De Anza Peak (13,362) & Gibbs Peak (13,553) by Brian Schultz Thursday June 27, 2013

Roundtrip mileage: 21 miles from Cotton Creek trailhead

Elevation gain: ~6,100'

Start to finish: 14 hours 10 minutes

Participants: Tim Briese and Brian Schultz

As we drove Highway 285 south from Poncha Springs we talked about the fires burning all over the state. I was particularly concerned about the one near Hunts Peak, which was on my list to climb in a few days, and as we drove past it in the dark of the morning, we saw flames in the trees below the peak. It was an easy call to postpone Hunts but our peaks today were just south of Hunts and I wondered how much smoke we'd be breathing in while climbing them.

We pulled into the parking area at the Cotton Creek trailhead at 5:30 AM and were on the trail at 5:45. Tim and I considered climbing these peaks from the east side of the Sangre range but decided the excellent trail from the west would suit us better, as we'd both been on the Cotton Creek trail for Electric Peak before and were familiar with it. The first three creek crossings still had good logs placed across them and an hour later we arrived at the small shed alongside the trail.

After two more creek crossings, we arrived at 7:35 at a trail junction, and turned left on trail #856 toward Horsethief Basin. This was the beginning of some very long switchbacks on the trail, which I distinctly remembered from climbing Electric Peak two years ago. On that climb I left the trail in Horsethief Basin and bushwhacked up the drainage to the summit but this time we stayed on the trail as it switchbacked all the way to De Anza's summit ridge.

The good thing about the continuous long switchbacks was the gentle gain, which helped my adjustment to the altitude having just come in straight from Minnesota, as well as Tim's ailing joints, but they added several miles to the route. Our day would be a long one but the weather forecast was outstanding and we never felt the need to hurry. Nice views opened up as we gained elevation and so far no smoke was in the air. As it turned out, we never smelled any smoke as the day progressed.

With our slow pace we didn't summit De Anza until 12:15. After taking a lunch break we headed down to the De Anza/Gibbs saddle and found its descent to be a bit tedious but the terrain did become much easier after the saddle. Summit arrival time on Gibbs was 2:18 and we stayed on top for 50 minutes to enjoy the scenery and fine weather. I really wanted to continue on to Mt Marcy but was reluctant to separate from Tim, who'd already done it and didn't want to repeat it, so we dropped down Gibbs' slopes and skirted cliffs to reach the Cotton Creek trail.

Unfortunately our route down brought us too close to the tributary feeding Cotton Creek and bushwhacking through the dense brush along the creek was nearly impossible. We climbed back up about a hundred feet or so through a cliffy area, grabbing branches and whatever we could hang onto, until we topped out. We found a much better route over to Cotton Creek from there and finally reached the trail at 5:30. We took a break before the long haul out and despite very tired legs, we maintained a decent pace back to the trailhead and arrived at 7:55.

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