You Know, You Can Drive to the Top of Mt Evans

In my quest to continue to bag as many 14ers as I can before my body decides to fall apart, two peaks on the front range have been taunting me...Pikes Peak and Mt. Evans.  Both peaks have roads to the top, and I've driven to the tops of both, but to be "official" I would need to hike them.  Pikes peak is a 14 mile roundtrip, while Mt. Evans has some much shorter routes.  I've been looking for a way to sneak in the 5.5 mile roundtrip that starts at Summit Lake and ascends over 13,848 foot Mt. Spalding, and today (with a little help from my friends), I was able to find a window that I thought just might work to hike that route.

I'd been waffling all week about whether or not to attempt to summit Mt. Evans this week.  There were reports of snow there the last couple of days, with a 70% chance of storms Thursday afternoon when I had the time to climb.  I honestly even had conflicting dreams this morning, one telling me not to go, the other telling me to go for it.  In general, I'm the epitome of a fair weather hiker, but I thought I'd at least drive the two hours to the trail head at Summit Lake to see how the weather looked first hand.  After dropping my kids at school, I headed straight there.

The summit of Mt. Evans was quite fogged in when I arrived, but it was pretty clear back to the east.  I made sure I had protection from the rain just in case, and started the ascent up Mt. Spalding to the south of Summit Lake just before 10:00 am.  These pics show the parking lot from a couple of points toward the beginning of the route.

And above Summit Lake was Mt Evans.

This particular route climbed over Mt. Spalding, then descended into the saddle connect it with Mt. Evans, then along the back side of West Evans where it wound its way back to the switchbacks from the parking lot on the summit.  There was a little snow at the higher elevation, and occasional patches of ice but nothing major.  I did pass this small frozen waterfall along the way which was pretty cool to see.

As you can see, it was pretty foggy.  Summit Lake was 1400 feet below us on the summit, however the picture of it looked a little...foggy.

It took 2 hours to reach the summit. I found the official survey marker, got the obligatory "peak #" photo, and got ready to head back down.

The person holding the extra five fingers was one of the two Merediths I joined to hike with on the way up.  On the way down, we met a couple of guys cowering on the rocks about a half mile below the summit.  Came to learn that one had moved to Colorado from Florida about 5 months ago and the other was out from Florida visiting him.  They decided that Evans would be their first 14er, but the elevation and exposure got the best of them and they weren't able to continue, so we helped guide them back down.

The trail was not always easy to see but very well cairned.  We really didn't have any problems finding it on the way up, but somehow on the way back we got off track and ended up farther west on the saddle than when we came up.  The fog had completely disoriented me, and I was ready to head off in the wrong direction when someone else in the group said we should be headed a different way.  We wandered around a little and managed to find another cairn to mark the trail we were supposed to be on.  Back up Mt. Spalding we went, which was about a 200 foot climb from the saddle, and finally back along the ridge on the way to the parking lot.  At the bottom was a great view of the Chicago Lakes:

I made it back to the car from the summit in about 2 hours, so my total hiking time was about 4 hours for the 5.5 mile roundtrip. The weather held out for the most part, and I didn't so much miss the views as I've seen them before and can drive back again anytime.  The route was a little more scrambly towards the top than I expected, and there was some exposure there but nothing too tricky.  The hike was essentially done so that I could check another peak off of my list, and I was able to do that safely.  Pikes Peak...you will soon follow.

I accidentally stopped my tracking while we were wandering on the saddle, so here are the two segments of the hike:

Segment 1

Segment 2

The Mt. Elbert Experience

Technically, this summer's "Mt. Elbert Experience" began on Sunday, August 17th.  Realistically, it is a stretch to call 2:30 in the morning anything less than the end of Saturday August 18th, but that was in fact when we started loading up to head to the trail head.  There were four of us going on this hike.  Nicole had attempted Elbert previously but was unable to summit, so she was heading back to check it off her list.  Jenny had never climbed a 14er, so this was her first experience with day long hike at high elevation.  Kim has climbed a handful of 14ers but never as high as Mt. Elbert.  And this would also be my first attempt at Mt. Elbert, and my 14th 14er summit overall.

The trail head is just past Leadville and is a good 2 1/2 hours from Longmont.  In order to be up and heading back from the summit by around 11:00 before the usual afternoon storms pop up, plus with some expected delay from the Leadville 100 trail run finishing up that morning, I wanted to be heading out of Longmont by 3:00 AM to be on the trail by 6 AM. It turns out that we made very good time and hit no delays on the way in, so we were headed up the trail at 5:45 AM.

The temp out was 34 degrees when we started, so we all had a couple layers on and needed headlamps for the few minutes before the sun rose.  Just a couple hundred yards past the trail head, we came to the intersection of the Colorado Trail and crossed over it to head into the woods.

I was surprised at how rough the trail looked so early on, and several trees had fallen across it.  About a quarter mile in I was second guessing our path across the Colorado Trail.  After double checking the route again, I realized that we should have turned left where we went straight.  Just goes to show, never let the guy in the group be the navigator.

We turned around, hiked back down to the intersection and got headed in the right direction over a small creek after losing about 15 minutes.  No big deal, and now the sun had started to rise so we could see things a little better.

I just learned about the Colorado Trail this year.  It is a hiking trail made of many day-hikeable segments that runs from Littleton to Durango...hundreds of miles through some beautiful areas of Colorado.  I would love to hike on some of it sometime, and this short mile stint on the way up to Elbert was the first time I had ever had the opportunity.

Eventually it split, with one section going up toward Elbert and the other continuing toward wherever the next Colorado Trail segment ended.  Fortunately the sign at this intersection was impossible to miss, so we made the correct turn this time.

From here, we hiked another couple miles into the woods toward treeline.  When we broke through that, we got our first real glimpse of our final destination....we thought.

 As far as 14ers go, Elbert is considered one of the easier ones, but it is still a very strenuous hike.  This area was not terribly steep, but once we got up toward the ridge, there were some areas that rose much more quickly.

Now I had heard that Elbert is full of false summits, but as this ridge looked SO prominent, I had hoped just a little that maybe it wouldn't be so bad.  As we got closer, we began to notice that there wasn't anyone visible on this ridge, and even more ominous was that the line of people going up were skirting around the north side of the ridge and past it.  We asked a couple of hikers coming down if that was it, and they confirmed that no, there were two more past this one.  Lovely.  It truly was pretty amazing at just how much further up the second false summit was past the first, considering how big it was.  But alas, there it was, and we had to climb up over it as well, so up we went.

It was on this next uphill push that we crossed over 14,000 feet on our way up to 14,440.  I had to get a picture of Jenny her first time over this elevation on foot.

Finally, on top of the second false summit, we could see our final destination, which thankfully did not involve much more elevation change.

There were at least 20 other people up there, and one thing I thought was unique about Elbert is that there are several other trails from all different directions that lead to it.  None of those are particularly technical, so there seemed to be a steady stream of people coming and going up and down all sides of the summit while we were there.

The views from the op did not disappoint.  To the southwest, just right of center in this picture, is La Plata Peak.  The ridge that trails off to the left leads to South Elbert, another peak above 14K but without enough prominence from Elbert to be considered an "official" 14er.

More directly south, over South Elbert, Mt. Oxford, Mt. Belford and Missouri Mountain are the 3 highest points in the second "row" of peaks beyond S. Elbert, all left of center.  Missouri Mountain is the tallest, widest peak about an eighth of the way across the picture from the right edge toward the back row of peaks. All are 14ers also in the Sawatch range.

To the north, Mt. Massive, the second highest peak in Colorado, was present from the moment we got above treeline all the way to the top.  It is the tallest peak, just to the right of center.  The other two slightly shorter peaks to the left, and the one just to the right, are all 14K sub peaks of Mt. Massive.  It is very appropriately named.

And to the east, looking back over the route up over the false summits, is the town of Leadville, just right of center and a third of the way down from the top of the picture.

We were up on the summit for nearly an hour, taking in the scenery, talking among the others that were also up there today, taking pictures, and recovering for the hike back down.  The weather was perfect and a little cool when the sun was behind the clouds and the breeze kicked up.  

The official survey marker.

 The crew on top of the rockies.

My 14th 14er summit. 

The hike down, as is the case with most hikes, starts off rested and excited, and by the time you reach the last mile or two, when your legs are starting to get rubbery from the constant braking down the trail, you wonder time after time if the trail head is just around the next bend.  Eventually we did make it back, at around 3:00, and we could all add Mt. Elbert, the highest point in Colorado, to our list of bagged summits.  I enjoyed the opportunity to do this hike with Kim, Jenny and Nicole, and it was a privilege to be part of Jenny's first 14er summit and Nicole's Elbert redemption summit.

Phone was dying by the time we got to the summit, so this Runkeeper tracking  is only for the way up.  Notice at the beginning how we started up the wrong path and had to backtrack back down to the correct one.





 

Mount of the Holy Cross

On Sunday, July 20th, at 3:00 in the morning, I picked up my friend Nicole for the three hour drive past Vail to the Half Moon trail head for Mount of the Holy Cross, a 14,005' peak in the Sawatch range.  We have both been on a mission lately to summit as many 14ers as we can this summer, and the timing worked out well for both of us to make an attempt at Holy Cross this day, which neither of us had climbed yet.

Holy Cross is a fairly long hike, about 12 miles round trip with about 5600 feet of elevation gain.  The kicker for this particular route, though, is that about a mile and a half in, you must descend to a creek at the bottom of a valley 1000 feet below you, which means that on the way back, you have to reclimb that 1000 feet to get back to the trail head.

But hey, that's the path we're given, we don't have much choice but to take it.  That first 1.5 miles is pretty wooded, and the trail is very clear up to the top of Half Moon Pass, at which point the trail skirts around the side of 13er Notch Mountain.  The descent is steady at first until you get across Notch Mountain,where you get an incredible view of Holy Cross a few miles away in the distance.

Holy Cross is the peak on the left. The route takes you into the valley, then back up the ridge on the right, along the snow at the top of that ridge, and up the back side of Holy Cross.  It is still at least 3 miles away at this point.

Just beyond where you can see the trail vanish into the trees in that last picture, the trail skirts left and you overlook the steeper valley where we'll soon be going.  Again, just an amazingly beautiful scene with Holy Cross up in the distance, a waterfall at the top of the valley and East Cross Creek running at that bottom.

The route got much steeper here, and every easy step down we took we knew we would be struggling with on the back side of our hike when we returned, but again, this was the route and we had to take it.  At the bottom of the valley was an area for campsites, most of which were already occupied, and it seemed like a great place to base for a climb of Holy Cross if you are into camping.  At this point, we crossed East Cross Creek on some rocks and a log bridge.

This was essentially the wooded low point of our hike, and the mosquitoes were out in force down there so we kept moving along.  From this point, the route ascended, sometimes gradually, oftentimes much more quickly.  I generally lead, and Nicole followed back a short distance behind as we hiked out of the forest and into a much rockier section with larger steps and more frequent breaks as we caught our breath.  Eventually we got up past the first peak (on the right in the longer range view up above) and began a thankfully much more gradual ascent across the saddle toward Holy Cross.

The snow in the foreground is the same snow you can see in the above mentioned long range picture.  The picture just above looks across the valley below Holy Cross, and I thought the very large, flat plateau surrounded by ridges looked really interesting.

At the far side of the saddle was a very deep gully that we skirted around to get on the back side of the Holy Cross summit block.  About 300 feet below, we begin the scramble to the summit.  The trail got very spotty at this point, but there were cairns scattered about, and generally it wasn't difficult to find safe paths between them, and as long as you were still generally going up, you were going the right direction.

I started following some other hikers, and it really wasn't too long before I had reached the summit.  I took off my pack, high fived several other hikers that had passed us along the way, and took in the views.

The lake in picture above is called the "Bowl of Tears", and it was a stunning aqua-marine blue/green (or so I'm told, as the color blind guy).  The Elk Range, which contains the Maroon Bells, Capitol Peak, Snowmass Mountain and Pyramid Peak, among others, was visible probably 30-40 miles away.  I was pretty sure I saw Grays and Torreys Peaks as well as several others in other directions from the summit.  It was cloudy and a little hazy, but the view was still amazing.

After about 10 minutes, I still hadn't seen Nicole, so I went back to the edge to check on her progress.  It wasn't long before I saw her appear about 50 feet below the summit, and once she realized how close she was, she closed the distance quickly.  It was her 8th summit, and my 13th.

We were probably on the summit about 15-20 minutes before we decided we better start heading back down before the storms rolled in.  After starting about 6:00, we were on the summit just after 11:00 and started back down around 11:30.  The forecast said storms were likely by about 2:00, so we knew we needed to get started to avoid the probable soaking we'd soon be getting.  But today we got lucky.  There was some very light sleet near the summit, and we occasionally got barely a drizzle sporadically on the way down, but it was just enough to keep us cool.  With the clouds rolling in, the temperature was just about perfect.

We slowly worked our way down the steep couple of miles from the summit to the valley, which didn't feel so great on the knees, but we only slipped a couple times.  Eventually we got back down to the creek and we both realized that after about 8 hours of hiking, we had hit that 1000 foot climb back out of the valley we'd been dreading the entire hike.  One step at a time though, pausing here and there to take pictures, and often looking back in amazement as we saw just how far away and above us the peak was from which we had just summited.  It really was incredible to see what the sum of tens of thousands of small steps over the course of multiple hours had lead us to accomplish.

We did eventually reach the pass again, and we finished with a 2 mile descent back into mosquito infested but cool forest back to the trail head.  Almost 10 hours after we started, we were done.  Or rather, we started the drive home down I70 on a Sunday evening, along with tens of thousands of our closest Colorado friends who had also spent the weekend in the high country.

The hike was brutal, and we were both exhausted, but it was definitely the most beautiful scenery of any 14er hike that I've ever been on.  As I've done more hikes in different parts of the state, it has been fun to see the different "personalities" of each area.  They really are all a little different, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of those in the years (weeks?) to come.

Runkeeper track of our hike

Lake City 14er Trip - Handies Peak

After a very long first day hike of Redcloud and Sunshine Peaks, then a physically and mentally draining attempt at Wetterhorn, I decided to finish my hiking adventure with a climb of 14,048 foot Handies Peak, widely regarded as one of the easiest 14ers to climb in Colorado.  In fact, I was much more concerned about the 21 mile drive to the trailhead than I was about the 5 1/2 mile round trip hike up Handies.

I'd never driven my Honda Pilot through a stream before, but I had to on this day to reach the trailhead.  It wasn't so bad. :)  But some of the areas on the road within a couple miles of this stream...yeah, pretty bad, and I'm still a little surprised my car made it there and back in one piece, but it did.

The route up that I took was through American Basin.  The trail runs up through this valley and then cuts left in front of the peaks in the sunlight in the picture below.

There was a fair amount of runoff in this basin, and I had to go across several snow fields on my way to the summit.  This is one of the waterfalls toward the bottom of the route.

A little closer to the back wall, the trail turns past Sloan Lake.

From here, the trail cuts across the slope of the left side of the valley.  You can make out the trail just above and to the left of the large snowfield in the bottom right of the screen.

This picture below looks back down the basin from just beyond the trail pictured above.

And slightly higher up, you reach the green slope of Handies Peak.  Looking back down in the basin, you can see Sloan Lake which is pretty snow covered almost exactly in the middle of this picture.

Unlike Wetterhorn, Handies is a very gentle (though still a strenuous hike) slope up to the summit.  From below, the trail switchbacks all the way to the top, which is less than 3 miles from the trailhead.

The views from up here are really amazing, and it was another crystal clear morning.

This is Redcloud and Sunshine from the summit of Handies, the higher points toward the center.

And just a couple hours after starting, I was on top of Handies Peak.

This was by far the easiest 14er climb I've done to date, and Handies is the 12th 14er I've completed.  There were many more people on the route this time, and I think I was the 3rd one to the top that day.  It took about 3 1/2 hours to do the 5 1/4 mile hike (including about 15 minutes on the summit).  As I said before, the drive up was far and away the worst part of this hike.  Handies was a very short class 1 hike, so other than going through a few solid snow fields, there was nothing terribly difficult about it.  There were some spring flowers on the grassy slope, but I understand that in the spring the whole mountain comes alive with them, which would be an incredible sight.

This was a great way to end my hiking days in Lake City, and I felt really good after this one (certainly due to the shortness).  I would gladly do it again...as long as I could borrow someone else's 4WD vehicle to get there. ;)