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| Hiking | 5.00 Miles |
1,488 AEG |
| | Hiking | 5.00 Miles | | | |
| 1,488 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | | Snow still lingered heavy on the upper San Juans but I had the urge to set foot above tree line and see some lofty peaks. I chose Coal Creek Trail under the assumption that it’s south-facing-slope traverse would be largely snow free. Not quite, more like a 50-50 mix of muddy trail hiking and post-holing in crotch deep snow as I found out. I set off from the little roadside trail sign and booked it up the initial switchbacks. Great views of the West Needle Mountains on the lower part of the trail. Entering the trees on the south facing canyon slope, snow patches lay heavy and deep. Following the trail was a real challenge as I did not have a route and it was not shown on my map app. If I were a trail, where would I go? Approaching treeline, enough trail was exposed to follow it up to the crest of a ridge at 11,600 feet. The view of snow covered Engineer Mountain from this exposed and mostly snow covered slope was worth all the effort. So beautiful. On the return hike I came across more male Dusky Grouses (?), parading with their turkey-like crests. Got in a nice face plant in the snow. Puffy clouds made for an amazing sunset over the West Needles as I approached the trailhead again. Road trip back to Durango in the dark after dumping snow-melt out of my boots. This was a really nice trail route, and one that might make a nice loop option with the Pass Trail a mile south of this one. |
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| "…you never know when a hike might break out" -Jim Gaffigan |
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