Arrow Peak - 13803' - Class 3
June 2012
This peak Josh and I did what was going to be part of a 12 day trek through the Weminuche Wilderness however due to a recent forest fire and lots of smoke in the air right as we left the trailhead, we decided to turn back after just climbing Arrow Peak. Josh and I spent over an hour stuffing all our food in our packs at the Molas Pass trailhead for the Colorado Trail and around noon we were off. We had 1800 feet to descend to the Animas River which didn't take much time and we were crossing on the bridge just as a train passed. Oddly enough we saw Sarah and Prekash also on their was to do the Wham Ridge so we hiked up Elk Creek and the steep Vestal Creek with them. That boot path up Vestal Creek was very steep carrying 70 pounds and took forever. We eventually got to the base of Arrow and Vestal at a nice flat meadow and set up camp, had a nice dinner and watched the beautiful sunset. The next morning we started up to Vestal Lake and towards the Arrow/Vestal saddle. We started up the obvious ramp leading up Arrow Peak. Views across to Vestal Peak were incredible with the rising sun. We worked our way up Arrow while getting off route by veering too far to the right and almost up the false summit. We were forced to backtrack back down and continue further up the ramp and up some chimneys but before long I topped out on top and Josh made it 15 minutes later. We could see the entire Weminuche Wilderness from the Chicago Basin group to Jagged Mountain and Pigeon Peak. It was a warm morning so we relaxed here a bit before heading down which took much less time. Upon reaching Vestal Lake I took one look at the Wham Ridge and decided it would be a crime to climb the chossy backside of Vestal. I had to come back at a later time to do the Wham Ridge. This along with the heavy smoke spurred us to decide to head back and climb a bunch of other stuff instead of continuing on a 12 day trek. So we went back down Vestal and Elk Creeks and camped along the Animas River and finished the hike back to Molas Pass the next morning. The water in Molas Lake never felt so good!
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