Hiking Silver Mountain & Deadwood Mountain, Mayday, Colorado

At this point in the trip we are staying in Durango, and we were looking to do a hike that wouldn’t be too far of a drive as we had done a lot of driving when we were in Silverton. We decided to make Silver Mountain in the La Plata mountain range our destination and would also summit Deadwood Mountain in the process. We parked in a little parking area near a bunch of dispersed camping in La Plata Canyon. The first thing we would have to do was cross a creek where we were immediately greeted by some animals we weren’t expecting.

Cows!

After making it past the cows, we continued along the dirt road we would be walking on for the first few miles. This road was actually quite beat up and very rocky - I wouldn’t have called it a smooth dirt road by any means.

Not the best road for walking, but the views were pretty!

After a few miles, we made it close to the end of the road and turned off the road onto an unmaintained hiking trail. The trail was initially very steep, and we were happy we had our hiking poles. After not too long, we started walking along a ridge and had our first views of the summit of Deadwood Mountain.

Views of the ridge up to Deadwood Mountain

View from the top of Deadwood Mountain looking west/northwest

After walking along the ridge for a little while, we made it to the top of Deadwood and turned out attention toward Silver Mountain. The mountain looked much farther away than we expected! we could just barely make out the social trail that would take us to Silver. I was starting to wonder if the hike stats I had gotten off of AllTrails was correct or not as it seemed we still had quite a ways to go!

As an aside…as I had mentioned in my previous blog post, wildfire smoke has been a big issue in Colorado this summer and today was a day where the smoke got worse as the day went on, but thankfully not to the point where it ruined the views. My pictures in this blog post may seem a little less “crisp” than usual because of the smoke.

Heading down Deadwood and looking at Silver Mountain in the middle of the picture

Mike in front of me on the ridge to Silver. Silver on the right.

We started following the ridge and making our way over towards Silver Mountain. One thing I always love about ridge walks is that you get great views the whole way! This one also had some vibrant wildflowers which are another one of my favorite things.

Wildflowers in full bloom!

The final ridge up to Silver Mountain

The ridge included a little more loose scree than we were expecting, but that just made the adventure a little more fun. After what felt like a very long mile from Deadwood, we finally made it to the top of Silver where we stopped for our lunch break and enjoyed the 360 degree views. While sitting there, we heard a lot of howling from what we guessed were coyotes that may have just made a kill. We couldn’t see them and believe they were in the drainage behind us, but it was quite eerie nonetheless. We never saw them, which I’m perfectly fine with.

View from the top of Silver. The coyote howls were coming from this direction

View from the top of Silver

Looking back at the ridge we followed from Deadwood Mtn with Deadwood Mtn the mountain on the left

After spending a little time for our lunch break, we turned around and headed back the way we came as this hike was an out and back. Walking back along the ridge brought in new views we didn’t have on the way up. When we finally made it back to the dirt road, we would have been happy to skip walking down that part. The gravel was very loose on the way down and was hard on our ankles and knees. We made good time back to the car as we were ready to get off that road as quickly as possible.

The hike ended up being 9.33 miles with 3,612 of vert and took us 5.5 hours including breaks. My overall thoughts on the hike was that while the views from the ridge and the summits were beautiful, the amount of time spent walking on the extremely rocky dirt road was longer than we would have liked. We really wish there would have been a hiking trail to the top, but unfortunately there wasn’t. One of the best parts about this hike was seeing no one else until we got back to the car. I’d put this hike in the middle of the pack for me, simply because of the amount of time spent on the dirt road. Regardless, a day in the mountains always beats a day in the office!

A little sweaty at the top of Deadwood Mountain

View from the final saddle before the top of Silver

From the top of Silver Mountain

Smoky looking down towards Durango