Sunlight Peak & Windom Peak Colorado 14ers Hike Guide
Sunlight Peak & Windom Peak are a pair of 14ers located in the Chicago Basin of the San Juan Mountains of southern Colorado. Part of the Weminuche Wilderness, these two peaks require a long approach via the Chicago Basin. Sunlight Peak is a Class 4 hike with a solid amount of exposure to reach its true summit, whereas Windom Peak is a much more mellow high Class 2 hike with options for more exposed Class 3 hiking if you are up for it. Sunlight Peak & Windom Peak are often hiked together and require at least 1 night of camping to access.
Sunlight Peak & Windom Peak Quick Facts
Virtual Trail Guide: Sunlight Peak & Windom Peak
Sunlight Peak Rating: ★★★★★ (5/5 Stars)
Windom Peak Rating: ★★★★ (4/5 Stars)
Distance: All distances are one way and assume starting point of Purgatory Creek TH. If taking the train in, subtract about 9.75 miles from each segment)
16 Miles From TH to Columbine Pass Trail, 19 Miles From TH to Twin Lakes, 21 Miles From TH to Sunlight Peak, 22.4 Miles from TH to Windom Peak.
Elevation Start: 7,826 ft (Purgatory Creek TH), 11,000 ft (Chicago Basin)
Highest Point: Sunlight Peak: 14,058 ft, Windom Peak: 14,088 ft
Total Elevation Gain: 3,600 ft
Estimated Time to Complete: 7-8 Hours to get to the Chicago Basin, 1-2 Hours to Twin Lakes, 3-4 Hours to Hike Both Sunlight Peak & Windom Peak. All times measured in one way estimates.
Difficulty: Difficult – What does this mean?
Class: Sunlight Peak: Class 4, Windom Peak: Class 2
Season: July – September (Expect snow outside of this period)
Directions to Sunlight Peak & Windom Peak
Trailhead: Purgatory Creek – For more information about the approach, visit this page.
Getting Here: Directions vary drastically depending on whether you are coming from the north or south. In either case, navigate to Purgatory Resort and find Tacoma Dr directly across from the resort. Continue on Tacoma Dr for about ¾ of a mile and find the parking area on the left.
Fees: None
Parking: The Purgatory Creek trail has a rather large lot to leave your car for multiple days. We spent about 4 days in Chicago Basin and had absolutely no issues with our cars in the lot for that amount of time. The lot can fit about 30 cars but there are not any restrooms at the parking lot.
Summary
Train Information: If you plan on taking the train into the Chicago Basin, there is a $110 or so fee to do so. The train will drop you off at the Needleton stop, which subtracts about 19 miles RT from this hike. However, as of 2018 – all train service to the Needleton stop has been cancelled. Visit the Silverton Durango train site for more information.
Camping: Camping comes in the Chicago Basin, expect wildlife to frequent your camp so plan on bringing bear bags to protect your food. Camping in the Chicago Basin does prevent fires at all times and requires you to carry in and out everything that was not there in the first place (toilet paper included). In terms of spots to camp, I would recommend hiking up to Columbine Pass and working backwards to find a spot. Please don’t ruin the experience for others: camp at least 100 feet from the trail and any sources of water.
Dogs: If you plan on bringing dogs into the Chicago Basin, I wouldn’t recommend bringing them up Sunlight Peak. Windom Peak may be okay for most dogs however. Both mountains have sections of sharp rock which could be problematic on your dog’s pads.
Make it a Loop: Sunlight Peak & Windom Peak are commonly hiked in a lollipop loop. If you want to add other mountains in the area, you can hike Sunlight Spire (Class 5 requiring TRAD climbing gear), North Eolus or Eolus Peak. Nearby are hikes accessed by Columbine Pass as well (Jupiter Mountain).
Trail X Factors: Leap of Faith & Sunlight to Windom Crossover
I had read a lot about the leap of faith on Sunlight Peak and have to admit that I thought it was something that was going to be a joke. However, when I did reach the spot where you had to do the leap of faith on the top of Sunlight Peak, I realized how airy and exposed the area was. In addition to the extreme exposure on basically all sides, the area to stand on the steep granite was rather limited. To be honest, I felt more exposure on this small section of rock than I did with any single spot on the knife edge of Capitol Peak.
In addition to the leap of faith, the crossover from Sunlight Peak to Windom Peak was quite annoying as well. Although it didn’t take that long, trail/route finding was tedious in this mess of a boulder field.
Mick’s Tip: When hiking Sunlight Peak & Windom Peak, I would recommend starting with Sunlight Peak first as it is more technical and will probably take you more time to summit. When tackling the “leap of faith” be sure to have solid footing and good balance as a fall here would surely result in a serious injury or death.
Best Views: Sunlight Peak & Windom Peak have a ton of awesome views along the way. The summit of Sunlight Peak & Windom Peak both present awesome views in the massive Weminuche Wilderness. Outside of the two summits, the hike into the basin itself presents awesome views of the Twin Lakes and of neighboring Mt Eolus and Eolus Peak.
Sunlight Peak & Windom Peak Hike Route
(Includes All Four 14ers & Hike Back to Camp)
Gear Needed
- 14er Day Hike Packing List
- Men’s Trail Runners
- Women’s Trail Runners
- La Sportiva Trango Hiking Boots (Men’s)
- La Sportiva Trango Hiking Booths (Women’s)
- Backpack
- Food & Water
- Optional: Garmin inReach
- Optional: Hiking Poles
- Optional: Headlamp
- Optional: Garmin Fenix Watch
- Optional: Camera and Lens
- Optional: GoPro, Joby Tripod
- *Links included in this description might be affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service with the links that I provide I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you.
My Trip to Sunlight Peak & Windom Peak: September 2018
For part one of my hike into the Chicago Basin, please visit my previous post.
Sunlight Peak
After a long day of hiking 15+ miles the day before, we were a hiking group with tired legs. The plan was to hike Sunlight Peak & Windom Peak and potentially tackling North Eolus and Eolus Peak if we had any energy left in the tank. Since we were starting at 11,000 feet, we decided to get a somewhat late start of 5:30AM. When begrudgingly got out of our tents, had some quick breakfast, pumped some water and hit the trail. The stars were still out which was nice, but all three of us were moving somewhat slow. After hiking for a bit, we quickly realized we could have hiked up a bit further before setting up tent. Oh well, I think given the chance, we would have picked the same spot rather than walk another foot.
We worked along the flat dirt trail gaining a bit of elevation before reaching the split with Columbine Pass. We went left and continued up towards the Twin Lakes, our first landmark of the day. As we continued to hike, the terrain increased in steepness until we were eventually hiking up the side of a very steep hill beneath the pair of high alpine lakes. The sun was slowly rising, but we still had no views of Sunlight Peak & Windom Peak. We slogged up the steep trail, switching back several sections that would have been pure death to go straight up. After a while, we finally reached the lakes and were greeted with a stunning view.
In front of us, were a beautiful pair of lakes surrounded by steep, rocky and jagged granite cliffs in every direction. These mountains looked like they had been through a lot over the years, each one more jagged than the next. The rock in this area reminded me a lot of the Gore Range near Vail almost 200 miles north. We ate some delicious “breakfast” and continued our way up towards Sunlight Peak & Windom Peak. The trail worked around the two lakes and up a small hill that brought us into the basin between Sunlight Peak & Windom Peak. Windom was to our right and Sunlight to our left. We decided to tackle the more difficult Sunlight first, so we took a left at the massive cairn.
We continued to the base of the steep dirt slopes that we had to tackle in order to gain the ridge of Sunlight Peak. Up until this point, the trail had been in fantastic condition, but in this section things went to shit quickly. Luckily, we had the entire basin to ourselves, so didn’t have to worry about rockfall from above. Still though, we popped on our helmets and worked up the steep, traction-less dirt. After a while we finally gained the ridge and headed left to continue up towards the summit of Sunlight Peak.
We continued across the mountain, working through several sections of high Class 2 and Class 3 before reaching the “crux” of the route, a small section of Class 4 just below the summit ridge. Erin worked up the rock first, than Nick with myself anchoring the group. Though this section was Class 4, there was really only 1 or 2 moves that required that level of difficulty. Shortly after, we worked through a chimney to gain the final section of the ridge about 50 yards short of the summit of Sunlight Peak. I was confused, where was the “leap of faith” Sunlight Mountain was famous for?
Upon reaching the summit area, we realized that the true summit was still a couple of heavily exposed Class 3 moves away. What looked like a pile of rocks was actually the real summit of Sunlight Peak. Each rock was separated by a 2-3 foot gap with hundreds of feet of exposure on each side of the rocks. I scrambled up the rock and kneeled on the top of the small, airy area which was the summit of my 53rd 14er, Sunlight Peak! Turns out that getting down from this small area was a lot more tricky than going up. I finally understood what the leap of faith was and was force to make the jump to get back down to the flatter (and much safer) summit area.
We hung out at the summit of Sunlight Peak for about 10 minutes before moving on to Windom Peak.
Windom Peak
The trip back down from Sunlight was rather uneventful albeit slower. We had not locked the crossover to Windom on the way up, so took a few minutes to scout out the best route when heading down the steep gully. We decided to head across the large boulder field and reconnect with the standard Class 2 trail of Windom on the western spine of the mountain. There was not a true trail, which meant lots of loose rocks in the boulder field. Luckily, we made it across in about 30 minutes without any issues at all.
As we reconnected with the standard trail and started working up the western slopes of Windom Peak, we encountered the first human we had seen all day: another hiker coming up Windom Peak a couple of hundred yards behind us. The trail up Windom Peak was well cairned and easy to follow until we reached the false summit just below the true top. After reaching the notch (false summit) of Windom Peak, the trail stayed left to maintain Class 2 terrain, but I decided to stay straight/right to work up some solid Class 3 rock. There was a bit of exposure here, but all the holds proved solid and I reconnected with the standard trail about 25 yards from the top. After a few more moves, I had reached the summit of Windom Peak, our second mountain of the day.
Yet again, the summit area was very small so we had to choose our seating carefully. The views were great and the weather even better. We had limited cell phone service here, so we decided to check weather for the rest of the day/weekend. It was here we began discussions around what to do next. It was only 12PM and with a clear weather forecast, we talked about tackling North Eulos and Eulos Peak on that day instead of waiting for the next. If we did this, we would save ourselves the hike from camp back up to the Twin Lakes the next day. The issue: our legs were very tired and we didn’t want to risk injury. We decided to bail on those plans and simply enjoy this day.
After a short time on the summit, we headed back down the steep Class 2 rock and rejoined the standard trail which worked across several sections of looser rock. I would say that the trail on Windom Peak was slightly worse than Sunlight Peak, but both were not terrible compared to other mountains I had been on. Well cairned, we followed the trail back to Twin Lakes where we soaked our feet (at least I did) in the frigid lake waters and enjoyed a snack. We knew we would be back in this same spot the next day, but still couldn’t get over the beautiful views of the area. Just as we were about to leave, a mountain goat joined us at the lake which was a perfect way to end that day.
Overall, Sunlight Peak & Windom Peak were a great pair of mountains with only a few sections of crappy trail. If I had to re-hike one out of the two, I would probably pick Sunlight as I felt it was more technical and had a bit better trail conditions.
Read Part 1 of this weekend (Chicago Basin Approach via Purgatory Creek) here.
Read Part 3 of this weekend (North Eolus & Eolus Peak) here.
