Finally got back into the high country again, this time without any planing or forethought, just accepted an opportunity to join fellow UL friend, his daughter and granddaughter to an early morning start on one of Durango’s most famous hikes, peak climbs and landmarks.  The wildflowers took a beating over the last week and weren’t still in their prime, nevertheless offered splendid colors and contrast to the sometimes bleak roads I’d recently traveled.

Only 30 miles from Durango, just north of our Purgatory Ski Area, at Coal Bank Pass you leave the summit parking lot and wander uphill thru some old growth trees and verdant undercover to the high meadows below the just-under-13,000′ Engineer Mountain.  For those not adverse to “a bit of exposure” the trail continues right on up to the peak for a total of 2,800′ of elevation gain.  It’s always best to be off the top before lunch in the San Juan’s and we were well within those guidelines with a total “moving time” just over 3 hours.

In case you might be anxious about the climbing part of this hike, I should have photographed the 5-year-old who summited shortly after us (admittedly his mother was not along).

Besides having the Spot Locator on, I enjoy tracking the hikes with my GaiaGPS iPhone Ap.  It’ll give me all the stats save calorie count.  At the end of the hike I can export the track to my computer and import the track into a variety of applications like Google Earth or my new favorite TOPO a National Geographic app (shown above).

This hike also qualified as a WIS hike since I wore my Forest Service Volunteer shirt, picked up trash, blocked off switch-back short-cuts, answered hiker questions and took note of downed trees. Our reports go to the FS trail crews who come out later and remove downed trees and repair trails.

As if hiking for the beauty, pleasure and exercise is not a goal in itself, the WIS (Wilderness Information Specialist) aspect gives these hikes an additional purpose and the benefit of community service, which makes getting out all that more significant and pushes me out the door more often.