The Vagabond Hiker

Hiking, trekking, and climbing the world

Hiking and Botanizing in Southwest Colorado

After traveling abroad for the past two summers, this year I decided to stay in the western US mountains, dividing my time between the Durango area in southwestern Colorado and Bishop, California, on the east side of the Sierra Nevada range.

Other than a few days in the spring of 2013, I had never been in southwest Colorado and the opportunity to visit the San Juan Mountains, which contain some of the highest and most jagged summits in the continental United States, including 13 fourteeners (14,000+ft or 4267+m), was one I was eagerly anticipating. With a last minute decision, few homes or apartments were available in my price range, but I chose a house in a rural subdivision east of Durango, which turned out to be a great (if a bit pricey) choice. My brother, Mark, visited for 10 days, which made it even more special.

The end of June and July are perfect times to enjoy the wildflowers, particularly at higher elevations as the snow melts. I was able to identify around 85 different wildflowers, of which I included about 20 in this blog post. Even more than the landscapes, they were the stars of my sojourn. Enjoy!

Red Creek-Missionary Ridge Loop, one of my first hikes. Here is a vista with Woods roses.
Woods roses. I’ve stayed with common flower names for this post, realizing some disambiguation may be necessary.
Richardson’s geranium
Blue flax
Scarlet gilia
A Horned Toad, seen on Missionary Ridge.
View from Baldy Mountain. The two hikes I did there were both from the nearby Sortais trailhead, just east of Durango.
A field of Showy fleabane and Rocky Mountain penstemon on Mt Baldy.
Rocky Mountain penstemon
Eileen’s Pond (my name – it’s actually called Lake Eileen). The trailhead starts at Vallecito Lake, only a 20 minute drive from my house.
Eileen’s Pond, six days later when I hiked with my brother; no threat of thunderstorms this day!
Gunnison’s mariposa lily, my favorite flower in this post.
Castle Rock vista. Highway 550, seen below, connects Durango and Silverton.
Whipple’s penstemon
Rocky Mountain columbine, my 2nd favorite flower!
Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railway train and vista. Mark and I did the touristy thing that day, taking the old steam train to Cascade Canyon, about 1/2 way to Silverton. We were perfectly located near the middle of about 8 cars.
Another view from the train, high above the Animas River
Mark taking a photo from the railway bridge in Cascade Canyon.
Animas River, Cascade Canyon
Engineer Mountain summit block. The NE ridge that we attempted became technical, so we only ascended to 12,500 ft on the 12,900 ft mountain.
Sub-alpine larkspur
Showy Jacob’s-ladder
Engineer Mountain vista NW towards the Twin Sisters and Grizzly Peak
Me looking at the vista from Engineer Mountain
Me on Engineer Mountain. Any climbing option from here was at least YDS Class 4; lacking equipment, we retreated.
We were definitely in a vertical world! (Photo courtesy of Mark)
Sticky polemonium, a high altitude denizen
Western paintbrush
Ledge stonecrop
Looking back on our route up to Ice and Island Lakes. The loop hike to these alpine lakes was my favorite.
Mark at Ice Lake
Ice and Island Lakes pano with Golden Horn, Vermillion Peak, and Fuller Peak (R to L)
Island Lake. My favorite photo. I rarely used my Olympus, so nearly all photos in this blog were taken with my Samsung Galaxy phone.
A verdant sub-alpine meadow
Sub-alpine paintbrush. It was lovely to see different species of paintbrush in bloom.
Mesa Verde petroglyphs, along the Petroglyph Point trail. Mesa Verde was only an hour west from my house.
Prince’s plume along the Petroglyph Point trail (photo courtesy of Mark)
Silvery lupine, seen along the Knife-edge trail at Mesa Verde
Mesa Verde Balcony House, seen on a (mandatory) guided tour. Now I understand how it got its name!
Another view of the Mesa Verde Balcony House
The Animas River, near Whitewater Park in Durango. I walked three different sections of the Animas River trail during my stay.
Everlasting-pea, along the Animas River in Durango
Rio Pinos Valley, at the start of an 11 mile out and back hike from near Vallecito Lake.
Wilderness Act, 1964. My favorite quotation from a legislative act! The Rio Pinos valley was largely in the Weminuche Wilderness.
Engineer Mountain, from the Crater Lake trail. The NE ridge we attempted two weeks earlier is clearly seen here.
Crater Lake, also in the Weminuche Wilderness, which is about 3/4 the size of Rhode Island.
Rocky Mountain fringed-gentians
Redpod stonecrop
The AirBnb rental where I stayed for nearly 6 weeks outside of Bayfield. It was a very peaceful location, which included a wonderful deck with a hot tub. At about 7800 ft elevation, it never seemed too hot. One caveat: a thirty day minimum rental is required.

For those interested, all 85 or so wildflowers I identified can be downloaded here as a pdf.

Currently I am in Bishop, California, on the East side of the Sierra Nevada. Having been away for 11 years, it feels like coming home to some of the most beautiful mountains and wonderful hikes in the world. Expect another post in two or three weeks, before I depart for Europe.

The Vagabond Hiker

Comments

  1. I love reading and viewing your blog postings. Beautiful photos and great to hear you are back in the states and the lovely mountain areas we have. Enjoy!
    Karen L Monsen (Bob’s other half)

  2. I love that you stayed in the US for the summer! Isn’t CO beautiful?! Has a bit of a Euro feeling. One of these days, you’ll have to come visit us in CO. We’re in the mountains at 8400 ft about an hour west of Denver.

    Enjoy Bishop! I drove through there in July on the way to Lone Pine where I worked the Badwater 135 race.

    • Perhaps next summer I’ll be in the States again and get a chance to return to Colorado. I’ll be making my plans later this year.

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