Colorado Trail Section 20

Nick and I travelled to the Stewart Creek trailhead for a trip up San Luis Peak. We camped at the same spot as last time and got started Saturday morning at 6:30 AM. We passed a man and his 60+ dad and a group of three older gentlemen who were camped a couple of miles upstream.

We decided to make a loop of it and take a trail to the right, but we read the map wrong and ended up bushwacking up a false summit. Along the way we say two huge bucks just above timberline. It turned out all good because the adventure lead us to San Luis anyway.

I arrived at the summit at 9:20 AM to find three other hikers who had spent the night near the summit. One in their party had summitted 30+ 14ers, and had camped atop a few of them. Nick arrived 20 minutes later and we had a nice sandwich with tea alone at the top. What an awesome view from here! You can see Uncompaghre, Wetterhorn, Sneffels, Redcloud, and Sunshine. You can also see the Grand Mesa and my hunting grounds.

We started down the other side of San Luis headed for Section 20 of the Colorado trail. We passed the end point of our hike from last Labor Day. Labor Day 2004 was cold and extremely wet. It was the worst night I have ever spent in a tent, but the hike from above Creede to the San Luis peak saddle was awesome and had us looking forward to this return trip.

The trip back to camp was long, long, long. Nine miles in all. The trip is beautiful for most of the way, but the never ending valley at the end was quite a test.