Hiking Trails of Southwestern Colorado, Fifth Edition. John Peel
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This comes partly with experience, but it’s important to evaluate your group members and know whose judgment to trust. If you’re the leader, make sure you don’t involve others in situations they can’t handle.
•Communicate. Before any trip, decide who’s bringing the maps and the first-aid kit, and what the plan is. Don’t wait till you get to the trailhead to discuss these important details. Also, communicate frequently during a hike or climb and stay together with your group; separating from the group commonly causes or compounds serious problems.
•Navigation. Bring maps, preferably physical rather than virtual ones. Cellular phones and GPS units can lose service, die, or malfunction. Personal locator beacons, preferably ones that can send texts, are becoming increasingly popular and useful. You can use one to send a distress message via satellite, and the receiver will show your location. A decent one goes for around $350.
Accidents happen, but there’s a lot you can do to keep accidents from leading to life-threatening emergencies.
FINAL NOTE
I’ve wrestled often with the issue of how much to divulge in trail descriptions. The bottom line is: I just don’t want to give away all the secrets.
I’ll tell you some “well-known secrets” (I like that contradiction), but I’m not going to go out of my way to tell you everything. You wouldn’t want me to give away everything. What fun is that? You want to discover things on your own. You want that element of surprise and delight when you see something unexpected. If you want someone to reveal every little detail—every waterfall, every swimming hole, every peak, and every flower you will see—then by all means, find a book or blog that does this.
Every hike is an adventure. Wilderness is out there to be explored, to captivate, and to surprise. My hope is you will use this book to capture that experience.
Pointing to a ridge that I’m not going to attempt between Wetterhorn and Matterhorn. (Photo by Steve Chapman)
Here I am hard at work atop US Grant Peak. (Photo by Peter Schertz)
TECHNOLOGY
In this day and age, I guess I would find this situation embarrassing: I’m lost or injured in the woods and have no phone even though I’m in cell range. Or I have a phone with cell coverage but can’t tell anyone where I am because I don’t know.
Of course, technology is continually changing even as I write this book, and I can actually be kind of a Luddite, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out the ways that electronic devices can enhance your hike and help get you out of trouble. GPS (Global Positioning System) devices and phone apps are helpful methods of measuring and plotting your route, and communicating with others. Use your devices to your best advantage, but it’s important to understand their limitations too.
Here’s a brief description of some of the technology and apps out there.
GPS UNITS
To figure out where you are, this is still the best method. GPS is a method of triangulating your position on the planet using satellites hovering 12,000-plus miles above the Earth. Your GPS unit can determine within a few feet where you stand. If your GPS unit also has a downloaded map, then you’re set for navigating. Even if it doesn’t, you can still use it to get back to where you were—a previously tracked trail or waypoint, for instance. It’s very handy.
Garmin dominates the GPS market, but there are other brands.
YOUR SMARTPHONE
With your Android, iPhone, or other smartphone, you can download several apps to help you navigate around the planet.
For hiking, GaiaGPS currently seems to be the go-to app. You can use the free version, or pay about $20 a year to download maps and have access to other helpful perks. Gaia acts much like a GPS unit. It tells you where you are and records your track so you can look at all the stats later and relive the hike, if that’s what you’re into. It’s fun and informative. Strava is another app that uses GPS to determine your place and track your progress. It’s a popular one among cyclists and runners, but there’s no reason hikers can’t use it.
To figure out what peaks you’re seeing on the horizon, there’s PeakFinder AR or PeakVisor, among others. Both of these work offline.
There are also apps for learning knots (Animated Knots by Grog), identifying flowers (iNaturalist), and showing the nearest spot where you can get cell phone reception (Cairn). It doesn’t end there.
PERSONAL LOCATOR BEACON
This was also mentioned in the Introduction. These walkie-talkie–sized devices use satellites and will work to send out an emergency message where cell phones may not. The personal locator beacon (PLB) sends an SOS and your location to rescue agencies. PLBs have the capability to work around the world.
Satellite messengers are a step up from PLBs. These send distress signals and allow the user to send texts and have two-way communication. The more information rescuers have, the better off they and you will be. These aren’t cheap. As mentioned above, the base price is about $350, and with satellite messengers you also need to be on a subscription plan, so that adds another expense.
There are many options with PLBs and satellite messengers, and the technology is expanding rapidly, so research your options to see what’s current and to understand whether you truly need this.
Cave Basin Trail ventures into the Weminuche, Colorado's largest wilderness at 488,000 acres.
Looking down the Barnroof Point trail toward the start, with Twin Buttes on the left.
A panorama taken from the Rim Trail shows, from left to right, the Hogsback, Perins Peak, the La Plata Mountains, and Animas City Mountain.
HIKES IN & NEAR DURANGO
Its obvious Durango is enthusiastic about trails. That enthusiasm started long ago, but the formation back in 1990 of Durango Trails 2000, the local trails advocacy group, really got things cooking. The nonprofit plans routes, energizes the community, and, with mostly volunteer labor, has built or maintains more than 300 miles of trails.
Thanks to the foresight of Durango Trails 2000, the Durango Parks and Recreation Department, La Plata County, the San Juan Mountains Association, and the San Juan National Forest and Bureau of Land Management (and perhaps others I’ve missed), Durango-area residents can hike—sometimes right out your back door—into the nearby hills and beyond into the high country on your way to explore a diversity of ecosystems. Durango Trails 2000 continues to be at the forefront of trail development, and serves as a model for similar organizations around the region.
If you are wondering why Durango is such a well loved and popular place, trails are a huge reason.
CITY TRAILS
The Telegraph Trail System is one popular option. It’s covered later in this chapter in the Raider Ridge hike (page 53) and the Meadow Loop/Telegraph Trail hike (page 56). Plenty of other trails exist, and the maps that accompany those hikes show many of the various trails.
There is a mile-long trail up Smelter Mountain, accessed near the start of CR 210. To get there: As you’re leaving downtown heading