Weminuche Wilderness, San Juan National Forest, CO

Dates

Aug 5th - Aug 11th 2012

Service Project

Trail maintenance

Free Days

Day hikes to area peaks & lakes, fishing, photography, relaxing.

Accommodations

Backpack camping

Trip Rating

Strenuous : 5 mile backpack, digging, bending, cutting. Pack animal supported.

Leaders

Jeff Moorehead
ToBe Announced

Equipment

The Weminuche Wilderness lies in the San Juan and Rio Grande National Forests of southwestern Colorado and is the largest designated Wilderness in the state at nearly half a million acres! Fifty miles of the Continental Divide, the geological backbone of North America, bissect the Weminuche, diverting its headwaters to either the Pacific or Atlantic oceans. Of our two projects in this wilderness in 2012, this one is on the Pacific side, with waters flowing down the Colorado River to Baja Mexico.

The Weminuche contains the headwaters of dozens of major streams and rivers, feeding both the Rio Grande and San Juan rivers, two of the Southwest's most ecologically and culturally significant waterways. It's immense size encompasses broad and diverse environments: cascading rivers swollen with snowmelt; immense glacial valleys; windswept ridges of the Continental Divide; and the seemingly unreachable summits of skyscraping granite. Collectively, the Weminuche offers spectacular examples of dramatically different mountain landscapes. In our area, some 20 miles north of Pagosa Springs, CO, 12,000' ragged peaks and sharp cliffs formed over millions of years as volcanic eruptions covered the landscape. Later glaciation created cirque lakes that dot the high country.

Our service project is on the southwestern side of the divide in the San Juan National Forest. It involves a backpack of approximately 5 miles along Turkey Creek, with only mild elevation rise, up into the Weminuche Wilderness where we'll set up a basecamp around 9,000' next to Turkey Creek. Our work is basic trail maintenance including cutting back overgrown vegetation, tread work, and repair of water diversions on this popular trail. The San Juan National Forest will arrange pack support to carry the tools, food and commissary gear to camp.

Check out more photos from last year's Weminuche project in our gallery.