7/3/04-7/8/04 – Arrow Peak (13,803'), Mount Garfield (13,074'), Vestal Peak (13,864'), West Trinity (13,765'), Trinity Peak (13,805'), East Trinity (13,745') – Northeast Face, South Ridge, South Face, Trinity Traverse

July 3 – backpack to camp in Vestal Creek – 8.0 miles, 2940'
July 4 – Arrow Peak – 1.8 miles, 2405'
July 5 – Mount Garfield – 5.7 miles, 2425'
July 6 – Vestal Peak – 2.8 miles, 2470'
July 7 – Trinity Peaks – 4.4 miles, 3460'
July 8 – backpack out to Molas Pass – 8.0 miles, 2125'
TOTAL – 30.7 miles, 15825'


Another year, another delightful extended backpacking trip in the San Juans! Here's your choice: if you're interested in a little background on Colorado's fabulous Grenadier Range, read on for a brief geological and historical essay. Otherwise, you can dive straight into the report. Enjoy!

Sweeping faces of two billion year-old quartzite in a remote wilderness setting make the Grenadier Range one of the most intriguing locales in Colorado. Combined with the Needle Mountains to the immediate south, they make up the hardened core of the otherwise volcanic San Juans. The Grenadiers and Needles are the only places in the San Juans where the basement rock withstood the range's period of vulcanism. Therefore, the history of the Grenadiers is an interesting one.

The Grenadiers were originally uplifted 70 million years ago as part of the enormous San Juan Dome during the Laramide Orogeny, the mountain-building episode responsible for the creation of most of Colorado's peaks. By around 35 million years ago, the San Juan Dome had eroded into an undulating but mostly level surface. Mostly level except for the nascent Grenadiers and Needles, that is. During the San Juans' period of volcanic activity, nearly the entire surface was buried in layer after layer of lava and ash flows, but the volcanic flows would only lap at the Grenadiers' and Needles' feet. The Grenadiers, as Hopkins and Hopkins put it, "remained intact during the San Juans' explosive formation to become a magnificent range of glacially carved metamorphic basement rock." The Grenadier Range is actually just the spiny crest – the only part that extrudes to such inspiring heights – of the huge Grenadier fault block, which reaches for hundreds of miles northwest into Utah and southeast all the way into Oklahoma.

Basement rock, hard quartzite faces... what does all this mean to climbers? It means the Grenadiers feature "the highest concentration of quality rock climbs in the San Juans," according to Robert Rosebrough. The Grenadiers are highlighted by eight of Colorado's highest 200 peaks, and Vestal Peak, the sole representative from the highest 100, is the monarch. The range trends northwest to southeast for eight short but glorious miles between the Animas River and Vallecito Creek across the northwestern corner of the Weminuche Wilderness. The area saw a relative dearth of mining activity, so there are no maintained trails leading into the key drainages on the range's north side: Vestal Creek and Trinity Creek.

The ridge that divides Trinity Creek and Vestal Creek forms a convenient way to bisect the eastern portion of the range from the west. On the west we have perhaps the more remarkable section. The arcing north faces of Arrow, Vestal, and Trinity Peaks seem like impossible copies of one another. The most impressive of these faces is the famed Wham Ridge of Vestal Peak, one of Colorado's classic climbs. The western end of the range is anchored by a collection of peaks – Electric Peak, Graystone Peak, Point Pun, and Mount Garfield – that encircles beautiful Garfield Lake. Their remote position and their lower summit elevations make these among the least frequently climbed thirteeners in the state.

The eastern end of the range includes three high thirteeners: Storm King Peak, Mount Silex, and the bastion peak, The Guardian. These three peaks brandish steep 1500' north faces. Just south of these three are two shorter but equally rugged thirteeners, Peak Eight and Peak Nine. Some call Peak Nine one of the most difficult thirteeners in the state to climb by its easiest route.

The Grenadier Range is one of the few places in the San Juans that were not climbed by either the Hayden or Wheeler Surveys. Franklin Rhoda's notes from the Hayden team's climb of Mount Sneffels show how the Grenadiers were nevertheless on the survey teams' minds as they traveled through the region: "The group of quartzite peaks stood out as boldly as ever about thirty miles to the southeast. In fact, I may state here that we have never yet seen a group from any station (and we have viewed it from all sides) without feeling both deep respect and awe for their terrible ruggedness. The fact... that the storm clouds seem to hover about them before starting on their meandering ways only served to add to our feelings of uneasiness."

The first climbers to challenge the Grenadiers' heights were William S. Cooper and John Hubbard in 1908. The range had caught Cooper's eye from the summit of Pigeon Peak. The pair camped at Balsam Lake and hiked to the saddle between Vestal and Arrow. They climbed up both peaks by gully routes on their respective south faces, finding Vestal to be an interesting but straightforward climb.On the other hand, "Arrow Peak," Cooper wrote, "proved to be really difficult. Several times our holds depended on the strength of our fingers." The range saw no more climbers until 24 years had passed when Carleton Long and John E. Nelson climbed Vestal and Arrow and made a first ascent of Point Pun. They are also credited with naming Wham Ridge. After studying Wham's impressive profile from the summit of Arrow Peak for a few minutes, Nelson exclaimed, "I still don't believe it!"

continue to the backpack in

Donald L. Baars, The American Alps: The San Juan Mountains of Southwest Colorado
Ralph Lee Hopkins and Lindy Birkel Hopkins, Hiking Colorado's Geology
Randy Jacobs and Robert M. Ormes, Guide to the Colorado Mountains
Gerry Roach, Colorado's Thirteeners: 13,800 to 13,999 Feet
Robert F. Rosebrough, The San Juan Mountains: A Climbing and Hiking Guide