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/

Mt. Bierstadt & Mt. Evans

This was another 14er weekend; 14,060' Mt. Bierstadt and 14,264' Mt. Evans. [Technically, I'm only counting Bierstadt because we drove up Mt. Evans, but that still doubles the percent complete to 2/53 and means 3 times above 14,000 ft in 8 days.] As we drove up Guanella Pass (the Georgetown exit on 70) Friday night I was relieved that we

• started from 1000 ft higher than last weekend,
• had a more gradual ascent, and
• had already been to 14,000 before;

all of which seemed to make this experience much easier than last weekend. We setup the tent in a nearly vacant lot under a perfect half moon and vivid milky way with the alarm set for 7:00am... only to be woken up at 5:19 by the van parked next to us. I was a bit frustrated by this but took a minute to mentally applaud their enthusiasm (... and went back to sleep). At 6:00 one of two things happened; either we travelled back in time to Shea Stadium on August 15, 1965 and tried to sleep during the Beatles' concert, or half of Denver decided to summit Bierstadt along with us. [Those playing along at home should add one point for guessing option B.] For a minute I honestly thought I was on candid camera and viewers at home were laughing at my pathetic attempt to sleep through the Rose Bowl parade. Realizing 7:00 was a pipe dream (I am NOT a morning person), Ryan and I tossed the tent in the Jeep and ate breakfast.

Overall, the hike up Bierstadt was an enjoyable 7 mile round trip adventure on a cloudless day. The boardwalk across the willows mud-swamp was greatly appreciated. There was still a fair amount of ice on the trail but not much snow on top of the ice for traction (I fell once). It took under 3 hours to get to the top (Ryan beat me by 15 minutes but I was pleased with my time), and about half that to get down.

On the summit we could see several other 14ers including Pikes Peak, Longs Peak, and in this panoramic looking West (sorry, the photos didn't stitch perfectly) you can see Grays Peak (left) and Torreys Peak, about 15% in from the right.

The image below shows the Sawtooth, which is a bridge between Bierstadt and Evans, and Longs Peak in the distance.

Panning to the right from the Sawtooth, you can see Mt. Evans.

Here is a shot of both Bierstadt (right) and Evans (left) from the trailhead:

To be honest, I had a great time but a few things affected my enjoyment of this hike:

1. The crowd (am I a solitude snob or just a jerk?). When we drove away after our descent there were cars parked on either side of the parking lot for several hundred yards.
   
   


2. The lack of preparation (ignorance?) by the crowd. Folks, a 14er is a 14er. I don't think shorts and tennis shoes is a good idea... Neither is forgetting (or deliberately abstaining from?) water. I couldn't hike a flat 7 miles round trip at sea level without getting a little thirsty, and nobody could hike that at 11,500 ft (don't forget 2,500 ft of elevation gain for good measure) without getting parched. And clean up after yourselves. When I got back to the parking lot I had a true fist full of granola/Power Bar/Clif Bar wrappers, twisty ties (bagels or a loaf of bread?), kleenex (if you're going to be rude why not just tear up some 20 year old tundra grass and sneeze into it while you're at it?), etc collected from the trail. That's ridiculous.
3. The view. It was quite impressive, but I think I was spoiled last weekend.
4. I might also attribute the degree of difficulty as well. On a 1-10 scale for difficulty, if Huron Peak was a 7 or 8 then Bierstadt would be a 3. [If, however, you threw in the Sawtooth and Mt. Evans, that number would go way up for time pressure (add on maybe 4 hours?) and technical savvy for the Sawtooth... stay tuned for that one.]

After we made it back to 70 we drove east for about 10 minutes for Mt. Evans and the highest road in the US. This picture shows Bierstadt (above center) from the Evans summit.

We stopped on the way down to see the famous Mt. Evans mountain goats and then headed to Idaho Springs for Beau Jo's pizza and Tommyknocker beer.

Look how small the youngest one was!

It was another great Fri night > Saturday combo for me. I think this day would be an easy introduction to the 14er club for anyone acclimated to at least 5,000 ft. Next weekend is anybody's guess at this point, but I'm pretty sure you can count on mountains :)