Mt. Evans (14er #10, Front Range finisher)

Yesterday Ryan and I finished our first ascents of the Front Range 14ers by going up Mt. Evans from Guanella Pass. For those not familiar with Colorado, Mt. Evans has a paved road to the top, but with the road closed for the winter we hoped to avoid the zoo scene we found on Pikes last summer. That goal was definitely accomplished (we were the only ones on top once we made it), as was reaching the summit (and more importantly, successfully descending to the Jeep). We also extended our streak of never being denied a summit when attempting just the two of us (doesn't include getting the Jeep stuck for La Plata, where we didn't even set foot on the trail). I wouldn't give us any style points though... due to the willows, a steady diet of ice cream, a steep gully and a fair bit of class 2 scrambling, we barely beat dusk getting back to the Jeep(!).

I had read and heard nightmares of "those awful willows" and thought we would have a solid freeze / snow to our advantage. [Me: "Yay, there will be a well defined trail on snowpack through the willows!" Willows: "Haha, sucka, you still screwed!"] It turned out that although we weren't sinking knee-deep in mud and getting into turf wars with beavers, we did end up doing a fair bit of route discovery and willow-wrestling. It seemed at times we were following tracks of folks who had no better idea of where to go that us, as was probably the case. I am really surprised that there isn't a better marked or official trail through that mess, because it increases the difficulty by an order of magnitude (if such a thing is possible, but I'm pretty sure I just made that up). At any rate, this hike seemed like it had 4 phases (which may fit since it's about 4 miles each way):

1. the willows
   
2. the gully (far easier than it looks)
   
3. exiting the gully and bonking before lunch
4. scrambling about a mile to the summit
5. enjoy a familiar view (having driven to the top several times)
   
6. scrambling back to the gully
   
7. running out of water
8. descending the gully with tired legs
9. getting horrible cottonmouth (note: eating snow doesn't help much)
   
10. trying to keep up with Ryan while we both race the sinking sun
    

That was more than 4, but you get the idea. I don't want to overdo it here, but this outing makes the Mt. Elbert outing a few months back seem like ginger beer (any Hunter S. Thompson fans out there?). It wouldn't seem as challenging if you could break off a mile or two easily here and there, but you just can't. Once you overcome the willows, you are faced with a gully, then altitude and scrambling. I was disgruntled like a freaking Michigan football fan (couldn't help myself there) after that ridiculosity. I believe we started some time around 10am and didn't get back to the Jeep until almost 7pm. 9 hours for "just" 3100' of elevation gain over 8.5 miles. Wow. Yikes. Dude, that guy who told us we should hurry up was a real jackass considering we beat him back to the parking lot. Damn, that pizza and beer tasted fine. All of the above.

Enough ranting. We did have several high points to speak about on this occasion.

1. There were far fewer people on the trail than last summer's Bierstadt outing. We kept commenting on how quiet it was, which was nice.
   
2. We saw a very beautiful alpenglow sunset on our way back to the Jeep.
   
3. We saw more wildlife than we have on previous 14er outings, including 3 Bighorn sheep, 3 mountain goats, and 2 foxes. (I'm pretty sure the 2nd fox, which we saw within eyesight of the Jeep on the return, actually spoke to us and welcomed us back to the trailhead... then again, I could have been hallucinating.)
   
4. We also completed our first range on the 14ers to-do list, which was a nice milestone. We have yet to set foot on a San Juan, Elk, or Sangre de Cristo range 14er summit, but hopefully there will be days ahead for that.
5. We completed our first 14er in the month of October. (October now joins June, July, and August for that distinction.)
   
6. Personally, I also put my new mountaineering boots, Scarpa Triolets, through their first day and they passed with flying colors. They kept my feet dry, blister-free, and warm all day long. I'm excited to use them for hopefully many snow hike/climbs in the future.
7. The views of Bierstadt and the Sawtooth ridge were very nice.
   
8. We camped at a great spot Friday night well below treeline on the south side of the pass in Park county.
9. The weather was ideal.
   

I would rate this as my 2nd most difficult 14er hike, only exceeded by Longs last summer, and honestly not by much. The huge difference between Longs and this, though, is that I was very satisfied with the accomplishment on Longs. The main thing I was satisfied with here was filling up on pizza and getting back to Boulder for a nice hot bath. (Yeah, that's right... I took a bath. My hot tub was closed.) Neither of us were terribly happy with the day, and honestly questioned why we subjected ourselves to those sort of days. While the obvious answer is Mallory's famous "because it's there" I was void of a good reply at the time. I think I'll just spend the next several months skiing instead :)

Photos: http://flickr.com/photos/brett_burch/sets/72157608181341572/