La Sal Mountains 2018

The goal for our July 4th trip was to hike to the tops of the highest peaks in the northern, central and southern groups of the La Sal Mountains. We met on the evening of the 4th at a fantastic backcountry campsite that Gretchen had located along the Gold Basin Road, off of the Geyser Pass Road in the central La Sals. The campsite has a picnic table, shade and plenty of flat tent sites, and we were very lucky to get it.

The next morning, we headed to Miners Basin to hike to Mt Waas, the high point of the northern group of peaks. It was immediately obvious when we saw the entrance to the Miners Basin Road that it wasn't suitable for Subarus, so we squeezed 11 people and a dog into my 4Runner and Stanley's big diesel pickup and started bouncing in 4WD up the hill. The road isn't rutted or washed out, but it is violently rocky — don't eat a big breakfast before driving it.

The road ends at a small reservoir in the woods, where we were surprised to see a fine Forest Service trailhead sign and (yikes) a toilet. We got our gear out of the bed of Stanley's truck and headed up the trail through a meadow full of of fleabanes and lilies. We also noticed bear poop — actually, quite a lot of bear poop. A note in the register said that one group in the preceding week had chickened out of the Mt Waas hike because of “big bears”.

The start of the Mt Waas trail coincides with the Trans La Sal Trail. At the point where the latter trail starts a switchback up the south wall of the valley, the Mt Waas use trail ducks through some trees and goes up the south side of a meadow. At the upper end of the meadow, the trail seems to fade out, but it actually picks up on the north side. The trail follows an old mining road that stays above the valley floor, with pretty views out to the valley. Eventually it reaches a bare area that has been cleared by avalanches, and starts making switchbacks up the north slope. We were able to follow the trail up several levels of switchbacked mining roads, but as the group spread out, we lost contact with each other and began taking different routes. The lead group left a switchback and climbed straight up the steep hillside to the south, while the middle group went straight at a turn and were forced to go up the hillside to the north. The tail of the group (I and a few other equally slow people) continued following bulldozer cuts all the way to the ridge, and we all met at around the same time.

From the point where the road reaches the ridgeline, we hiked north to Peak 12163. There is a little weather station (?) on the east side; from there, we descended east to a saddle and then faced a slog up the talus to the summit of Mt Waas (12331 ft). Some kind people have constructed steep switchbacks in the rubble, and that trail / route was much better than going straight up the boulders.

We were on top for just a few minutes when we heard thunder, and it began to hail as we scurried back down to the saddle and puffed up the far side. It was great to make it to the top, but we didn't get a lot of time to enjoy our victory.

go to the Mt Waas gallery

Mt Peale in the central group is the highest peak in the La Sals at 12721 ft. As a consequence, it gets a lot of attention, but I found an enticing description of a lesser-known route that goes up via the eastern cirque, called Dark Canyon.

The cirque is absolutely stunning — it may well have the best scenery in the La Sals. However, the access road, Forest Road 4723, has an ugly spot. I took a bad line through the washout and scraped my skid plate; once on the other side, I was able to warn Stanley and he got through it unscathed.

The route starts by following the Mt Mellenthin (12645 ft) trail, but shortly splits off to the northwest on a faint track that soon gets lost in the forest. It crosses a meadow to the foot of a rock glacier, then climbs a grassy verge on the wooded slope to the left of the talus. At the top of the slope lies an unavoidable pile of rubble; we clambered over it into a pretty basin surrounded by the 12000-ft headwall of Mt Peale. The next step was to scale a very steep slope over stunted plants and exposed boulders, working our way to the low point on the ridge to the east of the cirque. This hill was not popular with our group, to put it mildly.

But once on the ridge, it was a pretty straightforward and gradual hike to the summit. The route eventually joins with the trail coming up from La Sal Pass to the south, and we met other groups of hikers there. Both the ridge and the summit have fantastic views in every direction — in spite of some smoke from forest fires, we still had great views of the red rock canyon country to our east and the broken valleys and ridges of the Paradox Basin and Uncompahgre Plateau to the east, not to mention other grand La Sal peaks all around us.

Some folks were eager to try to summit Mt Mellenthin as well, and they took off to run the ridge north. The rest of us headed back somewhat more casually. The weather took a turn for the worse, and it was looking pretty grim by the time that I got back to the saddle. I sent everyone back down the hated steep slope as the gray clouds concentrated and then began spitting hail. When we reached the talus at the bottom, the rain started in earnest, and we tread carefully over the slippery blocks back to the safety of the trees.

At this point, the rain slowed, and that let us see the other folks coming down the north slope of Mt Mellenthin. It turns out that none of them made it to the top before the weather set in (although Beth came very close), but they came down with the big advantage of a nice switchbacked trail.

Our slow group actually beat the fast group back to the trailhead, mainly because we had to travel a much shorter distance. A head count at the trailhead uncovered a problem, however — we were short two people. We waited an hour, and they didn't show up. We called and hiked up nearby prominences to get a view, but we got no results.

After an hour and a half, when I was wondering whether to call Search and Rescue, one of the missing pair arrived on the access road. They said that they and the other hiker had hiked past the trailhead along the stream, and had come out on Forest Road 129 a half mile below the access road. Unfortunately the two of them became separated at that point.

I guess the good news is that we were down to just one missing hiker at this point, and we had some idea of where that hiker probably was. We drove back down the access road, over the washout (no scrapes this time) and back to Forest Road 129. I asked Stanley and his passengers to wait there while I went down the road to look for the remaining hiker.

I drove slowly down the hill, but after 3 miles, there was no sign of the hiker, so I turned around and zoomed back up the road. My guess was that the other hiker had walked past the access road and was now somewhere above the turn-off. I was wrong, but in a good way -- we found the hiker by the side of the road, just a few hundred yards below the turn-off. All's well that ends well (and without the need for SAR)!

go to the Mt Peale gallery

The last peak on the list was South Mountain, 11817 ft. The access is from La Sal Pass; we got there via FR 129, FR 208 and FR 73 on the east side of the range, dirt roads that are in very good condition. The area around La Sal Pass is green and pretty, with extensive aspen forest below some impressive peaks.

When I was planning the hike, I found that the standard South Mountain trail loses and gains 500 ft on its way to a saddle southeast of the peak. A comment on Summitpost mentioned an alternative, bushwhacking at 10000 ft elevation from Medicine Lakes and picking up the South Mountain trail without gaining or losing too much elevation. I decided to try that approach; you can imagine how pleased I was, then, to arrive at Medicine Lakes and discover that an official “Medicine Lakes” trail now connects to the South Mountain trail along exactly the route that I had thought I was going to bushwhack.

The forest along the trail is really special — there is hardly any beetle kill, and there are lots of tall trees. We found abundant feathers, mostly from ravens but also from another big bird that I can't identify. The Medicine Lakes trail is generally level, but the South Mountain trail has some steep sections, particularly toward the saddle. It didn't really dawn on me that the off-trail section from the saddle to the summit gained 1000 ft in 0.6 mi until I was gasping for breath on the steep grassy slope. The angle is unremitting until just before the top.

The view from the summit is incredible. It's actually a better view than the view from Mt Peale, because Mt Peale is set back to the east from its main ridge. I was impressed again at how healthy the forest looks.

On the drive back to camp, Stanley's truck lost its exhaust system. The washboard on FR 129 was probably the last straw. Stanley thinks it'll be cheap to fix — I certainly hope so. Michelle got some great photos of the operation to extract the dangling tailpipe.

Many thanks to the gang who came: David R, Barb G, Michelle C, Stanley, Stephen H, Gretchen, Scott, Mohamed, Deirdre and Beth B!

go to the South Mountain gallery