JONES MOUNTAIN
(13,860 ft.)NIAGARA PEAK
(13,807 ft.)July 14, 2002
By Tim Briese
My friend Brian Schultz and I left Ridgway at 5 a.m. and drove south to Silverton in the dark. We planned to climb Jones and Niagara this morning before catching the train out of Silverton in the afternoon for our backpack to Pigeon Peak. This was to be a bonus climb, as it were, before our big adventure into the backcountry of the Needle Mountains.
We left Brian’s vehicle in Silverton and drove up the Animas River Valley northeast of town on a reasonable two wheel drive gravel road in my truck. After about eleven miles we left the road in the valley and took a steep and narrow, but rather easy four wheel drive route that took us high up into Burns Gulch. Jones and Niagara lay ahead of us to the southeast. The old road got rougher and began fading out as we climbed ever higher before finally deciding to park at a rocky switchback at 12,050 feet.
At about 7 a.m. we embarked on the hike and began to bushwhack into upper Burns Gulch toward the saddle between Jones and Niagara. The cliffs below the saddle looked rather rugged as we approached, but we found a surprisingly nice trail that took us across talus and neatly up through the cliffy area to the saddle at 13,220 feet. At the saddle we paused for a few minutes to admire the view down into Snare Gulch on the other side, and Pigeon Peak and the rugged Vestal Group off to the south. The sky was mostly clear but the air was quite hazy, with the smell of smoke in the air at times, from a big forest fire that had flared up near Norwood the day before.
The route up the ridge to Niagara looked quite reasonable from the saddle, and after a few minutes we headed up. We followed a climber’s trail that took us upward along the right side of the ridge before it switched over to the left side part way up. The climb seemed a little easier than the class two plus rating that Roach gives it, but Brian pointed out that our trekking poles probably accounted for the apparent ease. In rather short order we were standing on the summit gazing down into the vast expanse of Burns Gulch far below. We also studied the easy ridge that we would follow across to Jones. The summit register showed that this mountain receives a mere fraction of the traffic that tramples the 14ers.
After a few minutes we left the top and made a fast descent back down the ridge to the saddle and began climbing up Jones’ south ridge. There was a fine trail that carried us gradually upward along this gentle ridge. Along the way we paused to look back at Niagara from this impressive vantage point.
At 10:00 a.m. we reached the summit of Jones and sat down for a leisurely rest in the pleasant sunshine. With my binoculars I could see several people standing on the summit of Handies Peak about a mile and a half to the northeast. We had our seldom-visited summit all to ourselves, though. We were almost shocked to see a trio of climbers coming up Jones’ steep west slopes below. There were some white clouds beginning to puff up into the hazy blue sky, but none yet held any threat of rain.
After lounging on top for nearly 45 minutes we decided to begin our descent. For the sake of variety we elected to go down Jones’ west slope, even though it looked quite steep. We went directly down to the west from the summit on steep scree and loose dirt for about 400 feet before reaching easier terrain. The steep slope below the summit was fine for a descent, but the footing would have been unpleasantly loose for a comfortable ascent. Below this we found friendlier slopes mostly covered with grass that provided better footing. I stopped for a moment to enjoy another fine view of Niagara from here. We lost elevation rapidly as we descended these steep slopes, staying on the grass where we could. We set our sights on my truck, which was a tiny red dot in the valley far below. After picking our way down through a minor cliff band we abruptly found ourselves back on the floor of the valley, only a short walk from the truck.
We arrived at the truck about 11:30 and relaxed on the soft grass nearby for a while, soaking up the grandeur of this high valley. We were in no hurry to get back to Silverton because we had plenty of time to catch our 3:30 train. This was one of the easier climbs to a high summit that I had ever done, covering only about three miles with 2300 feet of elevation gain, in a leisurely four and a half hours. It was a perfect warmup for the grueling backpack to Pigeon that awaited us.
