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.:Getting to the trailhead:. The SW ridge route is accessed from the almost-ghost-town of Winfield. To get to Winfield, drive from Denver SW on US285 to Johnson's Village and then north on US 24 for 2 miles to Buena Vista. Head north from Buena Vista about 14 miles on US 24 (or south from Leadville about 16 miles) and turn left at the Clear Creek Reservoir (Chaffee County 390). The well-maintained dirt road heads mostly west and terminates at Winfield, at ~11.8 miles. At Winfield, stay straight/right (left over the creek takes your to the Huron trailhead) around an old cabin and continue down the road for 0.4 miles past the old cemetery to a US Forest sign warning of the 4x4 nature of the road ahead. Cars ought to park it here, while 4x4s with clearance can continue another ~1.0 miles into the valley, and then find an unmarked but well-worn right turn for ~0.2 miles to the gated closure. .:The trail:. .:Trip Report:. The fall is always an interesting time in the Rockies. Weather can vary from summer-like to wintry to anything in between. The days before this trip were definitely summer-like, with temps in Denver in the 80s and sunny skies. But as the weekend approached the forecast in the high country turned cold and provided the first real forecast for snow in months. So I shoved everything I might need in my pack for any kind of weather and we headed out of Denver a few minutes after 4:00am. Traveling to the trailhead took just a shade under 3 hours (including a pit-stop in Buena Vista), and I was glad we weren't there any earlier. The morning was unusually dark with thick, heavy gray clouds, and even at 7:00am it was barely light enough out to not need a headlamp! As we pulled into the parking area, the conditions could best be described as "spitting" -- a light rain that was on the verge of being snow. So, with raingear on, it was up the trail. This time of the year there aren't many crowds anyway, but the SW ridge route on LaPlata is a nice alternative to the main route. It's a bit easier of a hike, and shorter (7 miles instead of 9) to boot. The trail climbs moderately for a mile to a high valley, just above treeline. The well-worn trail continues north to the head of the valley, crossing a number of potentially boggy willow fields, so watch your step when the trail heads into the willows! When you enter this high valley, it's hard to tell where you're supposed to climb out of it until you reach the northernmost end, but the trail eventually winds to a saddle point on the ridge just left of center. On a clear day, you'll be able to see the rounded summit of LaPlata jutting up from right of center. On this day, though, no such luck. The intermittent rain turned to intermittent snow as we cleared treeline, and the clouds stayed pretty low for most of the day. Upon reaching the ridge above the valley, the weather turned markedly colder and a brittle wind from behind us punctuated the cold. The summit of LaPlata appeared and disappeared as the low clouds zoomed by. The further up we climbed, the more conditions deteriorated, to the point where it was snowing sideways in 40mph+ winds. Visibility was generally down into the 100-200 feet range. Luckily, the trail was well-cairned, even when the hike changed into a mild scramble. Making things trickier was the snow on the ground -- or rather, on the rocks. There was just enough to make the footing slipperly, so we had to be careful not to slip and turn an ankle. The summit itself was pretty inhospitable. The winds just kept getting stronger with altitude, and the visibility was close to zero. If not for the summit register, it would have been hard to tell if we were truly there or not! Still, we didn't stay for more than a few seconds. This was definitely one of those "tag-and-run" kind of days. The descent was acutally much more brutal than the climb, because now we were moving directly into the wind, and into the stinging snow. Having any exposed skin was painful, but being bundled up under a hood and balaclava meant thay my glacier glasses were fogged to the point where I couldn't see. And there were the slippery rocks to contend with. So it was a dicely descent down to where the scrambling ended near 13,200', and I was grateful to be back on a firm trail. The rest of the descent was an hour of wind and on-and-off snow as the poor weather seemed to almost follow us off the mountain and downvalley. Luckily, the Gore-Tex shell did it's job, so it wasn't too bad at all. It was once again a mix of rain and snow at the trailhead, which turned into a steady rain as we bounced down the muddy road on the way back to pavement. |
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