mosquitoes – Wild Wanderer

Hesperus Mountain – 13,238

RT Length: 11.08 miles

Elevation Gain: 3440’

I parked at the 2WD Sharkstooth Trailhead the night before and waited out a thunderstorm. If you’re not familiar with the area, be sure to double check your directions: Google Maps kept trying to route me on ATV roads, and I got turned around several times trying to get to the actual trailhead. When I got there, I found there weren’t any parking spaces (as in, no place to park period… there weren’t any other vehicles there), so I had to park in a turnout a couple dozen yards from the trailhead. The drive was 2WD on a dirt road up until this point. This is what the lower trailhead looks like.

The next morning, after battling a night of storms and mosquitoes, I was up and on the trail at 5:30am. I realized rather quickly the 4WD road to the upper trailhead wasn’t all that difficult to navigate, and I could have easily driven all the way there. There were also several dispersed campsites along the way.

Now at the upper trailhead, I started following West Mancos Trail 621, which was the trail to the right.

Hearing mixed reviews about how to climb this peak, I decided to take the ridge up, and the gully down. This meant descending about 600 feet and 2 miles from the upper trailhead to my turnoff point. I just kept following the West Mancos Trail. There were plenty of signs along the way to remind me I was still on the West Mancos Trail.

At about 10400’ of elevation, after I’d been hiking for a total of 3.9 miles, just when I was thinking I should leave the trail and head for the ridge, I saw a large cairn, indicating the cutoff point for heading towards the ridge.

I turned left, and bushwhacked my way southwest towards the ridge. There was no visible trail here, but I soon made it out of treeline.

At treeline I came to a huge basin of rocks. To get to the ridge, I was going to have to head southwest, through this basin of loose, unstable rock. I did my best to stay low, and try to skirt the piles of rocks, but eventually I had to go up and over.

I now had a clear view of the ridge.

This is choose your own adventure, and none of it was pleasant. It was full of loose, rolling rocks. This is the route I took to gain the ridge.

Once on the ridge, I turned left, and encountered the most difficult part of my day: Tons of mosquitoes and 350’ of elevation gain in 1/10^th of a mile on dinner plate sized, extremely loose talus. There was no clear path or game trails, I just kept heading up. It was so miserable, I decided then and there I was not going to go back down this way if I could help it.

I was greeted at the top with a nice, gently sloping ridge that was easy to follow southeast towards Hesperus Mountain. There were some rocky sections, but clear game trails to follow.

I came to the end of the ridge and where the fun began.

There were quite a few game trails here, and the sun was in my eyes the entire time, so I’m not sure if I picked the correct route. If you go to the right of the class 3 section you can keep it class 2, but it’s easy to get lost. I decided to head straight up the rocks, then found a game trail that wound me around up to the summit. As I kept getting higher and higher up the mountain I found more and more trails, all seeming to lead to the same place. As long as you’re headed up and east, you should be good. This is the route I took:

And some step by step pictures of the route I took, first navigating the class 3 section

I was then able to pick up game trails that led me to the summit. I took a different path up than I did on my way back down, but all the game trails that went up led to the summit. As long as you’re keeping it class 2 you should be fine.

The summit was to the left of the trail, filled with large, loose boulders, and a wind shelter.

I summited Hesperus Mountain at 9:15am

Hesperus Mountain:

After spending considerable time on the summit, I turned and headed back down to the ridge. Once again, taking a slightly different route than I had on the way up, as trails were easier to see with the sun behind me instead of in front of me.

I made my way down the class 3 section

Ahead of me I could see the route I’d taken in, along the ridge

I looked to my right. I had a choice to make. I didn’t want to descend the same way I’d ascended, so I went over and took a look at the gullies. There were at least three to choose from, and I picked the middle one to descend, as it didn’t have any snow and I had a clear view of my exit route back into the trees.

Here’s the route I took down the gully. Since it had rained the night before, the scree was a bit muddy, and easy to grip.

And a look back at the gully I came down. As you can see, I had several options to make it down from the ridge.

At the base of the gully I followed the rocks to the north (right), finding cairns along the way that led me towards a trail in the trees.

I followed this trail through the willows and into treeline north, back to the West Mancos River Trail.

Back on the West Mancos River Trail, I followed it back to the upper trailhead, crossing the West Mancos River, and gaining elevation as I went.

At the Upper Sharkstooth Trailhead, I followed the 4WD road northeast, past Twin Lakes, just under 2 miles back to the 2WD trailhead.

I made it back to my truck at 11:30am, making this an 11.08 mile hike with 3440’ of elevation gain in 6 hours.

On to the next trailhead!

Mt Adams A – 13,937

RT Length: 13.5 miles

Elevation Gain: 5292’

My decision to attempt Mt Adams from Horn Creek was based on distance to the trailhead: The Willows Creek trailhead was an extra 1.5 hours in driving time from my house than the Horn Creek Trailhead, so that’s the route I chose. There were several cars in the parking lot when I arrived, and at least two parties camping in tents. The bathrooms were open and clean. It had rained the night before. I was on the trail at 2:30am.

I followed the well defined trail to the left. While the path was easy to follow, I could tell the rocks on the trail in this section were going to be hard on my feet on the way out.

After about .3 of a mile I came to a junction in the dark. My instructions said to go southwest here, so despite doing the obvious thing and following the sign that pointed right to Horn Creek I got out my compass and saw southwest was left. I turned left and walked for about a quarter mile before realizing (remembering) I was on the trail for Colony Baldy, and there was no way it was taking me to Horn Creek. I turned around and retraced my steps and corrected where I’d gone wrong… (turn right at this sign, do not go southwest)

Continue on this trail for about one tenth of a mile and you’ll come to another junction where you then turn southwest (left) and follow a well defined trail for about 5 miles to Horn Lakes.

There’s a trail register shortly after the second junction. I signed my name and for some reason wrote “Horn Peak” as my destination even though it was actually Mt Adams, but didn’t realize this until I’d hiked a few miles past the register. Whoops!

From here the trail became less rocky and followed Horn Creek. I could tell even in the dark the flowers were amazing right now!

At about 2.5 miles I crossed Horn Creek on what I’d describe as ‘bouncy’ logs: They bounced up and down as I walked across them.

The trail became quite overgrown at this point, and my legs were getting a little damp from the plants still wet from last night’s rain. I looked for animal/human tracks and didn’t see any on the trail. It was a nice and gentle hike in without a moon. Oh, and there were moths I honestly thought were bats at first they were so big. They were white, loud as they flapped their wings, and quite attracted to my flashlight. The first few gave me quite a start, but I quickly got used to them.

There was water in the middle of the trail around mile 3

And another stream crossing at mile 4. I crossed the creek and headed up into the basin

I was a little worried I wasn’t following the correct trail here because there was also a trail that didn’t cross the creek the second time and in the dark looked like it paralleled this trail, entering the basin as well. The trails never converged, but it looked like the other trail made it to Horn Lakes too

The trail goes all the way to the end of the basin, but at some point you need to turn right (west) and head up a steep grassy slope to gain Point 13,325 and the ridge to Mt Adams. I did this at about 11,780’ while I was still under treeline, and as I turned west this is what I saw

There was a lot of bushwhacking involved for about 20 yards or so, and then the brush and trees cleared and I could see where I was headed.

As I ascended the northeast ridge the sun began to rise and as I looked back I could see some of the lakes I’d passed and not noticed in the dark

This slope is very steep and longer than it looks. There are willows here, but luckily they’re only about a foot or so off the ground so they’re easy to navigate. There are a lot of different ways to gain the ridge. This seemed like the easiest route to me

I did my best to avoid the willows when possible

Here’s looking back down on the basin from about halfway up the slope

Once I made it up the top of the slope (Point 13,325) I turned left (southwest) and could see the rest of the route before me. The ridge looked like fun!!!

This ridge can be kept at a class 2 if you know where to go, but class 3-4 if you just stick to the ridge. I like scrambling so I took the solid route up and the dotted line down.

The first obstacle was this bump in the ridge. I went straight over the top but you can keep this class 2 by going to the right and skirting the bump

Here’s the next obstacle. Once again you can go straight over the top or keep it class 2 by going to the right

Finally I had to decide which way I wanted to summit. I like sticking to ridges when I can, so I decided to continue my climb along the ridge. I took the solid line up, and dotted line down

I kind of skirted the point next to Mt Adams and aimed for the ‘saddle’ between the point and summit block

Once at the base of the summit block there were several options to summit, all easily kept at a difficult class 2. The ground here was surprisingly stable and covered in vegetation.

I summited at 8am

Summit Video:

The summit marker was missing a few things…

But the views of the surrounding peaks were amazing!

I decided to descend a different way than I’d taken up. Here’s a look at the route I took back to the ridge

I skirted Point 13,325 to the right on my way back

Here’s another look at the steep slope

And the path I took down

Here’s where my route diverged a bit from the way up: I continued to follow the ridge, staying just a little to the right as I did, and ended up in a navigable scree-filled gully. I descended the gully and aimed for the trail I could see in the distance that would lead me back down the basin.

At about 12,000’ I found what I’m pretty sure are oceanic fossils in the talus.

I exited at 11,690’. Here’s looking back at the route. The solid line is the way I took up, dotted is back down. Neither was better than the other, and there seemed to be many ways to ascend the slope and gain the ridge.

As soon as I found the trail that would lead me back to the trailhead the mosquitoes started swarming. This is the type of area they liked best. Luckily it only lasted for 3 miles or so…

There were tons of mosquitoes. I could swipe my hand through the air and dozens would be on my arm. I couldn’t stop to take pictures of flowers (etc) without mosquitoes taking it as an opportunity to land and feast.

They were biting me through my clothes. Even though it was around 80 degrees I put on my puffy jacket and a hat and stopped stopping. Back at the trail register I corrected my hike to Mt Adams (not that it mattered anymore) and luckily by then the mosquitoes had died down a bit. The rocks on the trail were indeed bothersome on the way out. I made it back to the trailhead a little before 12pm, making this a 13.5 mile hike with 5292’ in elevation gain in 9.5 hours.