Description

This is roughly a 20-25 mile hike that I did with 7 good friends from Los Alamos. It is a very beautiful hike through the northwestern Weminuche Wilderness using a fairly short car shuttle. We dropped two cars off as far as we could up the Cunningham Drainage northeast of silverton. Then starting off at Molas Pass much later than hoped (about 4:00) we followed the Colorado trail down into the Animas river george, crossed the very nice bridge over the Animas River, hopped over the RR tracks and headed up the Elk Creek Drainage. We spend the night about half-way up Elk Creek at a beautiful set of beaver ponds. Next day we climbed out of the Elk Creek drainage to meet the continental divide. Start at Molas Pass. Follow the Colorado Trail East, down into Animas River canyon. Cross Animas River and Durango-Silverton train tracks, up Elk Creek to Continental Divide Trail (CDT). We took the CDT northwest through very high country ( > 12500') then veered west to the Verde Lakes. We set up a base-camp at the Verde Lakes and hiked to White-head peak the next day. After the 2nd night at the Verde Lakes, we headed to the cars in the Cunningham Drainage through the Highland Mary Lakes.

Interactive Map