American Peak (13,806) by Brian Schultz Wednesday August 1, 2007
Tim and I drove to the Burns Gulch 4x4 trailhead and parked just before the stream crossing at 11,850 feet. Our high starting point would mean a short day, less than four miles roundtrip and only 2,000 feet of elevation gain, and afforded us the luxury of starting late, by our standards, at 6:30 AM. The route would handily bypass Jones Mountain, which we'd already climbed before, and head directly to American Peak.
There was no established trail in the beginning but easy hiking put us at the small lake at 12,500 ft where we took a break before continuing on to the 13,300 ft Jones-American saddle. A good trail led from the lake to the saddle and the weather was holding nicely when we arrived at the saddle at 7:55. After a twenty minute break we began the traverse to the summit but stopped below the high point on the left and checked the GPS because we didn't want to go past it if it indeed was the summit. The high point above was the one described in the Roaches' book, Point 13,744, so we kept going. There was a decent trail on the traverse, although rough in a few areas, and we arrived on the summit at 9:00.
We enjoyed the sunny clear morning watching hikers on Handies Peak, taking in the views of the surrounding peaks, and just plain relaxing. This was the kind of day to take advantage of, especially in the monsoon season, and we stayed on top for an hour and fifteen minutes. We departed at 10:15 and had an easy short hike back to the truck with plenty of time to drive from Silverton to Alamosa for a final climb in the Sangres.
Trailhead to summit- 2 hours 30 minutes
Summit to trailhead- 1 hour 45 minutes
Start to finish- 5 hours 15 minutes