Last month I got an opportunity to head down south and spend 2 nights at the Opus Hut near Ophir Pass. It was sort of a last-minute invite that I was able to say yes to on a whim, and it turned into an awesome weekend of powder skiing and hut time with a great crew. Sometimes it’s really nice when a spontaneous plan comes together. The Opus Hut sits at 11,765 ft just to the east of Ophir Pass. It was built by Ophir resident Bob Kingsley, a master timber framer, between 2006 and 2011 after he bought the parcel of land the hut sits on. Keep Reading…
A couple weeks after our Sunlight Basin pack-in, Steve and I headed back down to the Weminuche to try for a few more peaks at the tail end of summer. The destination this time around was Stormy Gulch via Trinity Creek. From there we ended up hitting Peaks Two and Three to the northeast of Vestal Basin, and Peak Eight to the west of Silex Lake. Keep Reading…
In mid-August Steve and I packed into the Weminuche and spent three nights camped on the shore of Sunlight Lake to the northeast of Sunlight Peak. Of course the main focus was to climb the 13ers surrounding the basin, but we were equally enamored with the idea of simply visiting this particular place given the lore around it.
Ever since my first pack-ins to the Weminuche I’d always held Sunlight Basin as this sort of mythical, rarely visited place. For many years it had a reputation of being so difficult to get to, people would look for alternate ways to hit the peaks in the area so as to avoid Sunlight Creek. Before his passing, John Fielder called it his favorite place in Colorado, and I’ve heard that same sentiment echoed by others who have made the trek in there. Needless to say, it had long been on the bucket list. Indeed, to get there is no easy task. While there are a few different ways to do it, Steve and I ultimately chose to head in from the Vallecito Reservoir, north to the Sunlight Creek confluence and up to Sunlight Lake from there. Keep Reading….
Residing deep in the Rio Grande National Forest east of Piedra Pass, South River Peak is known as one of the peskier Colorado 13ers not by it’s technical rating or loose rock, but the length of its approach from any trailhead. There are essentially 2 options – a shorter, steeper route from the north involving some bushwhacking below tree line, or a longer, more gradual route from the south that passes by a natural hot spring along the way. Keep Reading…
