American Peak, Jones Mountain, and Niagara Peak
7 July
2007
Pictures * Route Map *
Trip Report
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American Peak (13,806'), Jones Mountain
(13,860'), and Niagara Peak (13,807')
Date: 7 July 2007
Climbers: Roy Donehower and Dave Gibson
Trailhead: Cuba Gulch
Roundtrip distance: 11.7 miles
Elevation gain: 4200'
Round trip time: 9 hours
The Jones Gang (Jones Mountain, Niagara Peak, and American Peak) caught my attention because I thought it offered the opportunity to climb 3 Centennial peaks in one day. After making my plans, I read a trip report which belittled Niagara and American as Colorado's 101st and 102nd highest peaks, just barely missing out on Centennial status. With that information I realized that 100 was an arbitrary number and decided to climb all of Colorado’s 102 highest peaks! This turned out to be the first of two great days of climbing in the beautiful San Juan Mountains.
Roy and I left Colorado Springs Friday afternoon and drove down to Lake City, past Lake San Cristobal, and up Cataract Gulch all the way to the Cuba Gulch Trailhead at 10,700'. The road past the Cataract Gulch trailhead was rough in places and definitely required a 4WD, especially for the Brooks Creek crossing. Roy's 4Runner did fine. The 4WD road beyond the Cuba Gulch trailhead, about half a mile before the Snare Stairs switchbacks, was closed to vehicular traffic. As we were car camping, I set up my tent at the far end of the large Cuba Gulch trailhead parking area and prepared for an early wake up.
My alarm went off at 4:00 am and we started hiking up the closed road. We soon came to the Snare Stairs, an impressive set of 12 switchbacks that allowed us to quickly and easily gain 800'. For anyone tempted to drive around the trees blocking this road, there were a few large boulders in the road that would have made passage with a Jeep very difficult. After the Stairs, we passed an old cabin and then left the road a little past tree line, just under an hour and a half after starting out. From this point the route up to American Peak's south ridge was obvious even thought the summit was not yet visible. As we were about to climb onto the ridge, we looked back and saw 7 big horn sheep checking us out from the slopes below! The route up American's south ridge was fairly straight forward although a bit loose and perhaps Class 2+ in places. We reached American's summit at 8:09 am after 2 hours and 50 minutes of hiking. From the summit we had a great view of the San Juans including nearby Handies Peak, which along with Jones already had climbers on top. The Grenadiers to the west looked particularly impressive.
From the summit of American, the route to Jones Mountain looked tougher than Class 2. But a good trail traversing the slopes north of American made it surprisingly easy. The high traverse offered great views down the couloirs leading up from American Basin. Victory Couloir, steep and narrow, still held snow to the top. Patriot Couloir, moderate and wide, was totally devoid of snow. The 500' climb from the American-Jones saddle was mostly solid and dry with a section or two of Class 2+. Including a snack break, it took us an hour an 14 minutes to traverse from American to the summit of Jones which we reached at 9:42 am. After enjoying this Centennial summit, we headed down Jones' south ridge toward Niagara. Along the way we crossed paths with the only other hiker we met all day. Roy decided to hang at the saddle while I climbed Niagara. Leaving a load of water at the saddle, I cruised up 600' in 16 minutes to tag Niagara's summit. I crossed a patch of easy snow near the summit, but went around it on the way down. A big fat marmot greeted me as I reached the summit.
After I rejoined Roy at the saddle, we descended southeast on soft snow into the gorgeous basin below Niagara Peak. This basin, unnamed on our map, was filled with snow patches, flowers, alpine lakes, waterfalls, and wildlife. We took our time enjoying the scenery here. At one point a cute little long-tailed weasel darted around checking us out. Neither of us could resist exploring a small island in a crystal clear trout-filled alpine lake at 12,420'. Below the lake we hiked down the highest section of the same road we had hiked up that morning. There must have been some very rich mines in the area for someone to go to all the effort of building this well-constructed road. We followed the road around Jones' southwest ridge and back across the Snare Creek. This creek crossing is marked as a high 4WD parking area in Gerry Roach's Colorado's Thirteeners. Don't expect to get your Jeep up there anymore. On our hike back down the road, we passed a dirt bike sitting in the middle of the road with no biker in sight – odd. Then as we were descending the Snare Stairs, a biker rode down behind us, explained that he was lost and asked for directions to Lake City. It was not clear to me how he got up there without riding up the Snare Stairs. After 9 hours and 11.7 miles of hiking, we returned to the Cuba Gulch trailhead. That afternoon we waded across the Snare Creek and checked out the beginning of the very scenic Cuba Gulch trail in preparation for our climb of Half Peak the next morning.
With the road closed below the Snare Stairs, the Burns Gulch approach offers a much shorter route for climbing all three of these peaks. Nevertheless, I'm very glad we choose the Cuba Gulch approach and discovered the beautiful basin below Niagara's southeast face.