Silver Mountain (13,714') & UN 13681 by Brian Schultz Thursday August 27, 2009
Roundtrip mileage: 18 miles from Fall Creek trailhead
Elevation gain: ~ 4,200'
Participants: Jim Patrick, Brian Schultz
Garratt & Martin's northern route for these bicentennials appealed to me for its easy access, excellent trail, and the opportunity to climb four other ranked thirteeners. The bicentennials were our priority on this long day hike but if our energy and the weather held out we'd consider going for the other peaks.
I spent the afternoon in Montrose yesterday after climbing Redcliff with Jim Patrick and met up with him again in the evening at the Alpine-Little Cimarron trailhead. We'd be carcamping there overnight and driving to the Fall Creek trailhead in the morning, leaving my car for the shuttle in case we ended up doing the the other thirteeners. The Little Cimarron Road road to both trailheads is fine for passenger cars but the mileage signs are totally wrong. The Alpine-Little Cimarron trailhead is at 16 miles, not 11, and the Fall Creek trailhead is 20.7 miles, not 14. Before I arrived, Jim had driven up to the Fall Creek trailhead to scout the trail and said it would be no problem hiking in the dark of the morning.
The evening was chilly when we turned in and downright cold in the morning, We started our vehicles and warmed up while having a bite to eat before driving up to the trailhead. We began by headlamp at 4:50 AM, the rocky first mile of the Fall Creek trail traveling well but yielding little net elevation gain through the trees. Once out of the trees the trail continues for miles through open meadows and as we neared the first of the unnamed thirteeners (13,016) we decided to skip it because we didn't want to leave the excellent trail for the uncertainty of the terrain in the dark. The trail eventually led up through more trees on the right and at first light we stopped to remove layers. We noticed two tents in the valley below and wondered if we'd have company today.
After clearing the trees we hiked further up the open valley, stopping again as a herd of over 250 elk crossed the trail in front of us and headed for the slopes on the left. A young one separated from its mother stopped just 50 feet in front of us and stared inquisitively before bounding off to rejoin the others. In the distance, the sun was shining on the next thirteener (13,051) but we decided to skip it also and kept on toward Silver Mountain.
When the trail disappeared on the slopes, Jim turned up to the right to look for it while I went straight. He didn't find it and after catching back up to me, we continued ahead where we soon arrived at a deep gully. We turned up to the right, crossed it higher up, and found the trail again just below the 12,780' pass. We arrived at the pass at 8:25 and stopped for a twenty minute break; Jim's GPS showed we'd hiked 7 miles from the trailhead thus far. There are two choices to reach the summit from the pass; either head up the slopes to Silver's difficult east ridge or drop down and contour to the left around the east ridge. We headed up the slopes, intending all along to climb the east ridge.
The 400' ascent up the slopes of Silver's east ridge was steep but easy and offered impressive views of Uncompahgre, and as we crested the ridge, Silver's intimidating cliffs loomed ahead. We paused for a moment to study the route.
I had with a copy of Ricky Carr's trip report detailing how he negotiated the ridge. The gully we took up through the cliffs was not likely the same one he took because ours had mossy covered rocks, which he didn't describe, and it was especially steep. We found a much easier route on our descent which would also make for a better ascent, described as follows: at the beginning of the cliffs travel 25-30 feet and look sharply to the left. Climb up this easy gully and at the top cross into a steep gully on the right. Climb up and traverse into another steep gully on the right and keep climbing until reaching the top of the cliffs.
It's an airy scramble once on the top of the cliffs, then easier hiking to the last section of the ridge. The final class 3+ push was extremely steep and every hold had to be checked, but from the top it was an easy stroll to the flat summit. We arrived at 9:50 and spent fifteen minutes refueling and enjoying the outstanding views of Uncompahgre, Matterhorn, Wetterhorn, as well as Coxcomb and Redcliff.
At 10:05 we hiked around Silver's northeast ridge toward UN 13681, dropped down to the connecting saddle, and arrived on its summit at 10:47. We sat there for nearly 40 minutes taking in the scenery and mulling whether to continue along the ridge to the other two thirteeners or drop down to the river below and bushwhack to the Little Cimarron trail. Either way would return us to my car but by the time we departed we'd lost interest in the other thirteeners and were also reluctant to take on a potentially difficult bushwhack along the river below UN 13681. We decided to just return toward Point 13,542 on Silver Mtn's northeast ridge and look for a route down to the Fall Creek trail from there and if that didn't work out, we'd descend the east ridge again.
We departed at 11:25, found nothing nothing to our liking to descend from the northeast ridge, and returned to Silver's summit. I took my time descending the summit ridge while Jim patiently waited at the bottom for me, then he went ahead and found the route down the gullies as described earlier. Before reaching the pass at 12,780' we came across three elderly hikers who'd been watching us as we hiked from Point 13,542 to Silver's summit and back down the east ridge. They were the occupants of the tents we saw in the valley earlier and although they weren't climbers, they were quite interested in what we climbed today.
We hiked mostly non-stop back to the trailhead with just a few short rest breaks. We passed by several men checking out fishing possibilities near a stream, chatted later with a fellow on horseback, and pulled in at the trailhead at 4:00. It turned out to be a long day to climb just the bicentennial peaks and though tiring, it was fun. It was also good to get together with Jim Patrick these past two days.
Trailhead to Silver Mountain- 5 hours
Silver Mountain to UN 13681- 42 minutes
UN 13681 to trailhead- 4 hours 35 minutes
Start to finish- 11 hours 10 minutes