Windom Peak and Sunlight Peak

July 25, 2022 / 14,089’ (Windom) & 14,061’ (Sunlight)

RT STATS from camp: TOTAL TIME - 10 HR & 25 MIN, ~8 MILES, AND 3,833’ ELEVATION GAIN

TIME STATS: 3 HR & 46 MIN from camp TO Windom SUMMIT, 7 MIN AT windom SUMMIT, 3 HR & 12 MIN OVER TO Sunlight, 14 MIN AT sunlight SUMMIT, 3 HR & 6 MIN BACK TO camp

rating (how much i liked the climb): 8/10 (happy to be back!!!)

Chicago Basin!!!!!!!!! I always viewed the Chicago Basin 14ers as “the ones where I will have to camp”. Don’t get me wrong—this trip actually changed my opinion (positively) on backpacking. Anyways, up until this point, I had climbed all 52 Colorado 14ers that I had yet summited in one day….long days without camping. I personally really enjoy the early mornings and long days—there is nothing like it.

Okay, so the trip begins on Friday night, July 22nd. My dad and I took a late flight out of CLT and arrived to DIA very late. The next morning, we started our long (but really enjoyable) drive to the southwest corner of the state—Durango! We drove through Colorado Springs, good old Walsenburg, Alamosa (where we ate at a Mexican buffet), and some other towns along the way. We arrived in Durango around 4pm and checked in to the Doubletree Durango. This hotel is very close to the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad Station. Basically, on Saturday, we went grocery shopping, walked about 3 miles around Durango, and then went to dinner at a place called Primi. I got spaghetti and meatballs as well as a “salad'“ that was not what I expected, but it was still good.

The next morning, we left our hotel and took the long (2 minute drive) to the Railroad parking lot. We parked at about 7am and then carried our backpacks about a quarter mile from the parking lot to the station. The train wasn’t taking backpacks or boarding for 30+ minutes, so we just hung around until it was time. At about 8:15am, the train departed and we were on our way to Needleton.

The train ride was just under 2.5 hours long! It went by pretty slowly, but there was a lot of things to look at! Probably a few minutes before 10:45am, we arrived at Needleton. Our backpacks were unloaded and, a few minutes later, we set off to the Chicago Basin! I already had my rain gear on, even though it was kind of hot wearing it, because it is Monsoon season in the San Juans! At about 1 hour and 10 minutes into our hike, it started raining kind of hard. It lasted maybe 15 minutes or so—I stopped to put the rain cover over my Osprey backpack and continued on. There isn’t much to say about the hike from Needleton to the Chicago Basin, except that I was hoping that the rain would let up once we found a campsite!

We started seeing tents about 10-15 minutes before we found our campsite. At this point, the sun was out and I was hoping that it would stay out for the rest of the day (maybe too optimistic!!!! :D). 6.03 miles/2 hours and 57 minutes/2,733’ elevation gain later, we arrived at what would be our campsite. Almost immediately, we started setting up our tent because it was not raining.

After setting up the tent, there really wasn’t much to do. I am kind of interested in backpacking the Colorado Trail one day, but in terms of a really long thru hike like the AT or PCT, I NEVER see myself doing that. The AT or PCT would fall under the category “too much of a good thing”. We filtered water and really just got ready for the next morning. I guess an interesting point to talk about is my backpacking diet. My food this trip: cinnamon raisin bagels + justin’s honey peanut butter (literally the best thing ever), goldfish crackers, gummy bears, and beef jerky. I never had tried beef jerky in my life before this trip and it was alright at the time. I was just looking to get some protein in….I do not like protein bars anymore. I think I ate too much of them on hikes over the past couple of years and now hate them.

Anyways, eventually, it was the next morning. I slept maybe 20 minutes, awesome!!! We had set an alarm for 3:30am to get up, but it was around 2:25am when we were just like “screw it, let’s go ahead and get ready”. It honestly took awhile to get ready and eat. After hanging our food in the tree, we set off towards Twin Lakes (en route to Windom) at 3:28am. I was low-key scared the whole time that somehow the food was going to be missing when we came back (even though it was hung like it should be).

Of course, we were wearing headlamps. About 1 mile in, we (finally) saw the sign for the trail towards Twin Lakes. We had barely gained any elevation since we left our campsite, so the next bit was somewhat steep. Honestly, I love the super steep sections where you gain a lot of elevation….this wasn't super steep, but definitely was not flat like before…At about the 2.27 mile mark/1 hour 40 minutes, we reached Twin Lakes (elevation ~12,500). Going forward in this post, I am not going to reference mileage because I’m pretty sure (edit: 1000000% sure) my running watch (on walking mode) is a bit short once I am climbing and obviously moving slowly when it isn’t a Class 1 trail anymore.

We now proceeded to the right towards Windom. I don’t mind waking up very early to begin a hike or climb; however, it is always nice once it becomes light outside…A bit before 6am, I took off my headlamp. Essentially, from this point pretty soon after Twin Lakes (maybe 10 minutes?) until the summit, was FULL OF ROCKS AND TALUS. Of course, the usual testing of rocks and being careful with footing now begun.

A lot of pictures from this point until the summit are posted below. One thing to note: it was beyond foggy and no visibility for the climb up Windom. As you can see in the pictures below, you could not see much around you. It gave me flashbacks of Crestone Needle EXACTLY 2 YEARS AGO (July 25, 2020), where it was beyond foggy.

3 hours and 46 minutes after leaving our campsite, we reached the 14,089’ summit of Windom Peak. My 53rd Colorado 14 >:). We had the summit to ourselves, but only stayed 7 minutes because we wanted to start heading over to Sunlight Spire (just kidding…..Sunlight Peak. I am NEVER attempting Sunlight Spire). Enjoy the summit pictures of us separately. I forgot to take selfies of us on both Windom and Sunlight…boooo. The fog had been starting to somewhat lighten up and, a couples minutes after leaving the Windom summit, it broke a good amount so I could directly see Sunlight Peak and Spire. It was incredible!

Maybe about 50 minutes after we left the summit and were descending Windom, we started to head towards Sunlight Peak. I estimate that we started crossing over to Sunlight around 13,200’ or so! We were going through a lot of rocks and talus (duh) and eventually reached the gully. We soon reached a notch/saddle where you could turn to the right and get an epic view of Sunlight Spire!!!

From this point to the summit was a little tricky in my opinion. This is where we started doing some Class 3/4 climbing.

7 hours and 6 minutes after leaving camp (3 hours and 13 minutes after leaving Windom), we reached the summit of Sunlight PEAK!! This was such a relief…with it being monsoon season, I was very worried that we would not be able to summit Sunlight. WITH THAT BEING SAID, reaching the summit(s) is not the goal…reaching the summit(s) is only half the equation. Descending mountains like these is crucial, so I knew that I wanted us to not stay that long on Sunlight’s summit. Mountain weather can also mean that it is sunny and, 15 minutes later, a storm rolls in...

So, we took pictures on the summit…we had this summit to ourselves as well, and, then, we started our descent. We stayed on the summit for 14 minutes total!

So, on the descent, you really have to pay even more perfect attention (is this possible?) than you need to on the ascent. My dad and I don’t really talk much, if at all, on the descents because of this. About 1 hour and 36 minutes later, we were back at the Twin Lakes area (elevation 12,500’)…aka back to “safe territory” in my mind. The sky quickly starting looking dark and, soon enough, it started pouring rain on us. Thankfully, we were back on the simple class 1 trail and not on the terrain above Twin Lakes.

I had quickly put on my rain gear, but I still got kind of wet. I’d say it was raining for about 40 minutes or so…..a little bit over an hour later, we were back at our campsite (10 hours and 25 minutes after we had started!). I was relieved to still see my food hanging in the tree. Not gonna lie, I completely miss my normal diet, but the cinnamon raisin, honey pb bagels, goldfish, and gummy bears were 10000/10. :D We filtered more water and just kind of rested. I was thinking of climbing Eolus and N. Eolus early the next morning while my dad packed up camp; however, my warmest clothes had gotten wet from the rain and they never ended up drying. In other words, Eolus and North Eolus will have to wait for another time.

After not sleeping at all the night before, I slept much better this night. In fact, I took a nap soon after we got back from the climb…that never happens! I talked to my dad about how we could take the train into Silverton the next morning if we made sure to get to the Needleton stop by around 10:30am. This was a no brainer because, if not, we would just be sitting around until the train returned to Needleton at 2:45pm to take us back to Durango. Also, the Silverton train would mean access to REAL FOOD. Again, no insult to the food I packed…it was pretty good minus the beef jerky.

So, the next morning we packed up as quickly as we could (it took longer than I thought if I’m telling the truth) and we left our campsite at 8:14am. We arrived back at the Needleton stop at 10:19am (so the descent of 6 miles/~2,700’ loss took us just over 2 hours). There were two other groups at Needleton that had the same idea as we did—backpacking out early to take advantage of the opportunity to look at Silverton. The train arrived at 10:43am and, soon enough, we were on our way to Silverton!

The ride to Silver took approximately 1 hour. While in Silverton, we had 2 hours to burn. We got REAL FOOD at Thee Pitts Again BBQ. I got pulled chicken, baked potato, cornbread/honey butter, and side salad. It was pretty good! After that, we walked slowly around Silverton for awhile until it started pouring rain. We basically waited for 20 minutes (while the streets started to flood) before we ran back to the train.

The ride back to Durango was 3.5 hours!!! So, basically, the train ride from Silverton to Durango and the flight from Charlotte to Denver take the same amount of time. Actually, the flight is quicker! Soon enough, we arrived back into Durango. We got our backpacks and then went to the Strater Hotel in downtown Durango. We were staying here tonight before driving to New Mexico the next morning!