Trip Report – 5 days, 4 nights in the Weminuche
We planned a 6 day, 5 night trip up Vallecito Creek, up Sunlight Creek to Sunlight Lake, climb up Windom Peak, and trip back to the trail head.

The first day started out with rain and overcast skies as we headed up Vallecito Creek.


Fishing was pretty lame. A lot of work for just a few small trout. We set up an early camp between the second and third crossing and prepared for a rainy evening. One of the guys did some fishing and spooked a moose.
After just some minor showers at night, we woke to a really nice day.
We completed the third (bridgeless) crossing with no major mishaps.



We started finding fields of wild strawberries and raspberries.



We crossed the river one more time late afternoon where sunlight creek enters the Vallecito and made camp. We had only climbed about 2000-feet net in the first 2 days. The next day we would climb about 2100 net feet in about 2 miles over very rough terrain.

The third day was as nice as they come. We started climbing up the sunlight creek drainage with waterfalls everywhere.

The trail was very sketchy with avalanche debris an issue over the first mile. We took a wrong turn and ended up on a “trail” that a goat may have walked on once to commit suicide.

Surprisingly, sunlight creek had big trout in all the pools.

We made camp about 400 vertical feet short of Sunlight Lake. After setting up camp, gathering wood, and retreating 400 vertical feet down the trail to retrieve a lost water filter, we headed up to the lake.
It was one of the most amazing places I had been to, but pictures are underwhelming.

One of us caught 6-8 20+inch trout out of the lake in about one hour.

Flowers were everywhere.

The next day we headed on a journey to summit Windom Peak. We climbed the ridge around Sunlight Lake, skirted the lake above Sunlight Lake, and eventually almost killed ourselves climbing the wrong peak.


We ended up climbing the unnamed 13400’+ peak on the left.

The boulder field was the worst I’ve ever been in. The rocks were just waiting to fall and several times I thought I was a goner as a rock slide started under my feet.






Mountain Lion Track? Sorry for the bad picture.


After making it down the mountain, we broke camp and headed back down to the Vallecito. We made a late camp and the headed down trail to the truck.

https://plus.google.com/107713123550999670857/posts/Q5E3NGqVa4C?gpinv=AMIXal-J0AfwbG6QVhaMvVPazRzk5quP2xAx8gtWVqd3mihku43RXdBq1MEVyXZOhJUlLUx3e9uYoHKwp-rI42uikbBMrM_KOFyCiltd726QbgvzlPbj2Qo&cfem=1

Awesome. I have done that twice in the Pecos Wilderness and I miss it.

awesome! that lake was still frozen over when I was there as a teenager. we attempted Mt. Eolus, but was turned back by too much snow. we did make it to the summit of Jupiter Peak.

your pics bring back a lot of memories.

Nicely done. Glad you made it back in one piece in spite of the opportunities to do otherwise.

Looks like a blast! I bet carrot top is pretty funny to hike with too.

Very cool

Awesome report! I might have to put this area on my list of next backpacking trips.

Well done, and thanks for sharing.

Windom Peak is on my list of hikes that I want to do in the near future.

Thanks for sharing, looks like a blast.

Very nice. Coop, let me know if you want some company. Windom just moved way up the list if there's 20" trout below the summit.

Anyone know if the tracks are mountain lion?

Oldarmy, it's possible but pretty hard to make a call from my phone screen. It's a double registered track. How big was it?

ursus guy, I'd say they were about 5-5.5". There are a couple more pictures in the link to all the pictures that I posted, but none of them turned out good with the evening light and a tired guy behind the camera. They were less than 30 hours old since we didn't see them on the way up. They weren't dog/coyote so I'm not sure what else they could have been (too big for bobcat I think).

We also saw tons of fresh bear scat, but I'm now 0 for about 10 for seeing bears on backpacking trips.

Cool. I was up in that same area north of Durango for the most part instead of east of it last week as well. Lots of spotty thundershowers in the afternoons, but otherwise very nice weather. Loads of wildflowers and raspberries on the trails.

bump and 2 additional pictures for ursus