North Twin Peaks (13,580) and South Twin Peaks (13,534) by Brian Schultz Thursday August 2, 2007
It's always great to get back to the Sangres. Tim and I did some last minute research on Twin Peaks, a fill-in peak in lieu of backpacking, after arriving in Alamosa last night. We studied Garratt and Martin's route description and also found Dave Cooper's newspaper report on the internet helpful since we'd be looking for the trailhead in the dark of the early morning.
We left Alamosa and found the parking area for Zapata Falls without difficulty, and at 4:55 AM began by headlamp up to the falls. This was a short distance and we easily found the trail to the right prior to reaching the falls. We didn't travel far before crossing Zapata Creek. Tim braved the cold water and strode through barefoot while I searched upstream and found some reasonable rocks to hop across.
On the other side we continued on the excellent trail, passing by a vertical wall on our left around 6:10 and soon reaching the North Fork trail junction. We stayed right and began a discouraging descent back to the creek again, but this time to a much easier creek crossing. The trail finally broke timberline and when we reached South Zapata Lake at 7:48, we took a breakfast break and enjoyed the sunny morning before resuming again at 8:10.
We kept to the grassy areas of the rocky slopes as best we could while making our way to the 13,460 ft. saddle. After reaching the saddle at 9:40, we turned right for the short stroll to the north summit and arrived on top at 9:45. Clouds were swirling but not threatening and after a few photos we headed over to the unranked south summit. Both summits offered fine views of the Sangre high peaks but we kept our time on top to a minimum and departed at 10:30, knowing rain was in the forecast.
We got back to South Zapata Lake at 11:20 and took a slow pace on the descent afterward as Tim's knee was hurting. At the last creek crossing we both took off our boots and waded through the frigid but refreshing current. We made the side trip to Zapata Falls, vying with the tourists for a look at the impressive waterfall before returning to our vehicles at 2:00 and parting company.
Trailhead to summit- 4 hours 50 minutes
Summit to trailhead- 3 hours 30 minutes
Start to finish- 9 hours 5 minutes