Date: August 5, 2003
Elevation: 14,001'
Rank: 54th
Route: North Slopes, Grade II, Class 2, 11.4 miles, 4700ft vert.
GPS: N 37° 55.366' W 107° 25.5'
Team: Matt Esser (Toid), Mark Jaeger (Gugals)
Sunshine Pk Trip Report:
Pre-climb: The trip over to Silver Creek from San Luis took us about 3 hours on all the backroads and eventually Cinnamon Pass. It was again, gorgeous scenery as we slowly made our way up to the 10,400ft trailhead. As we were driving up, we realized we were closer to civilization, as there were about 10 cars at the trailhead on a Monday night! If anybody has seen Vertical Limit, the two Everest bums who just hung out at Base Camp in the movie, were well represented at this trailhead by these two guys from California. They were on a roadtrip just checking out the area. They just sat there on their chairs and seemed to talk to everybody that walked by them. They were still there when we left and they were still there after we climbed Handies the following day. I don't know what they were doing, but they said they've climbed two fourteeners before. Don't get me wrong, they were extremely nice and we gave them some food and talked to them most of the evening, it was just interesting to me and am making a note of it.
Climb: After making two more quick meals that can be purchased at REI, I quickly turned in to bed. I believe Gugals listened to his CD player a little before eventually falling asleep. The next morning came quickly, and I didn't want to get up. Even if my head couldn't remember, my body still remembered the long hike up San Luis the day before. How I put on my hiking boots at 7am that morning I still don't know. By 7:20am I was on the trail making great pace up the Northeast Ridge on Redcloud.
As you hike around to the north, one get's a view of the north face of Redcloud. It has a slight resemblance to Longs. Especially the hiking all the way around the mountain just to get to the side that has the least resistance. Once you leave the river, you begin to head up towards the saddle. Gugals stopped to film this avalanche that obviously occured during winter or spring. There was this mass of snow that was sprinkled with all sorts of trees that settled over the river. Meanwhile, I continued to make my way up towards the ridge.
Once on the saddle, the grass diminishes and rocks take over. The route also becomes very steep up until the 13,800ft false summit. After the false summit, there is a short little hike up to the top of Redcloud. I stood on the summit after 2h 45min. Gugals didn't want to even attempt the route after the saddle. He thought it looked too steep and too loose. So he remained on the saddle for the next two hours while I would do the traverse over to Sunshine and come back down again.
In case you forgot which summit you were on, all you would have to do is look at your feet and the color of the rocks and you would remember that you're standing on the appropriately named Redcloud. The rocks are all red in shade. I sat down and signed the summit register and noticed that there were two other people on the summit. I hadn't seen them hiking, so they must have been up there for a while. They had been up there for about 45 minutes and mentioned that they camped up the trail a ways the night before, so that's why they got an early start. I didn't see anybody's name on the summit register, so I asked them if they had signed it. They said no and didn't know that's what they were supposed to do. I thought nothing of it, and handed the canister over to them so they could write their names in the register.
Another guy from Boulder reached the top, and saw the couple placing the register back in the canister but caught them in time to sign it. He then saw what the couple had wrote and asked them what it's like for Okies to be on the summit of a 14er. I then did a 180 degree turn, and said, "Okies? Where are you from?" They said Tulsa. Well, for those of you that don't know, I'm originally from Bartlesville, which is 45 minutes north of Tulsa. I said I was from Bartlesville and they asked me my name. After I told them my name they asked if my dad was Rick Esser. Apparently, on the summit of Redcloud, at 14,034', at about 10am in the middle of the San Juans somebody knows my dad by name. Unfortunately, I forgot their names, but it was still a pleasant surprise. They weren't going to be heading over to Sunshine, but rather descending and driving into Lake City for the evening. They attended the University of Oklahoma. Where both my dad and I attended college.
The traverse over to Sunshine isn't that hard. It's a little over a mile, and took me about 45 minutes. At the saddle there is a sign that mentions not to descend down the steep scree. That wasn't even a consideration for me. It looked way too steep to descend safely. I already had in my mind that I was going to climb back over Redcloud. Sunshine, the states lowest fourteener, a mere one foot above the magical 14,000ft level, is really a pile of rocks. The rocks are somewhat stable, but by the time you get to the top you're sick of ascending what feels like a giant rock pile. I signed the register and the guy from Boulder showed up and we exchanged pictures and quickly headed back towards Redcloud. The traverse back was easier, because it isn't as steep going up to Redcloud, but my motivation to hurry to the summit was gone, since I had already climbed it. So it took me a little longer to muster up the strength to make it back on top of Redcloud. There was at least one false summit that got my hopes up before I realized I wasn't back on Redcloud yet.
From the summit of Redcloud I radioed Gugals and told him that I could see him still down there at the saddle. We agreed it would be cool for him to get out his video camera and zoom in on me from down there. So we did that. Then I began my slow descent down the loose rocks. More than one person offered me money for my trekking poles. I should have taken them up on it. One person (I don't know if they were serious), offered me $100 for them.
Eventually I was back on the saddle and proudly took a picture of Gugals and his cairn that he built. Even though I'm not for building cairns I didn't have the heart to tear it down in front of him.
The descent from the saddle was pretty easy, and we made good time down the trail. We could hear the storm clouds thundering in the distance, so we knew we needed to hurry and get down, hopefully to tree line before anything happened. But first there was one place we had to stop. The snow cave that was created from the avalanche. Gugals wanted me to video tape him walking through it. See the pictures to understand what I'm talking about. You'd just have to know this guy to understand why he wanted to do it.
After that short stop, we trekked on down to the trailhead. Once again those guys were sitting their in their camp chairs just laughing at everybody and how tired they looked. Gugals and I made our way over to the stream to soak our feet. We met a couple of girls there that climbed Redcloud/Sunshine the day before and were too tired to do anything else, so they just hung out all day by the river. While we talked to them we filtered water and snacked on trail mix and then packed up our stuff and drove up Cinnamon Pass to American Basin. Which is where we planned to spend the next two nights, camping at the 4x4 trailhead for Handies Peak.
Pictures: (Click on picture for caption)
Time:
| Drive |
Ascent |
On Summit |
Traverse |
On Summit |
Traverse |
Descent |
Drive |
Total |
| 3 h |
2.75 h |
30 min |
45 h |
15 min |
1 h |
2.75 h |
30 min |
8 h |
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