Grizzly Peak B (13,738') by Brian Schultz Sunday August 23, 2009
Roundtrip mileage: 6.5 miles from Forest Service Road 579 trailhead
Elevation gain: 2,900'
Participants: Tim Briese, Brian Schultz
We were weary from our Ruby Basin backpack and the weather forecast wasn't good with 50% chance of thunderstorms but Tim and I were up for another climb before he went home. We awoke at 4:10 AM and drove from Durango to the Durango Mountain Ski Resort (Purgatory Ski Area), dropped off my car, and drove good but slow forest roads fifteen miles to the end of Forest Service Road 579. We arrived at 6:35 and talked briefly with four others getting ready to climb Grizzly too, their group mostly from Montrose and Delta.
We began at 6:50, several minutes after the others departed, and continued straight ahead for 500 feet to the signed Rico-Silverton trail. As we neared the junction, we noticed the other group had backtracked and was now heading left, but we knew that the correct turn was to the right and wondered if they had a different route in mind or if they simply thought they turned wrong because the Rico-Silverton trail descends for some distance. We followed the descending trail as it crossed a small stream and shortly afterward a larger one. A quarter mile past the larger stream crossing we came to a cairned but unsigned trail junction and turned left for Grizzly Peak while the Rico-Silverton trail continued straight ahead.
The well defined Grizzly Peak trail meandered over talus fields and past a lake before fading out. We couldn't see much ahead when we approached the area below Grizzly's cliffs because a low cloud cover obscured everything but the very bottom of the cliffs. The only gully we could see had snow in it and there were footprints near the base so we started up hoping this was the correct one. Tim was doubtful. We worked around the snow in the very steep gully by staying on the left side but when we reached 13,050', the gully narrowed and showed no signs of opening to the described ridge at 13,300'.
Clearly, we were in the wrong gully and worse, it looked like it might start raining soon. Tim crossed over to the gully's right side and climbed to a vantage point to see if there was a way to exit the gully. The only way that looked feasible was on my side so I headed up the narrowing gully a short distance and climbed up the left wall. A manageable route with class 3 and class 4 scrambling led to the ridge above and my GPS indicated the fog shrouded summit was somewhere off to the left, which made sense because if we'd been in the correct gully to begin with we'd be angling to the right to reach the summit. We continued over boulders of all sizes on the ridge until the summit finally poked up ahead in the fog.
We dropped off the ridge into the gentle terrain of Grizzly's face and made a beeline for the summit. The ghostly figures of several climbers were approaching the summit from the other side, and we assumed it was the group who'd departed ahead of us and that they'd found the correct ascent gully. We happily stepped on top at 10:50 and it was indeed them, fortuitous timing for us as we could follow them back down.
We asked if they'd taken a different route to Grizzly but they hadn't. They realized they'd gone the wrong way on the Rico-Silverton trail and turned around once again, and when they reached Grizzly's cliffs the dense cloud cover had lifted just long enough to spot the correct gully. Two of their group departed immediately and we followed the other two at 11:00 when it started raining and the fog thickened even more.
The correct gully was a piece of cake compared to the one we ascended and we parted company with the others once we reached the bottom. As Tim and I forged ahead, the cloud cover lifted somewhat and as we looked back we could easily see where we should've gone up. What a difference! We made it back to the truck at 1:00, thankful to have made the summit in dubious conditions, and headed up to Ridgway for the night.
Trailhead to summit- 4 hours
Summit to trailhead- 2 hours
Start to finish- 6 hours 10 minutes