Noname Creek is located in the heart of the Weminuche
("Wem-uh-NOOSH") Wilderness Area in
southwestern Colorado. At over 500,000 acres, it is the
largest federally designated wilderness area in the
state. With the ability to get days out from a trailhead
with no way to return but via the same multi-day route
(or other multi-day routes) backpacking there can be
quite the epic. The following is extracted from the trip
report I wrote for a trip there during a very wet monsoon
season in 1999. Photos follow.
What: Attempt at a series of
drainage traverses over high passes through
relatively un-traveled wilderness.
Where: Needles Range,
Weminuche Wilderness Area, San Juan Mountains,
southwestern Colorado
When: August 21, 1999 to
August 25, 1999
Who: Mike Slinkard and James
Lehmer (John and Sally Stoddard, in
absentia)
Introduction
This trip was full of interesting lessons
learned the hard way. Almost nothing about it went as
planned, and yet it cannot be counted as a
failure.
The original plan for the trip had been in the
works for almost a year. In its final shape, we would
start at the same place, the Needleton stop of the
Durango-to-Silverton narrow gauge railway. My friends
John and Sally Stoddard would go in on Wednesday,
August 18, and establish camp at the "Y"
intersection of two tributary drainages in the upper
portion of No Name Creek basin. Mike and I would then
follow on Saturday, August 21, and meet them in the
late afternoon at their campsite. From there we would
traverse through the Tenmile Creek basin to Vestal
Basin, where we would spend some time bagging peaks
in the Grenadier Range. From there we would descend
to the Elk Park stop on Sunday, August 29, and pick
up the train on its way back to Durango.
So much for the plan...
Day Zero - Friday, August
20
Mike and I left Denver at 12:30PM on Friday,
August 20, and drove to Durango via I-25 and Highway
160. It took six and a quarter hours via this
pleasant route (at least the 160 portion of it is
nice), which is probably the quickest. We stayed at
the Spanish
Trails motel in Durango, which wasn't bad at
all. We wandered around downtown Durango, which is
cool, and then ate Mexican food at a restaurant owned
by the same family as the one we ate at in Silverton
on our scouting expedition over a month ago.
Day One - Saturday, August
21
We made the train quite handily the next
morning due to my rather hyperactive insistence we be
at the train station incredibly early. We had found a
motel near the train station that would let us park
the Colt for $3/day. The train ride up was cool, but
not as visually striking as I had hoped. Part of that
had to do with being on the wrong side of the car for
the uphill portion of the trip (if we had ridden to
Silverton and returned that same day, our side of the
car would have had the good views on the way back).
The train left Durango at 8:15AM, and we were dropped
off with at least 20 other backpackers and climbers
(all headed to New York and Chicago Basins) in
Needleton at 10:45AM. Needleton (8,212', approx.
37°38'N, 107°41'W) is basically a
pedestrian bridge across the Animas River (which
would be virtually impossible to get across without
some sort of bridge or boat), and some private
cabins. We were on trail heading north along the
Animas at about 11:15AM.
After a false start up what I think would have
ended up being the Ruby Creek trail, we soon hit the
cliffs across from Watertank Hill, just as described
in the guide book. The trail is very steep going up
and over the cliffs, but not overly difficult. At the
crest of the trail, we met two female forest rangers
that took our names and destinations, and when we
told them where we were going, one said, "Good
luck!" This echoed the sentiment in town from
the motel manager of "Be prepared to be
wet." However, we were armed not only with
copies of the relevant pages out of the guide books,
but also a downloaded trip report from the Web by a
couple who had done a similar traverse a year ago
where it didn't rain on them once, so how bad
could it be?
We then reached Ruby Creek, and after some
consideration forded it at the fairly shallow, sandy
spot right where the trail hits it. It was about knee
deep at its deepest here. Again, all was going
exactly to plan at this point. We then proceeded to
Noname Creek, and this is when things began to go
awry. The thing is, Noname Creek is fast, deep, and
where the trail hits it, is basically wedged between
the Animas and series of cascades as it finishes its
steep tumble out of its drainage. There is
approximately a 50-yard wide area where any attempt
at fording is possible. After some scouting around,
we decided to cross where there was a dam of fallen
trees wedged among some rocks. The first half of the
crossing was across sand with a depth no greater than
our knees. The next part was through of pool that
looked to be about crotch deep and was directly above
where the water rushed through a gap in the
dam.
I went across first, using a long stick to
help balance and facing upstream. The water indeed
was deep, approximately to my lower waist, and it was
moving fairly quickly. I had to fight to maintain my
balance, and with some struggle made it to the other
side. Mike followed, and through a variety of factors
(the most weighted of which was that the water came
up to his lower abdomen), ended up falling, under a
56 pound pack load, into a full immersion baptism. I
helped him up and out, and through that process we
both ended up soaking wet.
Now, mistake one had just been made - Mike
falling in the stream (while it cannot be said any
slip or fall is a mistake, we were still at fault for
not scouting for a better stream crossing, for Mike
not knowing the correct way to cross streams, etc.)
We proceeded to swiftly make mistakes two and three,
with very bad results. The second mistake we made was
to not stop, wring out, rest, and recuperate after
the stressful (and scary!) experience at the creek.
We wanted to make good time, and felt we were lagging
a bit, so we just immediately started out again. The
third mistake was that we couldn't find the trail
up the drainage, and rather than spending five more
minutes scouting for it, we proceeded to bushwhack
straight up the creek drainage and up the
ever-steepening valley side as we had to rise to keep
above the cataracts the stream was falling through.
This has to be the hardest physical effort I have
ever accomplished. We basically went straight uphill
for at least a half a mile on a 45-55 degree angle
slope with 56 pound pack loads. Needless to say, this
exhausted both of us rather quickly. In a surge of
true desperation, we hurled ourselves further up the
hill and finally found the true trail.
Mistake number four was that we
still didn't stop, rest, eat,
and recuperate. Instead, we swigged some water and
charged up the trail. Being on the trail was better,
but it wasn't much better. It is not a maintained
trail, and probably sees less than 100 people a year.
So it has no switchbacks in it, but instead takes
direct paths up the incline (and the first two miles
were solid, steep incline). There were lots of
deadfalls blocking the path, and in many places the
path had become a stream as well, since it
represented a straight way down hill for water to
travel. We bashed along this for a while, and then
after a brief respite while I stopped and vomited (I
think from previous iodine tainting in Mike's
water bottle), did it some more. At one point I fell
forward and caught myself with my arms with a large
rock situated between them about an inch from my
sternum - breaking ribs would not have been fun!
During this whole time it rained on us, sometimes
heavily. We were both completely wetted out from head
to toe, cold and miserable.
By approximately 5:00PM, we were totally
exhausted. We had not passed anywhere where we could
camp (the valley had been too narrow and steep), so
when we finally did stumble across a camping site, we
decided to stop for the night rather than go on,
since we did not know how much further it was (and it
was a good thing we stopped, too, as it would have
still been approximately two more miles, with hard
willow bashing) to reach the meadows where we thought
John and Sally would be. We set up the tent and
immediately changed into dry clothes. We hung up the
clothes inside the tent and crashed for the night,
after briefly talking about whether this was even a
feasible expedition at this point. Morale was very
low at this point - the lowest of the trip.
I would estimate we traveled six miles this
day, when we were supposed to travel eight. Of
course, that eight-mile estimate had not counted the
creek dunking or the off-trail bushwhacking straight
up hill for a half mile.
Day Two - Sunday, August
22
In the morning the clothes we had worn the day
before were still sopping wet (of course), so we put
on our change of clothes and decided to try and day
hike to where we thought John and Sally were and see
if we could find them and discuss our alternatives.
After about a half-mile out we turned around,
however, because we were willow bashing and making
our last set of dry clothes as wet as those we left
in camp. We returned to camp and spread all our
clothes out to dry in the morning sun, and by early
afternoon everything was dry except one pair of boots
each (we had each brought a pair of boots and a pair
of scrambling shoes/boots). It was morale boosting to
have dry clothes (including reserves) again.
We then discussed our options in the tent
during the daily afternoon rainstorm. I pushed for
continuing on, trying to meet up with John and Sally
either in this valley, or by following them over the
passes to Vestal Lake and meeting them there. Mike
agreed, and so we came up with a plan where we would
travel during the clear mornings and set up camp
before the afternoon rainstorms that came every day
between 1:00 and 3:00PM. We would travel in our
"wet boots" and lounge around camp in our
dry ones. If needed, we would take an extra day to
dry out in between the two travel days. We were
counting on two days travel time to reach Vestal
Lake, given that everything was taking longer than we
thought due to the relatively off-trail nature of the
area. Even with two 12,900' passes to go over six
miles in two days seemed reasonable.
We spent the rest of the time enjoying the
campsite (10,400', approx. 37°39'N,
107°38'W). We had a waterfall directly across
the valley from us that I would estimate was falling
at least 400-600'. We had great views of the
Index to our south (the waterfall was coming down its
side), Animas Mountain to the southeast, the
Heisspitz to our northeast, and the upper portion of
Knife Point ESE of us. I wandered over to a talus
slope to the north of camp and relaxed hanging out on
the rocks, and climbed up the slope until I could
also see the West Needle range to our west.
Day Three - Monday, August
23
We hit the trail at 7:40AM. We made it through
the willows immediately east of our camp more easily
this time, due to the scouting we had done the
morning before, although almost immediately my boots
were filled with water and stayed that way (in fact,
I spent almost the entire walking part of the trip
walking in water up to my ankles inside my boots - so
much for supposedly waterproof La Sportiva M-Hikes).
We then had to head up another incline until we
finally hit the upper drainage of the valley below
the Y. We stopped by an old cabin where there was
some sign of someone having camped recently (we
thought perhaps John and Sally, but that turned out
to be not the case) including a pair of fairly new
looking tennis shoes hanging as if to dry from the
rafters inside the cabin. The views of Knife Point,
Sunlight Peak and Monitor Peak from this willow
meadow are truly spectacular.
We then looked around, but could see no one
camped in the meadow or its edges. John had mentioned
camping at a lake at the upper end of the
southeastern branch of the Y (11,754'), but we
could see no evidence of a ledge big enough to hold
the lake from where we were standing, and didn't
want to go off on a four mile round trip with
2,000' in elevation gain to see if we could find
them, since it would be in the wrong direction for
our ultimate travel and we were convinced it would be
fruitless. So we decided to head up the northeastern
Y branch, which would be the ultimate direction of
travel for the party. Our thinking was we were going
to try and camp by an alpine lake at 12,552' at
the foot of Peak Five and Peak Six, which was right
below the 12,900' pass we would then attempt to
traverse (both guide books and the trip report from
the Web mentioned this lake as a beautiful camp
site). If we were ahead of John and Sally, they would
pass by us on their way over. If we were behind them,
we would catch up with them eventually. I must admit
that another aspect of our thinking at this point was
the very high possibility that they had bailed
because of weather. In fact, almost immediately upon
beginning the ascent up the steep climber's trail
that ran up the northeastern drainage of Noname
basin, we met a climbing party of four descending
(our only encounters with humans, and theirs, too),
and they said it had rained on them continuously
every day for four days except Sunday. Since this
coincided with John and Sally's time in the
valley, we added even more weight to the theory they
may have bailed.
We continued up the trail for about a mile and
a half. It was very steep. We then came to an open
willow meadow, and crossed the stream to the south
and continued up. This turned out to be a mistake,
since it appears the trail we took was to the base of
Jagged Mountain. We were both tired but not exhausted
at this point, and considering the clouds were
building up for the daily afternoon rainstorm, we set
up camp (11,800', approx. 37°38'N,
107°35'30"W). We could almost
immediately see the trail we should have taken on the
far side of the valley from our campsite. We would
have to do some willow bashing to reach it. It
climbed up a very steep slope to a ledge where we
assumed the 12,500' lake was located. At this
point, we were approximately SSE of Peak Four, due
south of Peak Five, SSW of Peak Six, west of
Leviathan, with Jagged and Gray Needle just to the
ESE, in clockwise order around our campsite.
The afternoon rainstorm was very intense this
day, lasting from approximately 1:30 to 6:00PM, with
some heavy hail, but the Walrus tent withstood
everything OK. During the last few hours of the day
we had dinner and I wandered upslope to see if I
could spy the pass (really just a saddle) we would
have to ascend the next day. I am not sure if I saw
the actual pass or something just to the east of it
(I believe I saw the 13,000' ridge running
between Peak Six and point 13,564' instead), but
it looked like a typical talus slope. At this point,
we dove into the copies of the climbing guidebooks we
had, along with the Web trip report by a couple who
had done the same traverse the year before (although
they had eight days with no rain, which would have
made a huge difference). We poured over every
adjective with rabbinical intensity, and finally came
to the conclusion that climbing guidebooks (which we
were using) rate things such as what we were
attempting to do in a much different way than
backpacking guidebooks do. What may be an
"easy" 12,900' saddle for a climber
would be a bitch for a backpacker with 56 pounds on
his back. This was especially true since we were now
no longer expecting to see John and Sally (I had
expected them to hike by us this day), and without
John's route-finding capabilities, our way up the
talus and then down to Balsam Lake (the couple's
trip report had mentioned the down-climb to Balsam
Lake had been difficult to find) would be
problematic. Added to this was the fact we
couldn't quite even figure the route to the
saddle from where we were standing, but just knew it
was going to be very steep regardless of which way we
took.
At this point, Mike voted to bail, retreat to
our first campsite tomorrow, and then hike to
Needleton the following day. I did not want to give
up (and wouldn't have if I had been soloing), but
couldn't argue, since it was clear Mike was
worried about his capabilities in making the pass and
getting over it and down uninjured. In any sort of
mountain activity, the team must rate itself at the
honestly stated capabilities of the least able
member. Therefore the decision was made to descend
the next day.
Day Four - Tuesday, August
24
We hiked back to campsite one with no mishaps
other than me falling at least twice (full feet out
from under me slips on wet slopes coming down the
climber's trail from the upper basin - in both
cases I fell back on my pack). We set up camp by
11:00AM and hung out the rest of the day (in the tent
for the three hours during the daily rain and hail
storm). Watched the sunset lighting on the peaks, and
then watched the full moon rise.
Day Five - Wednesday, August
25
On trail by 7:15AM. During packing we
discovered one of the plastic hubs that holds my tent
poles in place had cracked - it wouldn't have
been a total loss if it had broken all the way
through, but it was good the tent was not going to be
subjected to any more heavy weather (and very lucky
that the rain and hail was never accompanied by wind
on this trip - in fact, the Noname basin was
remarkably wind free while we were there - what is
even more amazing is as wet and windless as it was,
it was also incredibly bug free).
We found out why we had missed the trail after
fording Noname Creek the first time - it cut way to
the north and then looped around to a more easterly
course as it rises from the Animas River, while we
had looked almost immediately in an upstream
direction. The Noname Creek fording went much better
this time, thanks to taking the extra time to scout
and finding a place about 10 yards upstream from the
pool that had been obscured by willows on the south
bank the first time we were looking for a fording
place. We couldn't see the bottom where we
forded, but I was able to tell by the stream pattern
it wasn't very deep, and it ended up coming up to
my knees and Mike's lower thighs. We each used
two thick poles, heavy ends down, and that helped a
lot. It was a pretty exuberant moment when Mike made
it across (I led all the creek crossings, and spotted
Mike for the last third of his fording here), because
we had both been rather spooked by the original
dunking, and with the Animas raging just downstream,
we had little room for error.
We then crossed Ruby Creek with no problems,
and made it over the cliffs just fine (other than my
back acting up from shouldering my pack wrong after
the Noname fording - but I cinched up the waist belt
tight and made it back OK). We were back at Needleton
without mishap by 10:50AM. The rain actually held off
until 3:00PM, when the first downhill train arrived
and picked us up, along with the five other people
that were waiting. Within just a few miles, however,
the terrain changed enough that it was clear and dry
the rest of the trip back to Durango. We made it to
Durango around 6:00PM, and were back in Denver by
1:15AM on Thursday morning.
Aftermath
It turns out that John and Sally bailed a day
before we did (Tuesday), after climbing into the Ruby
Creek drainage by mistake. They spent three full days
in pouring rain (which matched the report of the four
climbers we met), and then transited over to the
Chicago Creek basin and hiked out from there after
doing two of the three 14ers in the upper Chicago
Creek basin. They spent their time in Ruby Creek in
the tent in the rain surrounded by a herd of 25
mountain goats (an amusing story in itself). Mike and
I saw a lot of elk sign, but never saw any mammals
bigger than a marmot, so they were lucky (even if the
experience was rather surreal). I was glad to hear
that Mike and I hadn't bailed so early as to be
classified as wimps, and that John and Sally were
safe and sound.
The lessons learned on this trip
include:
-
The San Juans (at least the Needle
range) are way more rugged
than anything in northern Colorado. They make
for great scenery, but
hard backpacking. As Mike
pointed out, the Weminuche Wilderness Area is
more than a legal designation of road-less
land - it is true wilderness, with everything
that implies. We lost trails almost daily,
for example (although other than the first
day, never for very long).
-
The San Juans are way
more wet than anything in northern Colorado.
Bring your Gore Tex, and for all the willow
bashing, a full suit from hat to over boots
would be a good idea. Mike and I discussed
the wisdom of perhaps carrying lightweight
fly-fishing or duck hunting overalls for
extreme willow conditions in the future,
since there were many times when the willows,
wet from the constant rain, were dropping
water on us from above and brushing it off on
us from the sides, while we were trying not
to lose our boots in the ankle-deep
mud.
-
Even three miles a day can be pushing
it in off-trail or steep terrain conditions.
However, I was never exhausted or pushed past
my limits after the first day - we always
stopped and set up camp before the afternoon
rains would begin. Amazingly, I was never
sore, not even on Sunday, when I should have
been. I need to do more back exercises, since
my back gave me some grief, but the training
I had done for my legs seems to have been
more than adequate.
-
I made too much food for my dinners -
with lots of exertion at high altitude,
smaller, blander dinners seem to be in order
(and would be lighter to carry, as well). The
first night the only thing I could choke down
was a plain bagel.
-
No matter what, I must eat more on
trail, especially in the morning and at
breaks. The first day was especially bad not
just from the off-trail fiasco and stream
dunking, but because we never stopped and
took a break for calories. Ironically, we did
this to "make time" to try and
reach John and Sally before nightfall, and in
the end it cut off the amount of mileage we
ultimately made that day. After that day, I
made a conscious effort to be better at
snacking, and felt better for it.
-
Potable Aqua in combination with the
PA Plus neutralizer tablets works great. I am
very sensitive to iodine (it makes me sick to
my stomach), but I never got a hint of that
except when I drank out of Mike's water
bottle the first day (it is a Nalgene bottle
that has picked up the taste of iodine). Once
the PA Plus is added, the iodine is
completely neutralized and undetectable (and
the combination of the two small bottles is
much lighter than a filter).
-
The climbing rope, harness, and pro I
took in case we needed it on Vestal, or in
case John and Sally wanted to use it for some
technical climbing, was a total waste of
about 15 lbs. of weight that never got
used.
So I don't count the trip as a failure,
because the scenery was magnificent, and Mike and I
learned a lot of lessons. We certainly became better
versed in areas such as fording rushing torrents
(thankfully, my reading material on this trip was the
NOLS "Wilderness Mountaineering" book, and
we both read the section on fording rivers before
attempting Noname Creek on the way out, which I think
contributed to our success). The camping portion of
the trip was fairly uneventful (water ran under the
tent in one rain storm, but did not leak in),
efficient, and comfortable. In fact, as the
mountaineering book itself says, "I have often
said that the key to climbing Denali, North
America's highest mountain, is impeccable camping
skills." Mike and I spent a lot of time
polishing our camping skills towards that goal of
impeccability, and I believe made significant
progress.
Next time I try the Needles and/or the
Grenadiers (and I do want to go back
- it is a beautiful place), I will be better prepared
and ready for the challenges offered. I certainly
will never underestimate an outing in the San
Juans!
I need to find the rest of my pictures from the trip,
or get Mike's, because these don't even begin to
do the area justice. The Needles are simply
spectacular.
