Hike Twilight Peaks Traverse and West Needle Mountain San Juan National Forest, CO

Aug 22, 2020 — The Twilight group of Colorado 13ers is a fairly remote few peaks that, until this outing, seemed to be an unattainable undertaking that I'd get to "one day". I'd seen them many times from surrounding peaks, thinking they were inaccessible, based on the lack of information on how to approach them. Additionally, their isolation, the name "Twilights", and their cliffy appearance somehow just added to their adventurous-feeling vibe. The eight of us started out from the Andrews Lake Trailhead, and I highly recommend not having a group this large. The route is loose and steep and we had a couple of close calls with rocks getting kicked off. Regardless, having a bunch of friends to talk to on the long approach to Crater Lake was nice. The trail is in great shape, and pretty popular. It undulates more than I thought, a fact I observed more on the way back when I was ready to be back to the car and the noms it offered.

Once at Crater Lake, we took in the morning light on North Twilight Peak before continuing on a trail on the east side of the lake. The trail gained some grassy slopes, passed a cute tarn, and headed south into wide views of the South Twilight Peak and the massive Animas River Valley to the east. The trail faded and soon disappeared, leaving us to traverse a boulder field that would consume a fair amount of our time. The route involves descending a few hundred feet to avoid garbage side-hilling and cliffs before reascending on increasingly steep talus to the saddle southeast of South Twilight Peak. As we neared the saddle, the talus faded into steep grass, and the views back the way we came were impressive, the Class 2 we had gotten through all visible.

Once at the saddle southeast of South Twilight Peak, we took in the views of an unnamed lake below and of West Needle Mountain to the south. Our plan was to hit Peak 12932 before continuing onward to West Needle Mountain, then return to the saddle we were currently on. From the saddle, we scrambled up a small gully on our right (Class 2+) and traversed below the cliffy base of an unnamed point along the ridge (Class 2). This led to the saddle of the unnamed point and Peak 12932. It required minimal route-finding to get here. We then made the mistake of ascending Peak 12932's northwest ridge. It appeared to be Class 2, but we were blocked by a notch obstacle a few hundred feet from the summit. I don't recommend going into the notch, although we did separate into four groups to find routes each of us was comfortable with and some of us did drop into it. I would recommend dropping low, staying away from the ridge and bypassing this obstacle completely (I included this bypass on my attached map), reascending on a Class 2 talus slope to gain the summit. We would all ultimately use this slope anyway. However, if you want some adventure, drop into the notch and route-find through the Class 3/4. The route I ended up going with required a small stemming down-climb through the notch, and a re-ascent over a rock rib to get into the aforementioned Class 2 talus slope, which leads to the summit. Once at the summit of Peak 12932, we took its southern ridge. Ben used this as his ascent to the peak, and recommended it as a good descent option. This involved some grassy slopes and casual Class 2 with great views onto a loose Class 2 slope of pure talus, which didn't let up until we reached the base of West Needle Mountain.

From the base of West Needle Mountain's northeast ridge, we headed up steep Class 2 boulders to a notch. Class 2+ grassy slopes mixed in with easily kickable rocks continues up the ridge. Be very, very careful here. There are multiple routes you could take along the ridge, but the first hundred feet or so doesn't offer this flexibility, and we did our best to fan out to avoid rock-kicking. Ascending the ridge, we were able to separate sufficiently, at least three Class 3 options available. It was actually really fun scrambling, and the rock seemed to become less loose as we went. About halfway up, the ridge began to narrow and we were met with some thoughtful sections, where keeping just left of the ridge helped keep the route under Class 4. Additionally, there was a Class 3 set of moves on a steeper section of the ridge that proved a little scary on the way down, the exposure not as apparent on the ascent. The ridge continued to be fun, and we kept just left of the ridge crest as we neared a false summit to avoid some scary-looking rock blocks. Also just below the false summit is a short knife-edge ending with a Class 3+ section, but there's a Class 2 workaroud on the right. The false summit led to a very nice flat section on easy terrain.

Once back to the base of West Needle Mountain, we side-hilled on talus, ascending slowly back to the saddle on the northwest side of Peak 12932, where we backtracked to the South Twilight Peak saddle. A Class 2+ scramble led to South Twilight's summit, and a pleasant traverse mostly free of talus continued to Twilight Peak. Very pretty, but not much to note about this part of the ridgeline.

From Twilight Peak, I took a deep breath, believing the descent from Twilight Peak to its northern saddle would be the crux of the day. It ended up only being Class 3, but did require some route-finding. And it's very loose. In short: Stick to the highest point of the ridge as possible before dropping into a major notch. Long version: Carefully, we started along the ridge, quickly realizing we would have to stay just left of the crest to avoid terrifying exposure on loose rock. A shelf of sorts helped us feel better about the loose rock, but it still required care. To our left was a steep drop and a rocky gully that could possibly be used as a less-optimal descent, but we took the high road. After some slow traversing along the shelf, it will be tempting to drop down to grassy terrain below, but I recommend staying as high up as you can for as long as you can. I don't know if there is even a route below, and the route we took was lovely. Just before descending into the big notch, there was one rock rib in particular where a few from the group dropped to the left (which seemed like the obvious way, and ultimately did work at Class 3+), but simply scrambling over the rib only required Class 2. Finally, as we were as close to the notch as we could be while still at the top of the ridge, we peered down into it, thinking at first there was no way to descend into the notch. Whiley tried for a way to the left off the ridge crest and got cliffed out, and I went to the right and was able to find a Class 2+ somewhat precarious grassy ledge that safely dropped me into the notch. About 100 feet of descending through the notch led to a big boulder. Just after the boulder, we escaped the notch on the right and ascended a grassy slope for 100 feet of vertical. The technical stuff was over. We decended the steep, grassy slope to the saddle of Twilight Peak and North Twilight Peak, where we encountered more talus leading to the summit of North Twilight Peak.

We didn't know of an ideal route down from North Twilight Peak, so our group split into two. We went back down to the saddle of North Twilight and Twilight and descended on talus forever, passed a very pretty tarn, got some really lovely views of the peaks of the Weminuche Wilderness, and then side-hilled on nonsense scree/talus for a while to get back to the trail that would lead back to Crater Lake. Alternatively, and I marked this on my map as the better descent option, you could descend the way the second group did. They headed along the east ridge of North Twilight Peak and reported later that it was mostly a trail with some Class 2. They certainly beat us back to the car. Yep, go that way.