The Lizard Head Wilderness is a wilderness area in southwest Colorado. It contains 41,309 acres (167.17 km2) and is jointly managed by the Uncompahgre and San Juan National Forests. It is 10 miles (16 km) southwest of the town of Telluride and is named for a prominent rock formation that is said to look like a lizard's head. Lizard Head itself is 13,113 feet (3,997 m) and is a volcanic spire of crumbling rock. Due to the steepness of the cliffs and the poor quality of the rock for fixing ropes, only experienced mountaineers should attempt to summit the spire. Another 37 miles (60 km) of trails in this infrequently visited wilderness, are also strenuous and should be attempted by more advanced backpackers.
The area includes three prominent fourteeners: El Diente Peak (14,159 feet (4,316 m)), Wilson Peak (14,017 feet (4,272 m)), and Mount Wilson (14,246 feet (4,342 m)). The area includes the headwaters of the west fork of the Dolores River.
Famous quotes containing the words head and/or wilderness:
“I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,
How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d over
upon me,
And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart,
And reach’d till you felt my beard, and reach’d till you held my
feet.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“It is surprising on stepping ashore anywhere into this unbroken wilderness to see so often, at least within a few rods of the river, the marks of an axe, made by lumberers who have either camped here or driven logs past in previous springs. You will see perchance where, going on the same errand that you do, they have cut large chips from a tall white pine stump for their fire.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)