Season warmup trip to the San Juans

Andy, Sean, and I had rendezvoused at Andy’s house in Denver, and were packed up and ready to roll out of town and beat the traffic. Then we got the timely call from Forrest saying he was in for the trip. So, we waited. He rolled up in his Lexus SUV with a gigantic smile on his face. Gotta love it.

We burrito wrapped all the boats together and hoisted them onto Forrest’s roof. Off we went. On the way, Forrest said he had a great mexican restaurant in Colorado Springs that we could eat at. We walk in to find a glorified taco bell with some B grade mexican food. “This place is awesome!!”, exclaimed Forrest. We had our doubts. It didn’t take long for the stomach pains to set in after chowing a steak burrito smothered in green chile.

We camped that night just outside of South Fork Colorado, so we could be in a good position to run the South Fork Rio Grande on the way to Vallecito. On our morning scout, none of us were super motivated on the run. It looked like a mile of roadside mank. “Get your gear on you pussies!”, says Forrest. “We’re here now and we are all running this shit.” So we did. The South Rio turned out to be a lot of fun. There were several great boofs and some interesting boulder gardens. It ran a lot cleaner than it looked from shore. I recommend it for anyone on their way to the San Juans.

After the South Rio, we headed for Vallecito. Forrest and Sean got the waterfall itch when they saw the drops on Wolf Creek were going.

Sean Lee on the lower wolf creek falls

forrest noble wolf creek waterfall

After the boys dropped wolf creek, we loaded up again and headed straight for Vallecito and started hiking. It was getting a little late and the gauge was at just under 2 feet. The run was great. everything clean, and we had a lot of fun.

forrest on entrance falls vallecito

andy blakeslee entrance falls vallecito

sean lee on entrance falls

After that day’s run on vallecito, we took out right at our campsite in the campground. After some elk fajitas, and a few beers, we were all ready to hit the sack. Brad Higenbothem was planning on meeting at our campsite the next morning at 9 am for a second run.

forrest in trash can

andy blakeslee in trash can

After the second run on Vallecito, we loaded up again and headed over to the upper east fork san juan. We had no idea where the waterfall section was, but after some bushwacking, we found it. It looked super sweet other than a log half way down. We decided to run down to the log and then take out and head home. It was a fun low volume creek with a bunch of waterfalls from 4 – 20 feet.

East Fork san juan shuttle

mountain sunset on the drive home