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Tag: rio grande national forest

South San Juan Sojourn: Conejos Peak & Summit Peak

South San Juan Wilderness | Thursday – Saturday, August 20-22, 2026

It’s been just over three years since my last visit to the South San Juan Mountains and I’ve been wanting to get back there for quite a while. Initially, I was going to attend the annual GIS Colorado Summer Meetup this week, which was supposed to be held at the Big Meadows Campground along the western edge of the Weminuche Wilderness, and then I was planning to spend the remainder of the weekend hiking in the South San Juans, but that event was recently cancelled. Since I had really been looking forward to returning to the South San Juans, I decided to carry on with my plans and started driving that way early on Thursday morning. I took the scenic route along the Silver Thread Scenic Byway through Lake City and Creede to South Fork and then followed the Lake Fork of the Rio Grande to the Big Meadows Reservoir and Shaw Lake so I could at least check them out, even though I wouldn’t be spending any time in that area now.

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The Fourth: Cunningham Gulch & Stony Pass

Independence Day | Thursday – Friday, July 3-4, 2025

This holiday weekend Jackson and I were planning to spend three days backpacking a segment of the Colorado Trail through the Weminuche Wilderness, but unfortunately I started to have some issues with the elevation on Thursday night while we were camped up in Cunningham Gulch and I had to drive down lower in the middle of the night to start feeling better and to try to get some sleep. With that in mind, I figured it probably wasn’t a good idea to head off into the high Wilderness of the Weminuche where a retreat to lower terrain would not be as quick and easy, so we cancelled those plans on Friday morning and decided to just go on a shorter hike along the Continental Divide and then spend the rest of the day testing both of our new vehicles by driving over Stony Pass. Between the recent vehicle troubles and not feeling well at elevation, my mountain season has not gotten off to a great start this year, but I am hoping that things will start getting better soon. Even though we didn’t get to go on our backpacking trip this weekend, we did experience some excellent foggy and cloudy conditions on Friday morning that were fun to photograph, so that was a positive! These are some photos from our truncated Independence Day weekend.

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Colorado Trail: Carson Saddle & the Continental Divide

Friday – Sunday, September 6-8, 2024

With the mountain season coming to an end in just a few short weeks and a busy schedule for me later this month, I wanted to make sure that I got out for some more hiking above treeline in the high country this weekend before it was too late. I thought a good way to do that would be by hiking part of the Colorado Trail along the Continental Divide in the San Juan Mountains starting from the Carson Saddle above Wager Gulch, so that’s where I headed when I left work on Friday afternoon. I didn’t want to deal with the Middle Bridge over Blue Mesa on US 50, so instead I opted to go over Red Mountain Pass into Silverton and then took the Alpine Loop over Cinnamon Pass to the Lake Fork of the Gunnison River.

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South San Juan Mountains from Elwood Pass

Friday – Monday, July 28 – 31, 2023

After spending the last two days around the Animas River Valley between Coal Bank Pass and Durango, I decided to spend the next couple of days further south and east in a distant part of the San Juan Mountains that I don’t get around to visiting very often. I’ve definitely been long overdue for another visit to the South San Juan Mountains between Wolf Creek Pass and the New Mexico state line and figured that this would be a good opportunity to get back since it wasn’t too much further away. After the GIS Colorado Summer Meetup concluded late in the morning on Friday I packed up my Jeep and made my way over to Pagosa Springs to continue on with the next leg of the trip.

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Mountains of Minerals: Rocky Gulch & Maggie Gulch

San Juan Triangle | Friday – Sunday, July 14-16, 2023

To escape the rising temperatures in the lower valleys this weekend, I decided to head up into the San Juan Mountains near Silverton so I could spend some time exploring and hiking in Rocky Gulch and Maggie Gulch which are both situated along the Continental Divide. I left from work on Friday afternoon and made my way south over Red Mountain Pass to Silverton and then headed up Cunningham Gulch and Rocky Gulch where I followed the steep Jeep road all the way up to over 13,000 feet. From the overlook at the end of the road I stopped to eat dinner and enjoyed the expansive alpine views.

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