2010 San Juan Trip #1

Day 1: Train into Chicago Basin, July 3rd, 2010

Tom picked me up at 6am for the start of our 4 day San Juan adventure. This would be my first time visiting the southwestern Colorado range, and if all went optimal, I could summit 6 14ers on this trip. Today's agenda was to take the 2:45pm train from Silverton to Needleton, and backpack into Chicago Basin for summit bids of the 3 14ers there tomorrow. We had originally planned to start this trip yesterday (Friday), but a 60% of storms forecast for Friday and Friday night, and 30% chance Saturday (mostly cloudy), led me to push the trip out a day. Sunday/Mon/Tues were supposed to be mostly sunny, and I'm a huge "good weather" fan on adventure trips.

After a ~3.5hr drive, we reached Poncha Springs, and from there on I was in new territory. Tom realized he forgot his helmet, so he bought a new one in Gunnison on the way. Gunnison, Montrose, Ouray, and Silverton were all new towns for me. Ouray was extremely cool, nestled thinly along the road between giant mountains. We arrived in Silverton ~1pm and parked near the train station (free parking) where we picked up our tickets. It's $81 for a round trip Silverton-Durango ticket, even if you hop off at Needleton (1/3rd of the way there). Plus they charge $10 for a big backpack, so at $91, this wasn't a cheap outing, but pretty unique to ride a coal-fed, steam powered, mountain train. After finalizing our gear, we walked a couple blocks to the train, and waited for the 2:45pm train to start boarding.

While waiting under a gift shop balcony, we watch the cloudy skies darken, and it starts to hail. It lets up briefly as it's time for us to board, and no sooner than we arrive in our open air railcar, it starts thundering, and pouring. I change into my rain gear, and we wait in the center of the rail car, staying dry. Looks like this may be a Thunder Mountain Railroad experience afterall? I'm just hoping the storm stops by the time we need to start hiking...

A pic of Mt Sneffels from just south of Montrose during out drive to Silverton...

We boarded the train at 2:25pm, and waited 15 minutes on board while a storm hit...

Fortunately, the rain stopped just before our departure, which made for a much more pleasant experience leaning out the windows admiring the view and taking pics. The train lumbered at a 10-15mph pace out of town and into the mountains, following the Animas River. Several campers waved to us on the way out of town. During the hour trip to Needleton, we passed some old mines, and some small waterfalls, staying close to the river. The train had a snack bar, and restrooms. Just as advertized, we arrived at Needleton ~3:45pm, where ~10 of us departed to start our adventures. As we lined up to leave the train, other passengers were confused why we were getting off. "No ticket, so they are kicking us off and making us walk back," we said...

A couple views out the side of the train. There's a waterfall in the first pic...

The train stayed along the Animas River, crossing over it halfway to Needleton...

A mile prior to Needleton, the train stopped to refill it's water tank (guy on roof doing something)...

Tom gets his pack ready near the bridge, shortly before the train continued on it's way to Durango...

A bunch of kids were playing in the river. Turns out a family owns a large cabin here. I imagine they must get some type of "yearly train pass" special discount...

The train left us, and we started our trek at 4pm...

A group of ~15-20 hikers had been waiting at the Needleton stop to return to Durango. After they boarded, the train departed, and we began our trek to Chicago Basin, a 6 mile, ~3000' hike through the woods, up a well maintained trail. Significant patches of blue sky opened above, and I draped a shirt over my head for shade. We set a fast pace, though my pack was very heavy, and I lagged behind Tom. 45 minutes into the hike, I reached for my sunglasses (on my hat), and found they were gone! Must have fallen off while I was adjusting the shirt that had been on my head an unknown amount of time ago. I didn't want to waste time hiking back to find them, and would have to make due with just a hat the next couple days. The hike was long, and the clouds thickened enough to generate some mist a couple times, but didn't yield significant precipitation. Still, I put my rain cover over my pack.

We passed by a cascading stream and columbine flowers on the 6 mile hike into Chicago Basin...

The trail wasn't too scenic, until we reached the lower end of the basin...

A look back after we entered the lower basin...

A look ahead towards the upper basin. Plenty of campsites popped off a short ways from the trail over a half-mile stretch in this region...

Eventually, after just under 3hrs of hiking, we settled on a campsite at ~10,900' (2700' from Needleton). Since we were planning to do all our 14er hiking in 1 day (tomorrow), it didn't save us much effort by camping higher up the basin. We immediately saw some goats, who are very prevelent in this region. As we set up camp, the mosquitos attacked us in the still air. For dinner, I got to try out food from my new dehydrator. Dehydrated brussel sprouts, eggplant lasagna (SUPER good!), squash, and jerky. Tom also shared some of his rice and chicken.

A couple of goats roam near the trail. Tom sets up camp...

We pumped some water from a nearby creek before cooking dinner (dehydrated brussel sprouts tasted better than they look)...

Tom hangs his food on the tree after dinner. Tom bivy'd, while I used my new 1-man tent...

After dinner, we hung our food on some tree branches, and decided on a 3am wake-up for tomorrow. Tom had already hiked Sunlight and Windom, needing to bag just Eolus. I needed to hike all 3 of them. Hopefully the weather would allow me the time to hike the trifecta. An early start would help our odds. Tonight I'd get to try sleeping in my new tent, WITH A SLEEPING BAG (forgot it on my last trip) for the first time. Big day tomorrow!

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