Shavano and Tabeguache - Fall Tour of the Southern Sawatch

Mt. Shavano (14,229) and Tabeguache Peak (14,155) are a pair of peaks west of Salida on the far south of the Sawatch Range that I only recently had set my sights on climbing. In fact, only this summer I learned that it is actually pronounced "Tab-a-wash" and not "Tab-a-gwatchee" as I had always known it. A few weeks ago I headed that way for a solo climb, but after climbing Mt. Yale the night before, I was too spent the next morning to attempt Shavano and Tabeguache. The standard route to hit both of them (which are a mile apart) is 11.5 miles with a whopping 5600 feet of elevation gain, but maybe because it is still considered a very doable class 2 hike, I didn't expect it to be much trouble to tackle.

On Saturday the 19th, I headed down to Salida with Nicole who has attempted many other peaks with me this season. We left early afternoon, and not having learned my lesson from a few weeks ago, I suggested maybe we should stop by Huron Peak and attempt an evening/night climb if the weather looked good before Shavano and Tab the next day. Huron was only a 6.5 miles round trip (with a 4wd vehicle, which we had) with 3500 feet of gain and is considered by many to be one of the more beautiful 14er hikes in the state. And to sweeten the deal, the fall colors were out in force.

We got to the Huron trail head a bit after 5:00, and with sunset about 7:30, we decided we could probably not make the summit by then and would end up doing most of the hike in the dark which seemed an incredible waste considering how beautiful the scenery was. There was one particular view of some nearby peaks that I really wanted to see that was about a mile away, so we headed out to find it. 1200 feet up from the trail head, we came across this view of "The Three Apostles" that we were looking for, and it didn't disappoint. Really stunning.

After a few pictures, we made our way back down to the jeep and continued on to Salida a little later than I had hoped, but with a perfect weather forecast the next day, there was no need to be on the trail ridiculously early, so we targeted a 7:00 AM start time and actually started a few minutes before that.

The route briefly follows the Colorado Trail which I hope to hike more extensively someday, but for now it would just be a couple tenths of a mile. We started past Blank Cabin just after sunrise before turning and beginning our long haul toward the summit.

The first couple miles of trail made its way up through forest, and it was a pretty nonstop climb the entire way with several steeper sections that kept it a little challenging. Eventually we broke treeline and came across this guy (I think it is a grouse) who wanted to lead us up the trail a bit but wouldn't stand still for a picture.

Just above treeline, the trail skirts above a large gully to the southeast of Shavano along a trail you can see pretty clearly from below the trail head. The saddle that was our next goal looked very far away, but the views back down over Salida were amazing.

There were a couple peaks we could see on the way to the saddle, and when we reached the saddle we could see Mt. Shavano which would be our first summit, a mere 800 feet above us.

We had hiked about 4 miles, and I was a little concerned about how difficult it had been to get there. We stopped for a quick snack on the saddle, and when we left I asked Nicole to lead, as she had been right on my tail most of the way up. The summit block was not technical but it was very rocky and cairns were a little hard to find, so we just looked for the easiest next steps up and continued that way.

I was stopping more often than I had hoped, but eventually we got to the summit and got to enjoy one of the clearest days I had ever seen.

Mt. Shavano was my 22nd summit.

If it wasn't obvious from my heavy breathing in the video, I was already pretty wiped out, yet this was only the first of our two summits this day. Tabeguache Peak was just a mile away, but it looked incredibly far from the summit of Shavano.

We spent probably half an hour on the summit, snacking and resting before our push on to Tabeguache. We would be have to regain about 500 feet of elevation once we reached the saddle between Tabeguache and Shavano which I was not looking forward to in the least but knew it had to be done. There wasn't much of a trail there, just a scattering of cairns and knowing we just had to make our way visually toward the next summit.

The view north to Mt. Antero was really amazing.

The view west of Tabeguache Peak. This is where we needed to go next.

I lead on the descent into the saddle, and Nicole again took the lead on the ascent up Tabeguache and made her way up it pretty quickly while I felt like I was stopping every 20 feet to catch my breath. There was really no set trail up to the summit, just segments here and there and knowing that you had to keep going up. After what seemed like an eternity, I finally made the summit for my 23rd peak.

There were two other guys on the summit when we got there who had come up from the other side, and another couple people came up shortly after us. We snacked again and took in more spectacular views. This was to the north, with Mt. Antero toward the right of the picture and the rest of the Sawatch range beyond that.

This view was to the south. Shavano would be out of frame to the left.

Single 14er summits usually wipe me out, so hitting this second one was especially taxing. But what was really discouraging was that the only practical way back to the trail head was to go back over Shavano again and another 600 feet of gain over the course of the mile return trip.

It looked far away as it was, but every so often when you saw other hikers coming across the ridge looking like tiny dots, it seemed even more so. I was exhausted, but I had no choice but to re-summit Shavano to finish the hike. In hindsight, maybe that was a good thing that I was forced to carry on rather than given the opportunity to end it there.

I lead us back down to the saddle. On the way, something caught my eye a short distance away, and when I looked closer it was a fern. It looked like a little green alien all by its lonesome out there, and I thought I could hear it growling at me when I moved in for this picture.

From the saddle, the ascents don't look nearly as steep on either side in this pano shot, but Shavano is to the left and Tabeguache is to the right.

Once we began the re-ascent of Shavano, Nicole again lead up the rocky ridge past several false summits. It is amazing how much you don't remember on the way down, and the number of false summits was one of those things. We eventually made it back to the completely deserted summit for one more quick recovery before beginning the 4+ mile hike back down to the trail head.

I was toast at this point. Fortunately the weather stayed perfect, and the gusty 25-30 mph winds that were predicted never materialized. Whereas the rule of thumb is to be off a summit by 11:00, we finally left Shavano at about 2:00 in the afternoon. I took the lead back down the summit block, and with Nicole's knee acting up we had to be very deliberate with our steep scramble back down. Just above the saddle I slipped hard on a steep patch of dirt and sliced up both of my hands pretty good, but that gave me a good jolt of adrenaline I needed to make my way down to the more defined trail below.

When we reached the saddle, I took a sip of water and realized that the 3 liters I had brought along were gone, a mere 4 miles from the trail head, so it seemed I would get back to the car a bit thirsty. I didn't take any pictures on the way down, and Nicole and I hiked much of the way in silence as we just focused on getting to the next turn or trail segment, both of us ready to be done with this incredibly long day. It was obvious she was in some pain on the steeper segments, and unfortunately there were a lot of those on the way down. We slowly made our way out, checking the map frequently to see what the upcoming terrain looked like so we could be ready, and I told Nicole "it's not much further" way too many times for her to actually believe it. Eventually, though, we met back up with the Colorado trail that was very near the trail head.

After 11 hours, our hike was finally over. I was not expecting it to be this difficult, but upon reflection, an 11+ mile hike with 5600 feet of elevation gain over three summits is not easy no matter how you look at it. In fact, this was probably one of the most difficult 14er hikes I have ever done to date, and we got incredibly lucky that the weather had been perfect. A storm or the typical bitter wind up there would have been a major downer, but every star aligned for us this day and we bagged two more peaks. As with most of these hikes, it was a difficult physical and mental challenge, but the views at the top and satisfaction of getting there made it all worthwhile.

One of my goals this summer was to summit 10 new 14ers. These were my 5th and 6th, plus I did two more re-summits, and I was unable to summit two other attempts due to weather. I'm not sure if these will be my last 14ers of the season, but even if they are, it was a very successful season and I'm already looking forward to next year.

Post note: Andrew Hamilton, who earlier this year broke the record for the quickest ascent of all the Colorado 14ers, attempted another record last weekend called "Nolan's 14" which is the quickest time to ascend the fourteen 14er peaks in the Sawatch range. Shortly after Nicole and I started our ascent of Mt. Shavano, someone flew past us that I half jokingly said "doesn't that kind of look like Andrew Hamilton?". We started our ascent at 6:50 AM. He started his at 7:05. I wish I had known that was him, as I would have said more than "have a good hike" as he went by. As I'm writing his, he has almost completed his attempt and it appears he will demolish the old record. My summit goal was 10, and he's done 72 this summer over the course of about two weeks total. My mind is completely blown.

Mt. Evans - Flatlander Style

One of my goals this summer is to take 6 new people to the summits of 14ers. And completely by coincidence, my mom just happened to have scheduled a trip out for the birthday celebration of a good friend in Denver this past weekend. I mean, how completely crazy is it that the proverbial stars could have possibly lined up so perfectly? Even in the midst of friend birthday celebrations from both my side and mom's, college visits to help with the "business" aspect of her visit, back to school nights and other goings on in life, we were determined not to let this opportunity go to waste.

Mom was only in town from Saturday until Wednesday, and the only real chance with the time to tackle a 14er would be Tuesday. Fortunately, I had to teach a kickboxing class at 6:15 that morning, and the kids needed to get to school shortly after that, so instead of the typical 2:00 AM departure I was used to, we had a great excuse to shove off closer to 8:30.

But where to go? I asked mom if she had any hiking gear...shoes, backpack, pants, etc. Nope. But she did have some long black pants. And she had tennis shoes that were generally lousy to hike anywhere in, but matched her red jacket perfectly. Of course her red jacket was more cotton, so it was completely ineffective as a wind breaker, but fortunately I, myself, had a red wind breaker that still pretty much matched her shoes, and so the day was saved. (those stars aligning yet again). So no gear, black pants and bad shoes that matched a borrowed jacket. Mt. Evans it would be.

We left Longmont about 8:15, listening to comedians on the comedy channel while checking Facebook...you know, the typical things you do to get mentally prepared for outings of this nature. I was expecting a 2 hour drive to Mt. Evans from Longmont, but about 30 minutes in, our perfectly aligned stars unraveled spectacularly.

Oftentimes, the road to the trail head can be more of a challenge than the actual hike itself, especially in the front range where many people cram the narrow, rough roads to the tail heads of popular peaks. Unfortunately, I had not considered that I-76 (some 50 miles away from Mt. Evans) would be such a road. For at least 5 miles and over the course of an extra hour, we stop and go'd at a frustrating pace, inching slowly toward our challenge...50 miles away. Aaron was done with school at 2:30 that afternoon, so we were in a time crunch. Typical hikers would have certainly turned back in the face of such adversity, but our determination to summit superseded most of our common sense, so onward we pressed....

There are many routes to the summit of Evans...West Ridge via Chicago Creek, the Northeast Face, West Ridge via Mt. Spaulding and the steep North Face were just a few of our options. After careful consideration of our long traffic delay, we decided the the best option would probably be Mt. Evans Road...via Honda Pilot. We exited the interstate at Idaho Springs and drove about 17 miles upward to Summit Lake at the base of Mt. Evans (as shown in the first picture above). Although we didn't have the ideal gear or footwear, we parked and hoofed it the .2 miles (one way) to an OFFICIAL trail head sign.

As we made our way back to the parking lot, we remembered a sign we saw on the I-70 road to the trail head (also very crowded) that warned us to watch for wildlife.

Sure enough, just below the summit of Mt. Evans, we saw a ram sitting on the rocks, probably also contemplating the best route to take to the summit. We felt very fortunately that we had seen that sign as we spent 5 minutes passing under it to warn us about the possibility of such an occurrence.

Back to the car we went. It was about 5 more miles up some very shelfy, narrow, completely paved road to the summit parking lot (the highest paved road in the US, if we want to be specific). Now "shelfy" in this case means that on the outward side of the road, the transition from pavement to hundreds of feet of thin air is, well, instantaneous. No shoulder. Not even a bike lane. Mom was really excited to be a passenger on this part, especially when the gentle transition from relaxing drive to plummeting death was on her side of the car. But I gently reassured her that I hadn't lost a hiking partner yet, and I didn't intend to on this day either. I'm generally good about focusing on the road in situations li...wait, is that a herd of mountain goats on that hill???? It IS!!! What mom, I shouldn't take a picture of them? Ok, fine....

We ascended many switchbacks with truly stunning views (which of course I was paying no attention to at the time) and reached the parking lot at the summit of Mt. Evans. We got out of the car and saw the switchbacks that climbed another rocky 100 feet or so up to the true summit, but fortunately we also saw a much more impressive sign indicating the Mt. Evans summit on the other side of the parking lot, with exactly zero more feet of elevation gain between it and our vehicle. Our true hike would be begin right here. THIS was the moment we had anticipated for the past 3 hours, and it was upon us!! Time to put up or shut up. Go time. Let's do this! Leeerooooooooooooooooy Jeeeeeeeeeeenkins!!!!!!!

We took that all important first step. Then another. And then we were there. The Mt. Evans summit sign!!!

Mom's very first 14er, with the true summit smiling approvingly in the background just behind her.

We made it. The stars were all for us. Then they were against us, but we shook that off and bravely achieved our goal while they were all for us again. We walked through and learned about the fascinating history of the observatory on the summit and took in the views to the east and southwest. After about 10 minutes, hunger got the best of us, and we began the drive back down, still riding the rush of having been close enough to smell the summit of the 14th highest 14er in Colorado. After some great burgers at Tommyknockers Pub in Idaho Springs, we still made it back to Longmont just in time to pick up Aaron from school. The day was a success.

Thanks, mom, for one of the most unique and rewarding 14er excursions I've done to date. If you ever get the itch to tackle another, you can always borrow my jacket but we may want to check out some different hiking shoes. Red of course.