Date: May 28, 2002
Elevation: 14,264'
Rank: 14th
Route: West Ridge, Grade II, Class 2, 9.0 miles, 3100ft vert.
GPS: N 39° 35.316' W 105° 38.566'
Team: Matt Esser (Toid)
Mt. Evans Trip Report:
Pre-climb: After my successful completion of two fourteeners in one day 10 days prior, I figured hiking the same amount of miles up one peak would be easier. Boy was I wrong.
Climb: I threw my stuff together after waking up two hours later than I wanted to. I was out the door at 6am, when I wanted to be out the door at 4am, but how often is that going to happen? So anyhow, I start climbing around 7:30am and discover that due to the late May snowstorm we received not three days ago, all the snow had all melted off, causing flooding and a kayak would have been useful going through the willows. Especially when you are trying to climb Evans from Guanella pass. I started off at a really good pace and felt great, even though the willows were making me a little upset. The weather was nice, and I was in shorts for the first time ever on a 14er.
The entire time hiking, I'm looking at the gully on the North side of the Sawtooth, trying to decide whether or not I want to take it. It's steep, but it's a shortcut. At the last possible moment I decide to branch off and take it. I was walking along the ridge and got really close to some mountain goats. The gully had snow in it, but somebody had been there recently and there were nice steps for me to walk in the entire way up. I reached Evans West Ridge after about 2h 15min.
The weather was still good, although the wind had picked up and so I wanted to get across the last mile or so of ridgeline as quickly as possible. This is not a place where you want to be during a storm (keep reading). So I'm hiking, and I remember Roach talking about false summits, but what do I do? Of course, I climb every one of them hoping that the one I'm on is the one. Then, I start to see the road, and realize that I'm still a ways from the actual one. Doh. This traverse I would say is the most difficult part of Evans. Seeing all the false summits really demoralizes you. Plus it wears you out going over boulders.
Upon reaching the summit, I scour around for a summit marker and log. I find a boulder with an 'X' on it, and it appears to be the highest but no summit log. Then it took me 0.2 seconds to realize that they probably don't have one because of all the tourons that drive to the top and how they would gladly sign it. I took a 30 min break here while eating lunch and taking pictures of all the things at the summit. I couldn't believe they had all this up here at 14,100ft. For those of you that have never been there, they used to have a restaurant up there. Yeah, I couldn't believe it either. You can see the remains of it, as they had a propane leak and it exploded a while back.
I started back to my blazer and then just like that, out of nowhere the sky grew dark, the wind picked up, and I heard thunder. They have all these signs warning people about lightning strikes and what to do if it starts happening. I didn't think much of it and continued along, until...*ZAP!* Not 100 yards in front of me on the ridge there was a ground to air strike, and my hair stood up and instantly tingled. I halted my paces. I looked around and then I noticed the wind was really strong. I had a mile of ridgeline to cross and how was I going to do that with the wind and weather like it was? I retreated to the exploded building, which had no top, but had walls, and decided to see if I could wait out the storm. After about 30 minutes I decided to give it another go, but then, just like in the movies, *Zap!* lightning struck again, this time over by the observatory. This was not good. Here I am, above 14,000ft, I had a ridge to traverse, a storm is coming, and I haven't seen anybody the ENTIRE hike up here. Which, I might add, is unusual for Evans, but then again, it was the day AFTER Memorial Day.
So, I start rationalizing what I can do. I have no tent, my cell phone is at home. (don't ask) I can't go back the way I came, my only other three choices were to spend the night on top of Mt. Evans in an open bivy and try climbing out in the morning, hike down the valleys which contained huge elevation losses very quickly and wasn't really an option, or hike down the Mt. Evans road. The third option sounded best, as I might actually encounter somebody that way, unlike hiking back across electricity ridge or death valley.
About two miles down I find somebody at Summit Lake who takes me down the other 12 miles to Echo Lake. At Echo Lake, I hitch another ride from some other guy, who takes me as far as Idaho Springs, which was another 14 miles. What I didn't realize when I started down the Mt. Evans road, was that it went the complete opposite way as where I wanted to go, so I had to go around the entire base of the mountain to get back to my car. I tried hitchiking in Idaho Springs, but it wasn't happening, so I had to make a few collect calls before Ilene came to my rescue...however, she drove her brand new Mustang. Little did she realize she was going to be going up Guanella Pass.
I felt terrible for what she had to do for me. That road is no good and she had to drive all the way from Highlands Ranch to come help me out. I am greatly in debt to her.
Mt. Evans will always be remembered. I did it the right way, by coming from Guanella Pass and not cheating by taking the Summit Lake route. However, due to weather restrictions, I couldn't make it safely back across the ridge to get back down the gully and through the willows back to my car. This is the last solo fourteener I ever do. Period.
Pictures: (Click on picture for caption)
Time:
| Drive |
Ascent |
On Summit |
Descent |
Drive |
Total |
| 1.5 h |
4.25 h |
1 h |
4 h |
1.5 h |
9.25 h |
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