledges, and again for belaying each other down the upper two cruxes. We found this to be a lot of fun. A shower of sleet blew in for a few minutes which made the rocks a little wet, but this didn=t hamper us much.
We returned to our trekking poles at the base of the summit cliffs at 1:25, and sat for half an hour to rest and soak up the exhilaration of our accomplishment. The challenging scramble to the summit had been a great deal of fun, one of the best that I had done. As we traversed back toward Jagged Pass three mountain goats curiously watched us walk by. We descended back down the flowery slopes below the lake and got back to our tent at 4 p.m. We broke camp and at 4:30 started hiking down the Sunlight Creek Trail, hoping to get the downed trees and the Vallecito Creek crossing behind us that evening if we could.
The trail along Sunlight Creek turned out to be a nice one. We followed it down along the south side of Sunlight Creek for a ways, then forded the creek when it crossed to the north side, and presently lost the trail when we reached the expanse of downed logs. It took a very tedious hour to thrash our way through this vast tangle again. It did seem slightly easier, however, going downhill through the mess. The elation we felt from our successful climb didn=t hurt, either.
We forded the Vallecito about 7 p.m. and found a nice meadow to set up camp on the east side of the river. The evening was clear and beautiful, and it was a pleasure to sit on a smooth rock in the meadow and eat dinner, a far cry from the conditions that we dealt with the night before.
In the morning there was a little frost on the grass when we rose at dawn. At 7 a.m. we left and started hiking up the Vallecito Creek Trail at a nice steady pace. It took about an hour to hike two miles to the Rock Creek crossing. Soon after that the grade steepened considerably and the hike became rather grueling. We took several short breaks and used these opportunities to enjoy nice views of the surrounding peaks. We met a couple of backpacking parties coming down the trail in the morning sunshine. One guy looked like he was seriously struggling, after hiking for only a couple of hours from the trailhead, and we wondered how he was going to fare on the multi-day expedition that his group leader described to us. It was quite a relief to finally reach Hunchback Pass at noon, after we had hiked seven miles and climbed 2800 feet of elevation gain from camp. We cruised down the final mile to the truck, where we jubilantly arrived about 12:40.
Over the course of this adventure we hiked about 25 miles (including the backtracking on the first day), climbed about 8400 feet of elevation gain, and forded rivers eight times.
We loaded up and began to four wheel back to Brian=s car waiting at the Ute Creek Trailhead. Along the way we came upon an old-fashioned cattle drive conducted by cowboys on horses. After taking refreshing showers with my portable propane shower behind some bushes at the trailhead, we drove into Creede and enjoyed a wonderful enchilada dinner at the Bronco Grill. We had noticed on Monday when we were here that this was their special feature tonight, and we had been looking forward to it for the past three days! We were not disappointed, either, for the enchiladas were some of the best I had ever tasted!
After dinner Brian and I parted company and I drove home, where I arrived a little before 10 p.m. Exhausted, I flopped onto the couch and related to my wife the details of this grand adventure.
