Time: 15 Hours

Distance: 26 Miles 13k Vert

After chatting with our friend Chris Tomer to try to get some good weather dates locked in, we were given the green light to head into the Weminuche on Tuesday the 23rd, and oh man, was it epicly fun!

First off, Erin and I have a really hard time waking up early (before 7 a.m.) to go climb anything. We really value our sleep as we climb almost every day of the week. Typically, we get up, climb, eat, and then sleep. We have planned to wake up at 5 or even 6 a.m. for several other linkups, but we always sleep through our alarms and end up still climbing most, if not all, of the planned peaks. Obviously, this is a little harder and more of a gamble during the monsoon season, but we are usually fast enough to still get something done.

Although the excitement around climbing in the Vestal Basin was more than enough for us to actually wake up to our set alarm at 1:45 a.m. to run in and climb some epic mountains in the Grenadiers. These are all peaks we have been anxiously wanting to climb for some time now but never really made our way down south to get into the Wemi. Mostly because we are focused on other projects most of the year and have a hard time finding the time to go into the Wemi.

We were in bed and asleep by 7 p.m. the night prior and awake and at it by 1:45 a.m. the next morning, absolutely stoked to go out for an epic adventure. Our plans were to climb Arrow, Vestal, and the Trinities in a single-day push from Molas Pass, and that’s exactly what we did. Our friend and professional photographer Felipe joined us for Arrow and Vestal, which added to the fun. He is an absolute trooper for running in with a camera and two separate lenses to capture some incredible shots on these two peaks, as well as running all the way back out alone.

At 2:45 a.m., the three of us set out down the CT from Molas Trail, near Molas Pass. It was a chilly start to the morning; I think my van read 40 degrees when we started. I typically follow the “be bold, start cold” method, starting out in a T-shirt and shorts and warming up fairly quickly. I was carrying 1L of water and roughly 3100 calories in my vest with a couple of layers, a filter bottle, an InReach, and a few other small items.

As we made our way down the CT under the full moon, we shared great conversation and enjoyed each other's company. We were down at the train tracks in about 35 minutes or so, eating our first snacks of the day. At the tracks, we somehow missed the turnoff for the CT that wraps around up into Elk Creek and followed the train tracks for maybe a mile before realizing that we were not on the correct path. We ended up bushwhacking straight up the hill to the CT, and all was well. While running further into the Wemi, we encountered bushes and flowers along the trail as tall as us for short sections, full of morning dew, which was a pleasant surprise as we brushed by them and got a bit damp.

We made it to the turnoff for Vestal Basin after about 1.5 hours before the fun started to really begin. There's about a 1-mile stretch going into the basin with a ton of downfall. I think we climbed up and over maybe 50+ downed trees during that 1-mile stretch before things turned back into a smooth-ish trail to the basin of our objective.

Going so deep into the Wemi on a Tuesday, we partially figured that there wouldn’t be a lot of other people out there wanting to climb the same mountains, but we were wrong. We passed multiple campsites and ran into a few climbers early in the morning as we refilled our water at the base of the mountains. During the refill process, it started to get pretty cold, so I went ahead and put on a layer as the first light hit, and we continued up towards our objectives.

Climbing up and over the bench to the base of Vestal and Arrow was fun, and when we got our first views of Vestal, we were all absolutely mind-blown. What an incredible mountain! It’s so aesthetic, and there is something very magical about being there in that zone as the sun started to rise. The stoke was high, and we were all looking forward to starting out the day.

It took us about 3 hours to get to the base of Arrow, our first climb of the day. We made it to the summit in about 1 hour with a good handful of stops for Felipe to get some pictures of us climbing, the landscapes, etc. It is a very straightforward class 3 climb with the option of making it harder if you’d like. I ended up playing around on a bunch of different class 4 sections and had a really good time climbing to the summit via a “choose your adventure” route. We all summited and watched the full moon and sun do their things in the sky while gazing over at Vestal's Ramp. What a magnificent sight to see. It really doesn’t get much better than that.

As we made our way back down Arrow, we staged a few photos on the North Ridge proper before running down the fun slabby rock back to the base of Arrow and Vestal. We all had some snacks, refilled on water, and made our way over to Wham Ridge, the main event for the day.

Looking up at Wham is a wild feeling. It’s such a beautiful ramp and looks like so much fun, and man, was it. We didn’t bring a rope or gear and soloed the Wham, having an incredible time doing so. The bottom half of the face was very easy class 2-3 slabby rock for a while before it really starts to get steep. The three of us took turns route-finding and making our way up Wham, having a blast and soaking in all the feelings of climbing such an epic route. The majority of the route felt like class 4 and low 5th climbing besides a 20-30 foot section. To me, it felt like 5.4 and above some serious exposure. Felipe led this part of the route, and Erin and I followed. Having soloed the OS on the Grand twice, knowing that is also “5.4,” this crux on Wham seemed a bit more difficult and way more real in terms of being 5th class climbing.

After the crux, we continued up, following the path of least resistance for the most part, having a ball scrambling on awesome class 4/low 5th rocks to the summit. Felipe climbed above us on several sections to get photos with the camera he lugged all the way out there. We were on the summit by about 10 a.m. or so, and the sun was out. It was warm, a bit smoky, but otherwise absolutely perfect weather. Thanks, Tomer! You nailed it!

We started our descent off the backside of Vestal and honestly didn’t find it nearly as bad as most of the descriptions I have read about it. Yes, it is very loose, and there's a lot of potential for rock fall that would really jack someone up who is below you, but we were very careful and made our way down nice and smoothly. A few hundred feet down, Felipe parted ways with Erin and me, making his way towards the saddle between Vestal and Arrow and on out of the Wemi alone. Erin and I broke towards the saddle between Vestal and the Trinities and found a nice and easy class 2 romp to make it over there. All in all, the descent was a chossy mess but fairly easy to maneuver. Way less sketchy than the hourglass on Little Bear, in my opinion.

Erin and I didn’t really know much about the Trinities other than they were class 3/4-ish, so we sent it along the ridge. The traverse is actually very cairned, which was kind of surprising as neither of the other two peaks we had already climbed had any. Even without cairns, I think the route finding would be very easy if you’re a competent climber and have ample experience with class 3 and 4 terrain. It’s also a ‘choose your adventure’ type of traverse, which makes it fun. You can make it as easy (class 3) or spicy (low 5th) as you’d like. I typically play around on whatever looks fun to me, so I ended up just climbing whatever.

West Trinity was probably the easiest of the three and a cakewalk compared to Wham. It was fun and fast. Getting over to Trinity was also fairly easy and pretty darn fun. We had been moving for about 9.5 hours at this point and started to feel a bit of fatigue but continued on with our nutrition plan and perfect weather to push forward.

Coming down Trinity, we ran into a fellow climber, Joel, who was doing the Trinity Traverse. He was from Texas and makes trips to CO to climb all sorts of stuff when he has free time. We all descended Trinity together and shared some good conversation before parting ways on the climb up East Trinity. East Trinity was probably my favorite of the three. It had more sustained scrambling and was very enjoyable. Erin also crushed the traverse and seemingly had a blast.

On top of our final peak of the day, we had some snacks and took in the incredible views that the Wemi had to offer before heading back the way we came. We knew we still had a long way to go to get out of there, so we kept our effort fairly chill until we got back to the trail. We took a scree slope down into the basin, walked around a beautiful high alpine lake, and then followed a game trail back down to where we started our climb. Erin and I filled our water again as we were running pretty low. The cold water was very refreshing.

Once we were back on the trail, we estimated about 3 hours to get out of the Wemi and back to Molas Pass. We were about spot on with the estimation, including several stops to talk to different people on the trail and on the CT, sharing our adventures with others and hearing about theirs as well. We ran into two of the climbers that we met at the base of Vestal at their campsite past the downfall section of the Vestal Basin trail and chatted with them for a good bit. Simon Testa was a good dude and knew who Erin was, so we exchanged a lot of fun conversation. They warned us that a moose was a little ahead as of 30 minutes prior.

Erin and I took off running down the trail, and once we exited the trees, we were stopped dead in our tracks by the said moose, standing about 50 yards in front of us just staring at us. We quickly scrambled up the nearby boulder field to give it space to go on its way. There were maybe 10 other people watching this encounter from a distance. Once we got on top of the rocks, the moose full-on sprinted out of the marsh and back into the woods. What a sight that was to see! We chatted with the backpackers for a little bit and then started running out of Elk Creek towards the train tracks.

The final climb back to Molas Pass was a bit of a slog, especially after what we had just done for the day. We were both pretty beat and ready for cold La Croix and real food. We made it back to the van a little less than 15 hours later after we had started off on this adventure. WOW!

What a day. This was honestly one of my favorite days I have ever had in the mountains, and I wouldn’t have traded the company or experience for anything else. I have done a lot of big linkup days and climbed hundreds of different mountains, but this will be an adventure that sticks with me forever. I will never forget when I first laid my eyes on Vestal in disbelief that this was actually a mountain we were going to climb. Wham was one of the most fun routes I had ever touched, and I’m happy to have shared that climb with Erin and Felipe.

I have some other big plans for the Wemi... I will share more later.