Mt Bierstadt, The Sawtooth, and Mt Evans

Saturday, July 25th, 2009

Leaving Colorado Springs just after 2am following a night of non-sleep (thanks, Chuck Palahniuk) and watching the Colorado State Patrol pwn an obviously drunk driver, we arrived at the Guanella Pass summit area at 445am. There were already a handful of cars at the trailhead: some people car-camping, some getting their stuff together, and some cars empty, their former occupants now brief flashes of headlamps already ascending Bierstadt trail.

Leaving the parking area, I was glad I donned my St. Olaf hooded sweatshirt: the air got colder and colder as we hiked down the subtle hill into the Scott Gomer creek basin. Crossing the creek, there was a large black shape moving among the scattered shrubbery, accompanied by 2 smaller shapes, and as they Splash! Splashed! across the river, we could see the large antlers of Mr. Moose. We paused and allowed the moose family to meander toward the marsh as we didn’t want to upset the protective father (sorry, no picture!). Continuing up the trail we pointed out the family to other parties we encountered as they moved through the willows.

The remaining trek to the summit of Mt. Bierstadt was uneventful and not too difficult, that is if you consider stair climbing 3,000 vertical feet to be not too difficult. We paused at the summit just long enough to contemplate our daunting and ensuing obstacle, The Sawtooth ridge. Though down-climbing the huge boulders was difficult at times, once we realized our stride we made it to the first gendarme of The Sawtooth without pause. There we met another group that had opted to down-climb the couloir south-east of the ridge we descended. Jesse went up and around the first “tooth” while I, and after some pondering the other group joined me, opted to go around the side (shown here at 14ers.com). Though I’m sure, and as Jesse vehemently espouses, the upper route is full of technical moves and interesting pass-throughs, the lower route was not without hairy spots, exposure, and climbs.

At the second notch, where the “trail” moves to the west side of the ridge and the exposure increases drastically, we were passed by “blue guy” and “yellow guy,” both wearing runner’s clothing and sporting only a fannie-pack. Something, maybe their hasty and fearless ascent of The Sawtooth, told me they’d done this before. I, on the other hand, had not, and had to stare directly at the wall the entire way up to prevent vertigo. Clinging to scree that led down to huge cliffs, we ambled up the exit ramp, following a motivating path of carins, to a victorious end of the ridge. The Sawtooth ridge, after crossing through the notch, was terrifying, but made Evans’ west ridge small potatoes.

Meandering through the alpine tundra on the carin path, we came to Evans’ west ridge. The summit is still nearly a mile away at this point. Climbing over giant boulders to the top of the ridge, a solo guy on the “actual” trail hollered up at a couple having a particularly hard time getting up the ridge (remember, small potatoes). “The trail’s down here!” he said to the couple, “but that’s a class 3 ridge up there,” to no one in particular. “I’m doing the ridge,” he said very decidedly, and started goating towards us. Arriving at the top of the ridge, we could see Summit lake, the Mt. Evans’ Highway, and the summit which still seemed like forever away, loaded with people. The rest of the scramble over the ridge, eventually meeting with the trail, was uneventful, but seemed like “the never ending summit.” We have to go back on the same trail?

You can see in my Mt. Evans summit photo: after 6 hours of hiking and climbing I was so excited to be surrounded by mobs of screaming tourists I blew past the line of people waiting to “climb” the “rock” at the summit and snapped my summit photo, smiles and all, at around 1130am. Time for a long and well deserved break with delicious, oh so delicious, StarKist Lunch-to-Go tuna and crackers while Jesse almost falls asleep on some conveniently positioned rocks.

Descending Evans trail we encountered both the party we met at the low point of Sawtooth and the party we pointed out the Moose to almost six hours prior. We also met several foreigners, who when asked us how far the summit was, we responded, “Long way,” which it was. A mile long hike over class 2/3 terrain seems like forever, but eventually we arrived again at the alpine tundra at the base of Evans’ west ridge where we could barely see our car and the trail head in the distance.

Making short work of down-climbing a couloir, we paused in the basin surrounded by The Sawtooth and Bierstadt’s north-west slope. Here were the headwaters for Scott Gomer Creek which eventually feeds the South Platte River. Our celebration of reaching seemingly flat, normal trail was short lived after we met a fellow who was packing up his tent. “I’m not looking forward to walking through that marsh,” he said, “Rained all last night.” We discovered he was correct in his reservations about the remaining trail to Guanella Pass: stream crossings followed by mud followed by marsh followed by mud followed by… All this amongst some delightful bushwhacking, and that’s when it started raining.

The Crack! of thunder after a strike on Bierstadt’s summit was motivation enough to pick up the pace yet we were thankful to be off of exposed rocks. Still bushwhacking, we finally met up with Bierstadt trail. The slight uphill and the last mile did not seem so bad as we were walking on what very well could have been a city sidewalk compared to what we had just traversed for the last 10 hours. Arriving at the car, around 3pm, we threw off our muddy boots and cracked open the celebratory Coors Original (The Banquet Beer). Never before had bulk domestic beer tasted so good.