Colorado's Chicago Basin and 14er Mt Eolus

It’s been three years since my thru-hike of the Wonderland Trail. And since then, I’ve done less backpacking than I would have liked. A few two-nighters in the Wind River last summer pretty much sums it up. So, in preparation for 500 miles on the CO trail starting next month, I jumped in on a 40-mile trek in the San Juans that my friend, Sarah, was planning.

The original plan was to hike into the Chicago Basin, set up camp, summit the four 14ers around the basin (or 3, depending on how you qualify your Colorado 14ers), and then hike back out of the basin. For a round-trip somewhere in the 45-mile range. With close to 13,000 feet of gain.

We arrived at the trailhead around 7pm, way later than I’ve ever started any hike in my life, but with a good two hours of daylight left, and about 4 miles mostly downhill to camping spots by the river. In high spirits and with fast casual burrito bowls in our bellies, we tramped down (and more up than we expected) to the river and set up camp as dusk settled in.

After only a couple hours of hiking with a 30ish pound load, my back and the front of my hips were sore. I’ve never met a hip belt with enough cushion. It just doesn’t exist. I lay down on my foam accordion sleeping pad and rolled back and forth over my stiff spine, trying to coax it into a state of relaxation. As I tossed and turned throughout the night, I cursed the thru-hiker philosophy on sleeping pads. After a series of unfortunate deflations in the Wind River, I swore off inflatable pads, as many thru-hikers before me. But now, I longed for the one hour of medium comfort that had come before each inevitable midnight, and 2 am, and 4 am reinflating of my old leaky inflatable pad. I would give anything for those two inches of air beneath my shoulder and my hip.

On day two, we hiked through dew damp foliage, and beneath a canopy of green. It didn’t feel like the Colorado I’ve come to know and love—dry, exposed, cactus-y. It felt more like the Pacific Northwest, or even the Appalachian Trail. The sky was an ever-changing canvas of grey and white and blue. Clouds rolled in and back out again. Around 11 am, we had hiked just over 4 miles when a sudden wind blew over the river, and I knew that rain was coming. We weighed our options and decided that we’d rather stay dry so early in the trip and take a chance on waiting out the storm. We set up our tent and hid out for the duration. After about an hour and a half of listening to rain splattering on the leaves overhead, the light of the sun shone through the nylon tent wall.

Our spirits were buoyed as the weather improved and we hiked another 5 miles with smiles. A hiker at the trailhead had mentioned that they heard about “150 down trees” in the mile leading up to the basin. When he’d told us, we’d both thanked him for the notice. And when we came to the first down tree, we laughed and said, this must be the “150 down trees” that guy had warned us about. As we straddled tree trunks, did the limbo, and followed social trails around the sides we started to wonder if there were actually 150 down trees… we had assumed it was hyperbole.

If it hadn’t been mile 10 of our day, perhaps the trees would have made a fun obstacle. Or maybe if there had been a few less of them. But by the time we reached the other side of the tree gauntlet, I was exhausted, exasperated, and downright embittered. We checked the map several times and finally determined that we were “in the basin” and set up camp just in time to hide out in the tent for a second rainstorm.

After dinner, I hit the horribly uncomfortable thin flat foam hay early, knowing that we had an early wakeup planned the next morning, in order to summit the first two 14ers: Mt Eolus and N Eolus. North Eolus is not considered a technical 14er by all Colorado 14er enthusiasts, as it is quite closely linked to the summit of Mt Eolus and does not have its own 300 feet of prominence from the shared saddle. But we planned to summit it, whether it counted or not.

We were under the impression, based on maps and information from multiple sources, that the loop to summit Mt Eolus and N Eolus was between 5 and 5.5 miles from the basin. But the basin is quite large. And where exactly are these resources measuring from? It turned out that because of our eagerness to call it a day after 11 miles and “150 down trees” the day before, we had camped too soon and extended our loop considerably. As we hiked up to the beautiful Twin Lakes in the upper basin, and then beyond, we watched the miles tick by. The trail from Twin Lakes to the final ascent of Mt Eolus is stunningly groomed. We remarked no fewer than a dozen times at the rock steady placement of an immaculate stone staircase up the flanks of Mt Eolus. We questioned who had trekked all the way into the basin and come up to 12000 feet with a sledgehammer and rock slings and created such a work of art. After the grueling scree field we had passed in our attempt to summit Mt Sneffels the weekend before, this trail work was astoundingly refined.

But the elevation sapped my energy (or perhaps it was the restless sleep I’d gotten the night before). As we climbed ever higher, I stopped to rest first every quarter mile, then every tenth. Until above 13000 feet, I had to catch my breath every ten or twenty steps. My legs felt good, strong even, but my lungs and heart struggled to do their jobs. Like the day before, the sky was blue, then grey, then blue again. Each ominous cloud we sighted in the distance threatened to turn us back down the mountain. We knew better than to be caught above treeline with a storm approaching, but the storm never seemed to be approaching—only materializing and then disappearing again in the distance.

We discussed turning back, always deciding to keep moving forward, unless conditions worsened. They never did, and painstakingly we made our way to the final ascent. Mt Eolus would be my first Class III summit, and I had vague ideas about what it might have in store for me. A spooky ridgeline—I could handle that. Some technical scrambling didn’t scare me. I was being a tough guy about it. I’m a rugged outdoors woman.

Up a little chute of rock, I stemmed and squeezed myself, trekking poles dangling behind. Stepping up onto the saddle a cool breeze blew over. It was beautiful, but still far from the summit. The spiny ridgeline allowed for hands free navigation, if you have decent balance and a healthy dose of trust in your feet. As I crossed, I was grateful for the years of rock climbing under my belt that have built my confidence on scary terrain. But as we followed the plentiful cairns toward the actual summit, we found ourselves dipping below the ridgeline, walking along small ledges and hopping among boulders.

One particular boulder, the size of a comfy armchair wobbled when I stepped on it, causing my stomach to drop and my heart to jump straight into my throat. Rocks that large shouldn’t move. The image of that rock is forever burned into my mind. If I found myself on that mountain ten years from now—I would know it on sight and never again trust my weight to it. More than once, we tiptoed around sharp exposed corners, hauled ourselves up over steps too large to walk up and rolled our eyes at another strangely indirect switchback. At the final ten feet, Sarah gave up on the cairns and scaled the last section with some class 4 moves. I followed with confidence.

Reaching the summit of a 14er is always an emotional moment. A wave of relief that the work is done, elation and pride at my ability to push myself to do hard things, joy at the beauty of the surrounding landscape. And Eolus did not disappoint. It was the hardest 14er I’ve summitted yet, and the most beautiful. Perched atop its rocky prominence, you can see the San Juans in every direction. It feels like the mountains go on forever and there isn’t another human on earth. Because of its remoteness, we had the summit to ourselves and only saw two other hikers above Twin Lakes that day, and perhaps only a dozen others in the basin the whole weekend. Chicago Basin is a lush paradise of raging rivers, colorful wildflowers and scampering mountain goats. From the top—we could take it all in.

I had thought about turning back a dozen times. Partly because of the weather, but also because of my body’s constant revolt—the difficulty of breathing, the absolutely grueling pace of my trudge, my embarrassment that Sarah could have gone much faster without me. But at last, we had made it. I felt full from the experience, satisfied. And so, when we reached the lower saddle (by way of careful rock picking and excessive pants-shredding butt-scooching), I decided to sit and watch while Sarah literally ran up to the summit of N Eolus, which would always be within my sightline. She made it look easy.

What we thought would be a 5 or 5.5-mile loop was really closer to 9, returning us to our base camp in the basin well after noon. Considering our plan to return to Twin Lakes for a second 14er loop the next day before hiking back to our original campsite 11 miles out of the basin, I realized we had set ourselves up for a 20-mile day. And not just a 20-mile day, but a 20-mile day starting with a 4000-foot climb, and class IV terrain, something I had never experienced before. I expressed my hesitation with the plan to Sarah and we spent the evening debating different options. I considered hiking up to Twin Lakes and waiting there while she summited Sunlight and Windom. I considered heading up behind her and meeting for the final approach of Windom (a class II summit) after she’d tagged Sunlight. But eventually we settled on heading out of the basin a day early and crashing the hot springs in Ouray for a relaxing send off from our backpacking trip.

That night, I tossed and turned. I felt guilty about putting a damper on our plans to summit all 4 14ers. I knew that our trip wouldn’t look very hardcore to people who consider themselves hardcore. And while I know logically that I don’t need to look hardcore to people who consider themselves hardcore, the pressure to keep up appearances can be intense. But my body was exhausted and it’s not like a 40-mile backpacking trip with 9000 feet of gain was anything to sneeze at. These numbers are all arbitrary anyway.

I was halfway through a third night of abysmal sleep when I heard a clicking and clacking outside our tent at 1:30 in the morning. My eyes shot open, and my heart pounded in my chest. Was it a bear? Probably not. A deer? Could be. A goat? Seemed likely. I sat up in my sleeping bag—so that I might be prepared, for I don’t know what action, if whatever it was came barreling into our tent. I listened with bated breath for over an hour as the creature rattled around less than 5 feet from me. I was certain that it was a mountain goat, as we’d found footprints from another goat visitor the morning before outside our tent. As long as it was out there moving around, there was no way I’d get back to sleep, but Sarah slept soundly, and I didn’t want to wake her unless something was actually happening.

But then around 2:30, I heard the metal-on-metal clanking of our ice axes, which were stashed under the rainfly on Sarah’s side of the tent. I poked her awake with urgency. “Something’s out there.” I whispered. “I heard the ice axes move.” I explained to her that I’d been listening to something nosing around out there for over an hour and we both squinted out into the dark, narrow spaces created by the rainfly.

We watched as something small and dark crept under the forward rainfly and felt around on Sarah’s flipflop. It was either a marmot or a bear’s paw. After a bit more united panicking, we began to carry on a loud conversation and whatever it was moved off. Once the only noises we heard were our own, we plucked up the courage to shine a headlamp out of the tent for a look around. I saw nothing. Sarah, without her contacts, would have seen nothing either way. We ventured out into the darkness and found a place where we could squat five feet apart and pee together and weren’t eaten by bears or marmots.

Upon inspection, the cork handles of Sarah’s trekking poles had been completely devoured by a marmot. The tiny teeth imprints could only have been made by rodent chompers. The creature had also gotten hold of her climbing helmet, and chewed every absorbent surface, mutilating the strap systems and leaving almost no padding around the forehead. Admittedly, it would have been difficult for Sarah to summit Sunlight with her gear in such a state. I was grateful that a decision had already been made, and not forced at the hands of a marmot.

Sleep evaded me the rest of the night. I was forced to lie awake on my foam sleeping pad, rolling over and over again, waiting for one part of my body to fall asleep before switching positions and suffering the burning prickles of blood’s return.

The next day, we powered through the 15 miles between us and our car. We traversed the fallen forest, (which upon counting, actually contained 200 down trees!), drank our fills from the rushing alpine rivers, and managed to avoid the rain once again. Near the trailhead we met a local woman and her young daughter who were out on horseback, the only other all-female group we had seen all weekend. The woman asked where we were coming from, and we replied, “Chicago Basin.”

“You came all the way from the basin today?” She asked. “You ladies are machines.”

We grinned.

All tips received from this story will be put toward a new sleeping pad for my trip on the Colorado Trail!

Christine Reed is the author of the award-winning trail memoir, Alone in Wonderland. Find her on Instagram @ruggedoutdoorswoman