Mount Moss – 13,194 and Lavender Peak – 13,327

RT Length: 10.58 miles

Elevation Gain: 3604’

Once again, this wasn’t the peak I’d planned for today. In fact, due to my carelessness with my new truck and forgetting to wrap the wires with rat tape, I had a 2am encounter with varmints and had to abandon a days worth of hiking (where I’d hoped to get in 5 ranked 13ers). Not to bore you, but if you want to hear the story and see video footage, click here to find out what creature got stuck inside my truck, and the damage they did. Also, rat tape your wires people.

So, after an 8 hour detour, I found myself at around 9800’, at the base of the Tomahawk Mine, parked off road 124 and 798 near Mancos. I was up and on the trail at 6am

I followed road 798 for about 1.5 miles northwest.

After about 1.5 miles I came to a junction, and turned left. You can continue on the road here, as it will eventually get you to the same place, but I wanted to see the Tomahawk Mine. If you’d like to see the mine, turn left here, and follow the road.

The road will quickly end, but a trail will pick up to the right. It will take you to Tomahawk Mine.

If you look closely, to the left of the mine is a trail that will lead you north, back to the 4WD road.

I turned left, and followed this road northeast until Little Kate Mine.

At the base of the mine, just as the road switchbacks to the right, I ascended a scree game trail northeast to treeline. The trail is obvious, and splits and comes together a few times, but I generally headed towards treeline.

At treeline I headed west, towards Tomahawk Basin. There’s kind of a trail here, but it’s really faint.

Now I needed to ascend into the upper basin. There are several ways to do this (I went up a different way than I descended), but you basically want to get above the waterfall. If you take the route I’ve outlined, there will be a faint game trail to the top, but you may need to search a bit to find it.

I followed the creek as it headed west. There is a faint game trail, but eventually it goes away. Just keep heading west.

Now in Tomahawk Basin, my next goal was to gain the ridge. This was extremely steep. I gained 665’ of elevation in .3 miles. Luckily, the terrain was easy to navigate. Here’s the route I took.

And some pictures of the hike to gain the ridge, staying mostly on tundra.

Once on the ridge I took a little break and put on my helmet. There was a short class 3 section and some scrambling to do from here on out. I headed north, following the ridge and then dipping down to the left. It should be noted the ridge goes at class 3 most of the way, after the initial drop off to the left and re-gaining the ridge, but to make it easier there are game trails to the left of the ridge that I followed most of the time. It should also be noted the rocks here are loose, so watch your footing.

I summited Mount Moss at 9:30am

Mount Moss:

From Mount Moss I could see Lavender Peak to the northeast

It’s a really good idea to take a good look at the route you’d like to take now, as when you’re below the summit it can be difficult to figure out where you’re at. The summit of Lavender is the point furthest west. This is the route I took to the summit, which was mostly class 3, but included a class 4 chimney.

First, I descended to the Moss/Lavender saddle. Once again, lots of large, loose rocks.

From the saddle, I ascend the ridge to Lavender to just below the gullies, at around 13125’

Next, I traversed west, looking for the gully I wanted to ascend.

This is the route I took to ascend the gully. There’s a difficult 3/easy 4 chimney to ascend, just below a cool looking cave. Ascend straight up to the cave, to right around the cave, and the summit will be to the left.

And some pictures up the gully.

Once you get past the cave, the summit is to your left

It’s an easy trek to get there, up a small ramp

I summited Lavender Peak at 10:45am

Lavender Peak:

And now to head back down. Here are some pictures of my way back down the gully. I turned and faced the mountain for much of the trek down.

Safely down the gully, I made my way back to the Moss/Lavender saddle

Having no desire to summit Mount Moss again, I decided to traverse below the summit, staying at around 12900’ to get to the ridge

Once on the ridge, I followed it south to my entry point

And then back down into Tomahawk Basin

I made my way back to the scree trail

Then followed it back down to the 4WD road.

I followed the road a little more than 2 miles back down to the trailhead

I made it back to the trailhead at 1:30pm, making this a 10.58 mile hike with 3604’ of elevation gain in 7.5 hours

On to the next trailhead!