#5 Mt. Evans (14,264') July 01, 2012

For my 5th peak I would finally be hiking with my new friends Joni and Nick. Our destination was the 14,264' summit of Mt. Evans. Many Coloradans know that you can drive to the top of Mt. Evans, and for this reason it is not considered one of the coveted peaks on the list of 14ers. Something to do with seeing old people in RV’s and couch potatoes in flip flops when you summit tends to underwhelm the experience. I myself was not as enthusiastic about this peak when we first planed it a month or so ago. I assumed we were going to take the popular route from summit lake over Mt. Spalding a short 5.5 mile round trip. However, the week of the hike Joni sent me a message asking if I was alright taking a less traveled rout from Guanella Pass, the trailhead for Bierstadt. It was a 8.5 mile route that traversed some areas that I could see from my Bierstadt hike. I was excited out about this route choice and any doubts about the hike were squashed. We planed on a 4:30 departure from Denver, and Nick offered to drive which was nice because I have done all the driving on my last 4 hikes.

I arrived at their place around 4:20 just as they were coming out (a good sign, early risers and punctual) so I jumped in their car and we took off. Its about an hour and a half drive, with a short stop for caffeine, to the top of Guanella Pass south of Georgetown. When we got there, the parking lot was starting to fill up, it looked like Bierstadt was going to be busy today.

We left the trailhead around 6:00 am and started down the Bierstadt trail. Shortly after we started hiking we came across a small group of moose off to our south. Nick was pretty excited because it was his first moose sighting in the 3 years since he had moved to Colorado. After trying to get a couple pictures we got back to the trail.
                                  

Mt. Spalding, Sawtooth Ridge, and Bierstadt (left to right)

Moose in the distance

Pretty quickly we reached the split in the trail that led to Mt. Evans. This meant we would be leaving the well defined, well traveled Bierstadt trail for what we were soon to find out was a muddy, spongy, nonexistent trail. It didn’t matter much we could see where we needed to go so we soldiered on. The marsh quickly turned into willows which provided an interesting navigation challenge, trying to stay dry and on course. After a while we reached a creek that flowed out of the gully that the standard trail followed. Joni had sent me a trail report the night before of a group that had gone to the north of the ridge/gully coming around from the north west of Mt. Spalding. We could see both routes and decided that the northern route looked more interesting.

The Gully is visible at the left of the picture.

Half way up the valley we started getting boxed in by ponds and thick willows. We took turns picking routs through the maze, making slow progress.

Mt. Bierstadt looking south

Once we got above tree line and the sun came out the hiking got a lot easier. The views were getting better every step we took and it was hard to concentrate on making forward progress with all the beautiful scenery. At this point except for the very distant view of the parking lot it was like being completely isolated from civilization. All you could see was rolling hills and distant mountain ranges. This was quickly becoming one of my favorite hikes.

Because our route took us on the back side of Mt. Spalding we could no longer see Bierstadt and the Sawtooth ridge, which was my reference in determining which direction we should be hiking. I decided to go on ahead to try and get a bearing. We were planning on summiting Mt. Spalding so Joni and Nick were taking a more direct route up the mountain. 

I hiked over to a ridge till I could see Bierstadt and found this balancing rock that was in the trail report Joni had sent me, so I knew we were at least following the route we planed on. From here I could see that what we were thinking was the summit of Mt. Spalding was really a false summit. So I quickly made my way over to the other 2 and discussed our options.

Once they realized that it was quite a bit further to summit Spalding it was decided that we should just skirt around Spalding and avoid the elevation gain, our route had already added a mile or more onto our 8.5 mile round trip and we could see that we had a ways to go before reaching Evans.

Mt. Bierstadt

Once we got around to the southwest of Mt. Spalding, we merged up with the original trail that went up the gully, we started to see more people on the trail, and we could also see Evans in the distance. At this point the sun was out and the weather was perfect.

Mt. Spalding

The Ridge we hiked over from the backside of Mt. Spalding. The Gully is at the bottom left of the picture.

Mt. Spalding and Summit Lake

Around 9:20am, about 3.5 hours in, we reached the ridge just north of Bierstadt and the Sawtooth. We would follow this ridge all the way around to the summit of Mt Evans.

Mt. Bierstadt and the Sawtooth Ridge

We reached the parking lot near the summit around 10:30am, and as expected there was quite a crowd. It looked like a biker club had decided to do a summit ride and the grandparents were out in force. We spotted the restrooms and decided to make a stop before going up to the summit. I got yelled at by a guy staring at some goats because I tried to sneak past the line, nobody noticed that someone had exited on of the restrooms. I guess hiking 5 miles to the summit doesn't buy you any leeway with the folks who drove up...

Me at the summit of Mt. Evans

Anyways, once we finally summited I forgot about the crowds and remembered why I started hiking 14ers. To view the world from its top is without a doubt a magical experience. No matter how many of these I hike the views always amaze me. Those who know me, know I'm not a spiritual person, and I don't subscribe to a higher power, but the scale and beauty of the natural world at 14,000 ft is humbling and awe inspiring.

Looking out over Summit Lake (North Northeast)

After a short stay at the summit we noticed what looked to be storm clouds rolling in. This was our cue to start our descent. It about 11:00 am and we had several hours before we were off the mountain. Along our descent the clouds started getting more and more ominous. At one point it actually started to snow, which was an unexpected occurrence seeing that it was 100 degrees in Denver not some 60 miles away. We never did see lightning something all peak climbers fear, and after an hour or so the clouds started to make there way past us. We were glad the chances of a storm were gone but the lack of cloud cover made the temperature start to rise. By the time we reached the gully we we were stashing layers pretty fast. Our climb down the gully was pretty slow going. The heat was rising and it was only made worse by the bare rocks that made up the gully.

Half way down we realized that even though the gully route was shorter we were glad we went around it on our way up. It was steep and filled with loose gravel and rock. Going down provided a spectacular view of Guanella Pass, Square Top Mountain, and even Grays and Torrys in the distance, but going up would mean probably 2 hours of staring at a vertical gravel field.

Once we made it down the gully I turned to take one last picture looking up before stashing my camera for the remainder of the the hike. We reached the willows and the marsh we encountered earlier that morning, but the distant view of the trailhead spurred us on. We made quick work of the last 2 miles or so and reached the car around 2:00pm. All said it took about 8 hours, we hiked about 10 miles, went from cool and comfortable in the morning to snow and hot sun in the afternoon, there were crowds of people at the summit, but it was still one of my favorite 14ers to date.

Next up Quandary on July 4th, only 3 days away.