Treasure Mountain

San Juan National Forest

Rio Grande National Forest

Click for map.

I was thinking I might do a loop of Treasure Mountain Trail, some gravel road, Silver Creek Trail, and the Continental Divide Trail backpacking, but decided against. But I can still do Treasure Mountain. The starting point is up on Wolf Creek Pass as the CDT follows along the Continental Divide. Treasure Mountain Trail drops off the side after about 2 miles. It doesn't actually go up the mountain, but I can fix that with a little bit of cross country.

There is an interpretive site at the pass to tell about the divide, the road, and the trail. It gets a surprising amount of business. The trail is off to the left.

The trail going south seems a lot more defined than the one headed north. It crosses a meadow and then a creek with a bridge. Talk about luxury. Then up through the beetle killed trees where it needs a lot of maintenance. It has gotten a lot, too, but there is more work now. These beetles know that killing their host is not only considered bad form, but bad judgment, surely? They won't have any food and we won't have any spruce. Or whatever these used to be.

Dear beetles, Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.

The divide stretching to the north. It isn't always on the highest mountains out there.

As the trail breaks out to the ridge and above the trees, it is pushed onto the Pacific side by the ski resort mostly on the Atlantic side. Lots of view with more to the west coming around with each step. First there is something that might be Treasure Mountain. No, it isn't. A little further there is something that is definitely Treasure Mountain and the long drop down to the East Fork San Juan River.

Some nearby lower peaks.

Across one of the ski roads into the Rio Grande side of things.

Now that's Treasure Mountain.

And the drop off to the river beside it.

The trail is signed where it drops off the side of the divide, but, if I'm being honest, not actually there. The map says right down the hill, which is a tiny bit steep for that sort of thing. Whatever. Right down the hill it is.

Sign for "Treasure Mtn Tr 565" but no actual trail.

After a little going down, I pull out the electronic map with the GPS dot and ask what it thinks. It thinks I should have tended to the right a bit, so I start out that way hoping there might be something of a trail in some places. I'm in luck! There is. It leads me nicely down around a minor cliff with a little bit of ribbon work, then vanishes again before meeting the road below.

Cairn to show where to step into the trees from the meadow to get down the next steep bit. There is some trail here.

This part of the trail should be easier to follow. Too bad I'm leaving it for the peak.

At the road, the trail takes over as an ATV trail. I don't expect it to go very far, but there's a truck parked there indicating someone might be riding it. An old logging road (or similar) starts up the other side and I go for that instead. It has a trail on it, so I figure I might as well try it. Where would it go, if not to the peak?

A bit of abandoned road. The truck is just behind the trees.

The trail climbs up away from the road then winds around to the top of a cliff looking out to the north next to a plaque memorializing the spot as Rusty's Ridge. Also eye catching is the waterfall coming over a ledge just on the other side of US-160. I guess it could go to that.

Looking out from the top of the cliff over the dirt road that accesses the low point of this route I have taken, plus a number of meadow.

The trail does actually go past the memorial, not just to.

The waterfall across the gap. Relief from that dreadful soft focus granted by changing lenses on the camera.

The trail continues on, keeping on the right flank of the mountain while I think I should be following the ridge. But it is so distinct and even has cuts through the logs, I keep on following it figuring it'll find a spot to climb. It seems to have other ideas as it starts to actually drop and veer even further from the ridge line. I almost try it anyway, but then there is a big tree with no obvious continuation on the far side to make it easy to abandon. I wind my way upward to the ridge line to find another trail that agrees with me a little better.

Not just beetle kill, but burned. Fun. But this shouldn't be too long to get to that peak.

Yep, Treasure Mountain Trail is a lot more obvious down there as I look across to the great divide. The line of cliffs is almost visible in the soft focus of a soggy lens.

The trail takes me over not too many trees and with not too many uncertain points to the bottom of the last, steep push uphill to the top. It is open, so easy to just pick my way along whatever looks like the best next step. Somehow I am on trail again by the top.

Looking backward along the easy part of the ridge to Wolf Creek Pass in the distance.

At a guess, the trail I was following first gets somewhere over to that lower mesa.

The steep class 1 ramp gets quite narrow toward the top.

The mountain sticks out from the ridge line of the divide with just over 1000 feet of prominence, so there is a lot to look at from the top. (Prominence according to Peakbagger, but I think it might be more like 800 feet.)

The new view. Opposite the ridge line ramp, there is a drop off to a much lower ridge line.

All the way around as seen from the west end of the peak.

South, there are some interesting features around the East Fork San Juan River.

Looking off to the divide again.

My trek back stays on the ridge and there seems to be trail the whole way, most of it findable when needed. This one also has cuts through the trees as though it was a proper trail. The weather was looking mildly threatening as I started and gets worse as I go.

Just got to follow the ridge line, such as it is, down.

I still can't find the trail as it connects with the road, but a little higher up it becomes clear as it winds upward. There are more clues of trail higher than where I found it. There are cut logs and a few blazes on dead trees with their bark falling off. It might just be possible for a very observant person who misses none of the markers to follow what is left of this trail without other help. Barely.

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Now Treasure Mountain is surrounded by clouds and the tree on the right contains a blaze to get to its base.

It starts to rain and I find myself climbing under the rumble of thunder. Great. As I arrive at the CDT, a group accuses me of getting off the beaten path. Ha! There's a sign right there! Trail! It even exists some of the time. They concrete the point and get back to hurrying toward the pass since they have no rain gear.

Oh no, it's raining again. Back at the CDT and I still can't see trail where it says Treasure Mountain Trail should be.

The never hard rain is already slacking. Had I been paying more attention, I might have gone over to tag Alberta Peak as well. It is basically flat all the way with a little up at the end and not much more than a mile. There are even some people coming down who seem to think this is the Alberta Peak Trail. I'm sure there's some AllTrails entry to blame for that. The Forest Service claims it doesn't even quite go up the peak.

A small meadow while walking back in the trees.

It amuses me to see that the sign at the top, in its section on the trail, says that from here you can go out for a few hours or all day with examples. It specifically mentions "following Treasure Mountain Trail" as an all day adventure. All I can think is, good luck with that.




©2019 Valerie Norton
Written 2 Sep 2019