How to get there:
Lake City is the natural reference location.
Go south on Hwy. 149 approximately 3.5 km, then turn right
onto the road to Lake San Cristobal. Drive around the lake and continue
up the valley on a good dirt road. A little more than 19 km from
Hwy. 149, the road forks and there are signs saying Silverton, Cinnamon Pass,
etc. This is the right fork that heads uphill. Continue about 6.5 km on
this road. The Silver Creek trailhead will be obvious, there is a separate
parking area on the right hand side of the road as well as an outhouse
(on the left hand side). The trail to Point 13795 starts out on the trail
to Handies Peak on the left hand (west) side of the road. Route description:
This trip was part of "Un grande tour de Handies", this description
will cover the hike from Silver Creek trailhead to the summit of
Point 13795. See the description under Handies for the rest of this
route.
The trail starts right from the parking area and first crosses the
creek on two very large logs. The very good trail quickly climbs the
north side of the valley, partly in forest, partly across open, grassy
fields. When the trail breaks out above treeline, one sees a very distinct
basin higher up to the left (south) while the main valley continues west
to the steeper slopes of Handies Peak.
The route shall climb into this basin.
There seems to be two ways to accomplish this.
One possibility is to climb south, in
the beginning more or less along the treeline, alternatively continue
on the main trail towards Handies Peak until the next fork in the creek,
there is a fairly distinct trail traversing from this point into
the upper basin. There is a nice, small lake in this upper basin, the
route continues up the slope to the left as you pass the lake. This slope
was quite unpleasant, steep and loose, one step forward, 0.75 step sliding
back down. Fortunately, one gains easier ground in a small basin, now with
Point 13795 quite prominently above to the south. One should proceed to
climb the main ridge west of Point 13795. The approach to the lowest saddle
on the ridge was a moderately steep snow slope when we did this climb.
Without any gear for snow, we hiked the nice grassy slope on the right hand
side (on the north side). Once the main ridge has been gained, it is easy
to walk east along the ridge to the summit of Point 13795.
This route continues quite naturally along the ridge west from Point
13795 to Handies Peak. This description can be found under Handies. Comments:
I did this hike with Pål Jørgen, age 12. Starting at
0700 it took us about one hour to reach treeline (actually the point
where we left the main trail), then
another 1.5 hour to reach Point 13795. The total hike was
5.5 hours, see Handies for further details. We found a trail register
on the summit, the previous visitor had been there on June 19th.