WILSON PEAK
14,017 ft.
August 14, 1999
By Tim Briese
My daughter Emily and I rose early and left the motel in Ridgway at 5:30 a.m. to climb Wilson Peak. I had climbed Mt. Sneffels the day before, while Emily saved herself for this climb, for she was eager to tackle her first class three 14er. The weather didn’t look quite as good as it had the day before, as a high, thin layer of clouds was now streaming in from the southwest. We followed the aspen-lined road up to the Silver Pick trailhead and hit the trail with our lab Allie a little after 6:30. This was my first visit to the Silver Pick area, and it was exciting to explore a new place.
We walked around the metal gate at the trailhead that bars further vehicle passage up the old mine road and hiked up to the Silver Pick mine at timberline. Just past the mine we found a foot trail that left the road and headed up to the east through rocks and bushes to the tundra in the basin above. A young couple who were backpacking overtook us along this trail. We reached a fork in the trail, with the left fork appearing to head toward the basin under Wilson Peak’s steep west slopes, and the right fork heading in the direction of the Rock of Ages saddle, where we wanted to go. The backpackers hesitated for a few moments and chose the left fork while we took the one to the right. Over the next hour we watched them cross the basin and begin to ascend the long, steep scree slopes on Wilson Peak’s west side, which looked like quite a difficult ascent, especially with the burden of full backpacks.
We presently reached an old mine at 12,100 feet at the upper end of the road we had been on earlier, and we continued on up into the basin past the mine. We noticed some hikers on a trail on the slope high above us and we decided to slog up through some loose scree to get on the trail ourselves. Once we got on that trail it was an easy hike on up to the Rock of Ages saddle at 13,000 feet. At the saddle we were greeted with a grand view of Mt. Wilson and El Diente across Navajo basin to the south. I paused to study them for a little bit, for I planned to return here sometime to climb them.
The wind was gusting from the south across the saddle, and the clouds were thickening, which cast a sense of urgency upon our climb. We followed a trail a short distance to the east to the small saddle between Wilson and Gladstone Peaks, where we were greeted by a nice view of Lizard Head off to the east. From that saddle we dropped down about a hundred feet on the east side to avoid some rough terrain on the ridge and then turned left and followed a climber’s trail below the crest of Wilson’s west ridge toward the summit. The rock on this route was loose and unpleasant, but we made good progress on it nevertheless. Emily was eagerly awaiting the class three scrambling we would encounter on the climb, and was disappointed to discover that it would entail only a relatively short stretch near the top.
When we were about a half mile from the top we met a party of climbers coming down, and one guy remarked to us that there was a very steep stretch ahead that our dog would not be able to climb. That concerned us a bit, even though Allie has excellent rock scrambling skills. Emily said, “If Allie can’t make it, how can we?” Soon we reached a false summit at 13,900 feet, and were startled by the view of the very steep final summit approach. From this vantage point the rest of the climb looked straight up. We dropped down a few feet off the false summit and cautiously began the hand and foot rock scrambling up the steep pitch. This was what Emily had been waiting for, and she seemed to really enjoy it. Allie whimpered a time or two, but skillfully picked a route up through the rocks, leaping from one up to the next. I had to give her a little boost at the steepest place.
A few minutes later we scrambled atop the summit, exhilarated with our accomplishment. It was about 11 a.m., four and a half hours after we had left the trailhead. We admired the sweeping views of the San Juans surrounding us as we rested. The backpackers we had seen earlier reached the summit shortly after us, and they looked quite exhausted after their grueling climb up the steep scree.
The sky was completely cloudy, with shafts of rain beginning to fall in the distance, so we didn’t tarry long on the summit. Just before 11:30 we began our descent, and very carefully scrambled back down the steep ridge. When we reached the false summit Emily remarked that it would be fun to reclimb the steep section again if we had time. We hiked on down the trail, and at the Gladstone saddle we met a couple coming up who were contemplating turning back, since it was already starting to sprinkle. I cautioned them about the hazard of scrambling on the steep rock near the summit, which would likely be wet and treacherous by the time they arrived. The backpackers were right behind us, and they dropped off the saddle to the east to continue their adventure somewhere in the wilderness below, and that was the last we saw of them.
As Emily and I hiked back down the trail below the Rock of Ages saddle the rain began to fall harder, and soon thunder was rumbling around us. We hurried on down the trail and were relieved to get back to the relative safety of the trees as the occasional lightning continued. We arrived back at the trailhead at 2:30 and drove back to Ridgway, excited about our successful climb of another San Juan 14er.
