Anyone in Paonia? (West Elks Wilderness content)

[Dan]

Just a shot in the dark here, but I spend a lot of time in Crested Butte and I’ve really enjoyed exploring the east side of the West Elks Wilderness. The NW part of the wilderness looks incredibly tempting to me, tons of trails and very remote. The options seem almost endless, so I would appreciate some recommendations for 2-4 night trips.

[Eli]

I’m assuming the route you already did is the Baldies ridge and up to West Elk Peak? I did the drainage from West Elk Peak down Castle Creek to Costo Lake and it was extremely rough. I have no idea where the Caltopo map line came from.

I have no beta on the West side, but the West Elks are very cool and underrated!

[Dan]

Hi Eli, it’s great to hear from someone else who has hike in the WE, you don’t hear much about it.

I may have done the route you mentioned, in fact my wife and I just did it again last week. In fact, I posted a report on my first trip in 2022 (https://backpackinglight.com/member-trip-reports/flowers-and-castles-in-central-colorado-or-how-i-learned-to-distrust-gaia/). We came in from Swampy Pass TH to Cow Camp, then went up the South Castle Creek valley and camped below Storm Pass. On the second day, we climbed up to Storm Pass and followed the ridge all the way around the Castles, over the knife-edge (is that called Baldies Ridge? Cool! How did you learn that?! My wife and I were debating whether it was sketchier than Devil’s Causeway in the Flat Tops), and down into the top of the Castle Creek valley and camped there. On the third day, we followed Castle Creek out (no trail) to the Pass Creek valley and went back out to the TH. On my first trip, I attempted to follow the trail marked on Gaia to Costo Lake, but really only found game trails, and too much deadfall, so I gave up and followed a drainage out.

[Dan]

I have also done a loop starting on Kebler Pass road, including Beckwith Pass, Castle Pass and Sheep Lake. And a trip in the SE part, on the Mills-Castle and Lowline trails. So a number of short trips on the east side, and you can find some info on these areas online if you look hard enough. I was wondering if there would be good trips in the NW part, e.g. starting out of the Minnesota Pass area, which looks very intriguing on the map. I can just start exploring, I guess, but the drive is a commitment, and firsthand info is always welcome.

[Dan]

OK, Eli, I just looked at the map, and I’m inferring that Baldies Ridge is the hike connecting north, middle, and south Baldy. That looks great, but we didn’t do that whole thing, just the high ridge from Storm Pass across West Elk to unnamed 12.9k peak (over knife-edge) and down to Castle Creek. Sounds like we have done some of the same areas.

[Eli]

Yep! I don’t know if the ridge has a formal name, but I was referring to the route that follows along the various North/Middle/South Baldy mountains.

The valley decent we did is the one you described as the Gaia path you had trouble with below the knifes edge off West Elk. I followed the GPS line through the woods and there was no discernible trail, save for a few fragments of tread I saw along the way. I believe that the marked route comes from Open Street Maps (not completely sure about that, but it would explain it’s presence on various digital maps) and is a great example of something that was probably never recorded by a GPS but drawn onto the map and somehow remained to be presented to anyone with a GPS app. It would make sense that people would have taken that route over the years, but I would not currently recommend it to all but the most bushwhack-loving tree hoppers.

I don’t know much else about the Wilderness Area but I found it to feel like a quiet little slice of the GYE without grizzlies north of the Weminuche. Rugged and scenic!

[Author]

Posts