6 days in the Needles

(Part 2)

Day 4, Fri., Sept. 25
Rest day at Sunlight Lake

My son (my usual hiking partner) teases me that I never rest much on my rest days. Typically, he stays in camp while I go out on a dayhike. I decided to do it his way today. I even spent the whole day in camp shoes; never putting my boots on. My only responsibilities were laundry, bathing, and scouting the route down Sunlight Creek. (There is a climbers’ path, of somewhat evil reputation.)

I slept fitfully, which is not surprising, as this is my highest elevation camp, and I’m a little on the hypervigilant side now in terms of animal activity. It was windy all night (but not ridiculously cold: maybe 28–30), creating tent flapping/scraping/scritching sounds. The goats did visit a couple times during the night. After a necessary trip out of the tent at 5:30, I stayed in until 9:00 when the sunlight was direct. I washed my hiking clothes. It’s clear by now that it’s always windy here, so as much as I’d like to go full immersion this afternoon, I doubt I’ll be able to bring myself to do it. So I scoop up a cook-pot full of lake water to warm in the sun for bathing later. As of 10:30, no goats, which, as much as I enjoy seeing them, is a welcome development.

Not 5 minutes after writing that in my log, a nanny with two kids arrived. They are far fluffier than the goats I saw in July in the Gore Range, now welcoming their thick woolly coats instead of scraping them off against rocks and trees. And the kids are much larger than the ones we saw in July, of course. They literally glow white in the sunlight—they really are gorgeous animals. I read the rest of the morning, frequently changing position in order to keep an eye on the goats and shoo them away from my tent and gear.

After lunch, I bathed, changed into my hiking clothes, and washed my camp clothes. Between the sun and the wind, it was an excellent clothes-drying day. I spent the afternoon reading, napping, and map studying. I am 4 days into a backpack, I and my clothes are clean(ish); I, my clothes, and my gear are dry. I am in an incredibly remote place of great beauty. I feel incredibly fortunate to be here, and to be physically able to do this at 56. All is well with the world.





Front to back—camp, goats, Jagged Peak:






Day 5
Saturday, Sept. 26
Sunlight Lake to just below the mouth of Sunlight Creek on Vallecito Creek
ca. 6 miles, -2500 ft. off-trail (climbers’ route)

Last night was exceptionally windy all night—not much sleep was had. (The tent survived just fine, except that the tensioners on the windward side slipped multiple times after I re-tightened them multiple times.) Ready for warmer, more sheltered places, I started down the Sunlight Creek climbers’ route at 9:00. Like all climbers’ routes, it is steep, but it is easy to follow through delightful forests: beetle-kill Douglas Fir, then beautiful Spruce (Engelmann Spruce?), then Aspen/Spruce mix. I had some very detailed beta on the route (from this site), so that was extremely helpful. It seems that the evil reputation of this route has been greatly exaggerated. I saw some more goats and a pair of deer on the way down.

Descending Sunlight Creek:





Well, it seemed that way until the lower 2 miles, after crossing to the north side of the creek. Now, it was genuinely terrible. It’s an enormous beetle kill blowdown, and through it has grown the densest Aspen/Spruce jungle I’ve ever seen, so the path is super gnarly, hard to follow, with innumerable blowdowns to clamber over while wedging yourself and your pack through tiny spaces between trees. I lost the path at one point and bushwacked a ways until I regained it—a genuinely terrible episode. This was extremely tedious, and now I know why this route has such a nasty reputation. If you go UP this route, just know that it will be horrible at first, but will eventually become merely very steep but otherwise lovely.

Entering the Aspen/Spruce/blowdown vortex of death:


But this, like all things, passes. Eventually I was descending along the creek in beautiful open forest dotted with glowing gold Aspens. I crossed Sunlight Creek one last time, paralleled Vallecito “Creek” for about 200 yards, and then forded. (No problems.) It was 2.5 hours down from Sunlight Lake.

I had lunch, and made a decision. I had thought I might walk a few miles up-river, and position myself at a camp for a side trip to the Continental Divide (either Hunchback Pass on the Vallecito trail, or up the Rock Creek trail.) If I did this, I’d have long days on both day 6 and 7. I decided I’d been beastly enough, and went down instead. I went no more than a mile, found a beautiful established camp with a fire ring I’d be happy to use, and called it an early day. I was, I estimated, 14-15 easy miles from the car, so the idea of coming out a day early had some appeal, since this had been such a wonderful, epic, and satisfying trip.



Camp:



Day 6
Sunday, September 27
ca. 14 miles, –2,200 ft.

Ironically, I think my two nights in the lower-elevation Vallecito valley were the two coldest nights of my trip. I took my time breaking camp for probably the last time in 2020, savoring the coffee even a little more than usual. I set a pretty quick pace, leaving the option of going all the way out open. I don’t like to hike more than about 10–12 miles a day, even if they’re easy miles like this, because my feet tend to get very angry when I do. But I was feeling pretty good. I hit the washed-out bridge ford shortly before noon, so I took lunch on the far side while my feet and camp shoes dried. I carefully re-taped some hot spots around my toes, knowing that the miles would be hard on my feet today. The Aspen that were 70% turned 6 days ago when I ascended the river valley were now more like 95% turned and glowing in the sun. It was quite warm as I descended. I savored every mile, my feet feeling pretty good, and reached the car around 3:30. The beer in the cooler was still a little cold, and I happily had one.










This was an utterly epic, fantastic trip. The weather was beautiful. The scenery was beautiful—the Aspen in the lower country, and the lakes and peaks and goats in the high country. Lake 12,545 and Sunlight Lake number among the most beautiful places I’ve been. Honestly, I believe that the joy-to-hardship ratio may have been the highest of any trip in my life, and I have had a lot of joy-filled trips over the decades. The only joy I lacked was that of sharing it with a dear partner, but solo hiking does have its own rewards—I find that it renews the spirit maybe even more than sharing a hike with a partner.

I feel incredibly blessed, and, perhaps not by coincidence, it is Sunday; and I have worshiped profoundly.

Yeah, the Weminuche was awesome. I will be back, although it is a good bit further from home than the Sangres and the Gores, my usual stomping grounds.

I saw a ton of elk sign, and heard some bugling, but never saw the animals. Of course, it was elk season, so they were making themselves scarce.

I hear coyotes almost every night at home, so I’ve basically stopped noticing

I'll echo everyone else, just an amazing time. Thank you, for the great telling and sharing of it.

There are a lot of high alpine lakes in that area, all well-protected by difficult off-trail approaches. The ridges in the Needles are (as the name would indicate) all steep, so passage from one drainage to another is rarely easy, and involves significant exposure in some cases. I bet they're all very beautiful. I can only imagine the photos a real photographer like you would come home with.

I would love to try to camp at Lake 12,545 or some of the other high lakes in the area (Sunlight Lake is a little lower at 12,033), but it'd be *so* storm-exposed in the summer, and *so* cold in the fall. Although, on this trip, I swear the nights were colder at my valley-bottom camps than my high camps, so who knows?

I agree very nice trip report.

Sounds like a great trip. I'm impressed that surprising a porcupine in one's tent does not result in any damage to one's self or tent. I'll have to make note of this route for the future - maybe the opposite direction to get the vortex of death out of the way sooner and be able to climb UP the steep section to the saddle.

I also still hope to do the common "train loop" with my son since there was too much snow for me to risk it with him several years back.