| Mt. Oso via Irving Creek Trip Report |
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| Mt. Oso via Irving Creek   | 
| Page Type: Trip Report Location: Colorado, United States, North America Lat/Lon: 37.60700°N / 107.493°W Date Climbed/Hiked: Aug 11, 2003 | Page By: truchas Created/Edited: Aug 27, 2003 / Object ID: 169041 Hits: 630 Loading... Page Score: 72.83% - 1 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
Why Mt. Oso? One, I love the Weminuche Wilderness. Two, I figured Oso would provide me with outstanding views of the Needles and Grenadiers, as well as most of the rest of the Wilderness to the East. Three, I wanted a peak with route finding opportunities and solitude. Although the route finding wasn’t too difficult, I found all that I was looking for. The big negative was the loose cobblestone sized rock the last 1000 feet to the summit.
I had taken 10 days off to spend in New Mexico and Colorado, so I was flexible on what day I could climb Oso. I chose Monday the 11th because of the weather forecast. I drove up from Red River, NM and arrived at the Vallecito Creek trailhead at 3:30 p.m. The rain had stopped and the weather was ideal for the approx. 7 1/2 mile backpack up to the base of Irving Peak. If I had arrived any earlier I would have been rained on. The backpack took me about 3 ½ hours. I proceeded to set up my tent and had to carve out stakes from sticks because I had forgotten my usual stakes. Dohhh. There is a clearing about 100 yards before Irving Creek that contains plenty of space for a tent.
I had planned on starting my climb at 5 a.m. Monday morning, however the mid-August sun now doesn’t rise until about 5:30 a.m., so that is when I started although it was still pretty dark. I hiked maybe 100 yards up the Vallecito Creek Trail past a small creek (not on map), then 50 ft. further was the actual Irving Creek. I took a right turn up and parallel to Irving Creek, fairly close to the creek. Bushwacking in low light conditions was pretty difficult. I stayed on the North side of Irving Creek, gradually moving away from the creek since the creek walls were pretty steep. The views of the morning sun hitting Echo and Thunder mountains were awesome. I managed to find a primitive trail here and there. I even spotted a few cairns. At about 10,800 ft., I was able to follow the primitive trail around the base of Irving Peak where the forest and the rock from Irving meet back to the creek to cross it at 10,900 ft. I then followed a steep and sometimes broken trail to Irving Lake at 11,500 ft. The trail parallels a pretty waterfall that flows out of Irving Lake.
I passed Irving Lake on the North (left) side and then began an ascent up to the saddle between point 12,884 and Mt. Oso. There were a few pesky willows and shrubberies but not too bad. The horizontal distance from the lake to Mt. Oso was more than I had expected. By this time I was getting pretty tired. It wasn’t too rocky up to the saddle, with good route finding I was able to stay on tundra a good bit of the way.
The last 1,000 feet was very frustrating. In The San Juan Mountains A Climbing and Hiking Guide by Robert F. Rosebrough, he writes from second hand information from Haskell Rosebrough that “the southwest ridge looks very difficult but is entirely negotiable. The most difficult portion of the climb is found near the summit where it is necessary to climb over some large rocks which appear unstable.” I expected to find a steep rock ridge with large rocks that might be loose, perhaps making this ascent somewhat challenging. What I found was a gentle slope with lots of very unstable cobblestone sized rocks. The going was not difficult, just very tiring and tedious. I was trying to hurry up to the summit to avoid afternoon storms, however, the loose rock wouldn’t allow me to do that. I had to be too cautious on the rocks because of the slipping back half a step or the threat of twisting an ankle. Instead of heading straight to the summit from the saddle, I hiked East on a rounded ridge, then curved back around to the North to gain the summit via a ridge heading South from the summit. This less steep ascent helped some with the loose rock problems. Heading straight up to the summit from the saddle would have been even more frustrating than the route I took.
Well finally by 11:30 a.m., I had made the summit. 2 hours behind schedule. I probably wasn’t in as good of shape as I should have been, the horizontal distance to the peak was more than I had expected, it was slow going in the early morning hours because of lack of light, and the last 1,000 feet of loose rock just plain sucked. Fortunately the weather was holding, although there was some clouds building that appeared non-threatening to me.
The views of the Needles and Grenadiers from the summit of Oso were awesome. Rio Grande Pyramid was in perfect view as well. I was able to zoom in and take distant shots of Sneffels, Uncompahgre, and the Wilsons. I could also see back to Vallecito Lake (here is a shot of Oso I took from Vallecito Lake ), which was very low from drought conditions. There was no snow anywhere to be found. Apparently the South San Juans didn’t benefit this year from above normal snowfall.
I descended back down the loose rock, past Irving Lake (this time on the South side which was a little better), then down into the trees below Irving Peak. I had planned on attempting Irving Peak, but I was just too tired.
I then made a stupid error. I didn’t stay far enough North of Irving Creek and ended up descending down into the creek. I like an idiot thought I would try and follow the creek, only to dead end into a box canyon. I didn’t want to go back uphill, so the next brilliant idea was to ascend the South side of the creek past the box canyon. I was able to bypass the box canyon through very difficult terrain, then descended down a fairly difficult gully back down to the creek since the South side was becoming way too difficult. It wasn’t long before I ran into another box canyon. I had no choice but to ascend a fourth class gully up about 400 feet to where I should have been in the first place, on the North side of Irving Creek. This cost me at least 2 hours and a lot of energy. I finally made it back to good terrain and made my way back to my tent. It was about 5:30 p.m. I was drained, but at least I had only run into a few sprinkles and no real threatening weather.
I napped for about ½ hour, then packed up. I hit the trail at 7 p.m., then dragged my very tired ass back to my truck by 11 p.m. I used a headlamp the last two hours. I was so tired I slept at various places on the way back to New Mexico. I made it back to Red River at 8 a.m. Tired but satisfied.
If you want the easiest way to summit Mt. Oso, I would recommend this route. However, the fun factor is very low, mainly because of the loose rock and the bushwhacking. The views from the summit however are second to none.
I would like to also thank Aaron Johnson for the inspiration and some good beta for my trek up to this remote and beautiful peak.
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San Juan Range
