Saturday, September 7th, 2024
CO 14ers: 29 of 53
Distance RT: 10.5 miles
Elevation gain/loss: 4700′
Starting Elevation: 10,000′
Summit: 14,344′
Rank: 5 of 53
Location: Sawatch Range, west of Twin Lakes
Route: Northwest Ridge (route #1), Class 2
Companion: Alan
I hiker-napped Alan again and made him go over another 14er. He came along pretty willingly, I’d say. He’d just summited CO’s highest peak, Mt. Elbert, the day before, so I think he appreciated the extra challenge of adding more 14ers to his list. La Plata was his 4th in Colorado. This was in lieu of going over the much easier Hope Pass, which is the official CDT route. I offered to slack-pack him, since there was a thru-route going over La Plata, which connected back to the CDT. He would leave most of his gear in my car and I would drive around to met him near the ghost town of Winfield. This plan set us up to do even MORE 14ers in the days to come. We met at Twin Lakes the evening before, then car camped near the trailhead. (For future reference, there were some really nice tent sites just 1 mile east off HWY 82).
The next morning, we found the car park nearly full by 6 am…not surprising on a weekend with easy highway access. We were lucky to snag one of the last spots. By 14er standards, we started up rather late at 6:30 am. I’ve never been an early-bird peak-bagger, instead relying on my fitness to get me to the top at a reasonable time. This backfired on us when we started Holy Cross a bit too late, but this day was nothing but sunshine and blue skies. I was happy to have some company for the climb, which went by remarkably fast despite the extra elevation we had to go past the 14k mark. This being the 5th highest peak in the state, it was actually pretty easy. The route was your standard hike through a valley, up a steep slope, gain a ridge, and follow it to the top. We passed quite a few people, plus a few dogs on the way. One, a miniature Australian Shepherd named Pinto, actually passed me to gain the summit first. She was very fast and also adorable. My reward at the summit was to pet her fluffy butt, which I found irresistible.
Her owner had trained her to sit contentedly on his shoulders…again adorable, plus also very practical for hiking! The perfect neck-warmer, plus a way to give the dog a break. Pinto loved all the people at the summit but got pretty irate when another dog showed up, which was still adorable. Even though Pinto was quite the athlete, her owner was concerned about her paws, so she got a free ride down in his pack. Obviously Pinto stole the show this day, but the other dog was good at posing for summit pictures.
The mood on the peak was very joyous and carefree given the perfect weather, so we lingered for a long time just soaking up the views. I love the summit atmosphere (or lack there of). Eventually we conceded that we both still had a long hike down, going separate ways, plus I needed to drive all the way around to meet up with Alan on the other side.
It was an easy hike down, this time in silence by myself. For some reason these routes always seem a lot longer going down…you would think it would be the opposite. I took a quick rinse in the creek at the bottom and later a swim in a lake (I hadn’t showered in 5 days). Hours later, I found Alan resting on the porch of the old school building in Winfield. I brought some goodies to share and we had a fun time being hikertrash and laughing about the old posted sign “Rule for Teachers.” It stated that young female teachers were not to drink, smoke, let their hair down, date or go out on the town without a male relative escorting them. There were more ridiculous restrictions, but I can’t remember them all now. Good thing I didn’t grow up in the early 1900’s…or almost any other time period for that matter. My peak-bagging and gallivanting around the wilderness would not have meshed well with what was expected of “a lady”.
We found a dispersed campsite less than a mile from where we planned to start the hike to Huron the next morning. We’d hoped to maybe see some more CDT hikers, but none came by. So we had to drink all the beers ourselves. Bummer.