Sun, Jul 30, 2017
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later climbed Mon, Jul 30, 2018 |
The day following our successful outing to Wilson Peak, Steve and Eric wanted
a break, leaving me to find something to do on my own around Telluride. Dallas
Peak had been on my mind for the past two years, a towering 13er that lies atop
the high ridge forming the north side of Telluride's box canyon. At class 5.3,
it is considered the most difficult of Colorado's highest 100 summits by their
easiest routes. This seemed like a good one to explore on my own, so shortly
after 6a I set out from the Hotel Telluride to find my way through town to
the start
of the Jud Wiebe Trail. One can start several miles closer by parking at
the end of Mill Creek Rd, but I kinda liked the idea of hiking from the front
door of where we stayed. I used a combination of the Jud Wiebe,
Deep Creek and
Sneffels Highline Trails to make my way up about
6.5mi to the 11,400-foot contour directly
south of the summit.
Initially traveling through
dense forest, the route begins to open at
the higher elevations to flowering
alpine meadows and some fine views
of the San Juans to
the south, including the Wilson Group to
the southwest. Upon leaving the trail, the route goes due north
up steep, sometimes
loose slopes to reach the crest on the east side
of the summit. Though my ascent route worked, the descent route did a better
job of following
the ducks and the easier ways through the cliff band
above that starts around 12,500ft. More ducks lead
over the crest and
up
the east side of Dallas to
a pair of massive rock towers
that form the highest point. The right, or west tower is the highest and getting
up it was far from trivial.
My biggest problem I found later was in not doing proper research on the route.
I sort of assumed it would be obvious, with ducks to follow as I'd found in the
Wilson Group. The ducks got me up the first class 4 section but then gave out at
the base of the summit blocks where I struggled to find something I could climb.
I examined three different scree gullies that ended in difficulties beyond my
abilities. Where was this class 5.3 chimney I'd heard about? I climbed up some
hard snow found high in one of
the gullies under a large
chockstone and noted
a rope dangling down from behind it. There was no
way for me to reach the rope that I could fathom, the rock slick with lichen and
dripping water, the snow making mud in the scree that
caked my boots.
Even with climbing shoes I would
have backed off. I examined another possibility to the left between the two
towers but that was certainly far from 5.easy. I decided to give up. In
analyzing my failure later (which the help of great online photos that made
things more clear), I realized I somehow missed the second class 4 section that
goes up through the rocks between two of the scree gullies, to the right of the
large chockstone that I thought marked the class 5.3 chimney on the north
side. Seems I never actually made it over to the north side. I think next time
I will take a pair of climbing shoes and give it another go.
After descending back down to the Sneffels Highline Trail, I decided to
continue east to make a complete circuit of this spectacular trail that I had
only partially completed in previously. It was only about half a mile longer
than the way I had come up though it did have an extra 800ft of gain as it goes
over a saddle on a subsidiary ridge descending west from Mt. Emma. The weather
was threatening thunderstorms for the last several hours but these never
materialized to my good fortune. There is a very nice
waterfall as one
enters
Mill Creek Basin where both this and the adjacent
Pack Basin had thick carpets of larkspur and other flowers to color the
meadow landscape.
The trail eventually descends
into forest
for the last hour of the hike, some of it
quite dense with an
undergrowth of ferns and other shade plants, thriving on an abundance of water
found in the Butcher Creek drainage. It would be 3p by the time I returned
to town, having spent a rather full day at it. I guessed it
probably would have taken another hour had I actually found the right route up
the summit. Perhaps next time...
Continued...
For more information see these SummitPost pages: Dallas Peak
This page last updated: Wed Jan 2 17:02:23 2019
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