prologue |
The idea of climbing Mt. Evans never seemed particularly appealing
to me. After all, there's a road to the top; who wants a hike with a zillion
tourists at the summit? The only temptation was the famous Sawtooth Ridge
connecting it with Mt Bierstadt, a classic third class (rock scrambling)
route. While reading about it in Roach's Colorado's Fourteeners
I found a second draw: Bierstadt's East Ridge, another third class route,
but this one rarely done. In his section on Bierstadt-Evans combinations,
Roach described a loop from a saddle near a switchback on the Mt. Evans
Road, down into the valley between the two fourteeners, up Bierstadt's
east ridge to the summit, across the Sawtooth to Evans, and back to the
start. This 6.3 mile loop, he wrote, "maximizes excitement and minimizes
walking." I was hooked.
Many of my climbing friends had done the Sawtooth, but none were familar with the east ridge of Bierstadt. A web search turned up a single trip report, from Chris Wetherill. He had traversed this ridge while doing essentially the same loop, which he termed the "Tour d'Abyss", as it circumnavigated Abyss Lake. Since his description made the route sound somewhat serious, I phoned him for a bit of last-minute beta the day before my planned trip. |
into the abyss |
Much too early on Saturday morning, Taimi
Metzler and I drove out to Mt. Evans and parked the car in a small
pull-out amid a herd of mountain bighorn. I had almost turned around just
a few miles before the trailhead when I realized I'd left my water and
some of my food back home, but when I remembered I still had one liter
with me (Taimi had two), and I always carry too much food anyway, we felt
much better. At 6:30 we started hiking. In addition to a topo map,
I had a photocopy of the guidebook route description and a printout of
Chris's trip report.
This is not a typical fourteener hike in many ways, and the first way is evident at the hike's start -- it begins with a descent. Although I'd been a bit worried by the description of the location and the character of the descent gully, it turned out to be fairly easy to find and much less obnoxious than I'd expected. The gully began right at the low point of the saddle, more or less exactly, and the entire path to the bottom was visible from the top. The rocks were fairly consolidated, and nothing slid under our feet. As sucky gully descents go, this was one of the least sucky I've done, not even approaching such classics of unpleasantness as the Hallett Peak (RMNP) descent. At the bottom was a lovely meadow with pools of shining gold water. We picked our way across willow hummocks, trying not to get our feet wet, and crossed the stream which flowed into the unnamed pond at 12,350', from Abyss Lake at the head of the valley between the two peaks. Looking up at the ridge that was our destination, we opted to head up grassy steep slopes to the saddle just Bierstadt-ward of point 13,420; from our viewpoint it wasn't clear that the first point was "easy", although when we got to the ridge it was obviously passable on the opposite side. |
to the ridge |
The trudge up to the ridge was the most strenuous part of the day.
Unrelentingly steep, the slope was studded with boulders, thistles, and
(surprise) the occasional mushroom. The sun hit us almost as soon as we
started up, and at about the halfway point -- an hour into our hike --
we stopped to put on sunscreen, shake out our legs, breathe, and scope
out the route.
We could see grassy ledges above a very aesthetic cliff band, just short of the saddle. That was clearly the way around the next bump on the ridge, so we angled our way toward them. Although there were no cairns, I got a rather unpleasant verification that this was the route when I found a wad of tissue on the grass. (Yes, I packed it out, but I wish its original owner had done so!) Eventually we ran out of ledges, but the rock above us was good and not particularly difficult, clearly the way to go, and we stood atop the ridge at 8:10, about an hour and 40 minutes after we'd started. When we looked back at the gully we'd used to descend to the valley, it was hard to believe it was passable at all, let alone that it was so straightforward. Perspective is everything. |
world of rock |
The little bit of class 3 scrambling that was required to gain the
ridge had us smiling; the next section had us laughing out loud. What fun!
Beautiful, clean, solid rock; views of incredible distance and aesthetic;
a pleasant grade; and no other people! At one point, a small weasel
popped its head out from behind a rock; it climbed out to give us a good
look before scurrying away. Contrary to our expectations, routefinding
was not a problem, as it was in general fairly easy for us to determine
what would "go". A few moments of exposure here and there added a bit of
spice, but all the "you fall, you die" places were technically trivial,
and none of the harder moves were scary in the least. I was happy that
I had chosen my Five-Tennies (a sort of sneaker with climbing shoe rubber
on the sole) rather than my hiking boots, as my boots are stiff-soled and
much less positive-feeling on angled rock. (Taimi wore light hiking
boots, and she had no problems either.)
Disclaimer: both of us are proficient technical climbers and have done many roped and unroped climbs. I would not recommend this route to anyone who is not comfortable with exposure, who can't figure out a route if it's not marked with cairns, or who has either mental or physical difficulties in scrambling up or downclimbing. The "beautiful slab with two parallel cracks" reminded me of the granite slabs of Lumpy Ridge, in Rocky Mountain National Park, which holds some of the finest climbing I've experienced. The whole thing was just a tremendous experience, and we were hooting at each other with glee as we crossed point 13,641. The rock slabs eventually gave way to a pretty ridgeline meadow, still with plenty of rocks here and there but nothing requiring hands. We stopped for a food and water break on one little point, but there wasn't much altitude to gain or lose until the ridge headed more steeply to the summit. Although the last climb was basically just a talus slope, the rocks were still amazingly consolidated and the boulder-hopping was simple. Compared with the initial grade we'd slogged up to gain the ridge, this was a cakewalk, and it was hard to believe we were approaching 14,000 feet; neither Taimi nor I felt the altitude, which surprised both of us. We hit the summit at 9:30 on the nose, just 3 hours after leaving the car. |
sawteeth |
Our wilderness experience ended at Bierstadt summit; being a fourteener,
it was occupied by a good handful of summiteers. Since Taimi and I had
come by a more difficult route than the standard one, we were immediately
beseeched by the lesser mortals to lead them across the famed Sawtooth
Ridge. We felt a little like momma ducks with a trail of ducklings as we
headed down the couloir toward the ridge on a faint but unmistakeable trail.
Eventually it appeared more prudent to switch from the loose trail to the larger boulders to the left. Shortly after choosing a promising line, I noticed a cairn directly ahead. This proved to be the trend of this part of the route; rather than seeing cairns and following them, we would choose a likely path and eventually discover a cairn. This took us without too much aggravation to the low point on the ridge, something a bit more than 13,300 ft, where we took a water break. The fastest of our ducklings, two CSU students from Fort Collins, caught up with us while we sat, and they followed us through the next section, which is also traversed on the east side of the ridge. I tried to stay high so I could periodically peek over the edge. This got me into trouble a couple of times, but both times it was easy to backtrack and move lower. It's clearly easier but less interesting to take this ridge low. This is really only barely third class; anyone in good physical condition with a decent head for heights should be able to manage the Sawtooth. From Bierstadt's east ridge, we'd tried without luck to determine the "last notch" where the route crosses to the west. When we actually got there, though, it was easy; I counted no fewer than five cairns marking the notch, and in any event it was pretty obvious. While we snacked and drank here, a third duckling caught up with us. Her companion had chosen his own path and vanished; she seemed completely unconcerned about this, commenting that "he'd probably just gone back to the car, and anyway he's not a particularly close friend." With friends like these, as they say. The path on the west side ran across a narrow ledge over huge cliffs, quite spectacular, but not for the acrophobe. Then came the least pleasant part of the entire tour. Traversing a dirty, loose gully is no fun; doing it over a big drop-off is even less fun. Climbing out of the gully up a loose ramp made me feel happy to be in the lead, without anyone ahead to kick rocks at me. We advised the three behind us to spread out for safety, and we all made it to the top of the ledge and gully system with no injuries. |
the high road |
The rugged world of cliffs and scree opened into a broad, gentle meadow.
The sky was still pure blue, the scenery magnificent. Only one thing marred
our perfect experience -- the ducklings getting to know each other. Very
loudly. Taimi and I, in accord, took a nice long break, assuring them that
the difficulties were past and we'd see them on the summit -- just go on
ahead, ok? We dawdled in the warm sun for a good while, then casually strolled
through the (now much quieter) rocky meadow. With perfect weather and
faster-than-anticipated progress, we had no need to rush.
We passed the foot-shaped boulder that Chris had mentioned in his trip report, and shortly after that the west ridge of Evans began. The ridge was so pretty I went right to the top and stayed there until I realized that the imposing point ahead was only a false summit. Taimi, who jokingly grumbled throughout the day "what's the use of gaining altitude if you're just going to lose it again," had remained lower. We could see other people on a cairned trail even further below us, but our "high road" was an enjoyable scramble, and it even sported an occasional cairn, too. When a fairly straight path to the true summit was evident, we both popped back up to the lovely ridge. At one point, a mountain goat came right around one of the rocks and posed obligingly for a picture. He then came straight up to Taimi, perhaps demanding a close-up, but she pointed out he was so close he'd be foreshortened, and he walked away. We could look straight down to Summit Lake. There was still a bit of a snowfield below us, where what looked like a class in snow technique was taking place. |
oh, the humanity |
Just short of the summit we passed a small group of hikers who had
come across from Bierstadt ahead of us, one of whom was summiting his "final"
(out of the "official" 54) fourteener. He'd chosen to finish with
Evans so he could end in style: his wife had driven up and put welcome
signs on the rocks, and she was going to drive him back down. The summit
itself was a mass of humanity. Not unexpected, considering the road that
ends only 300 vertical feet below the summit. We topped out at 12:30, six
hours after our start.
My car was still below us by 500 vertical feet and a bit less than a mile of straight-line walking. Taimi looked at the crowd, so different a scene from most of the day, and said, "You know, the most appropriate way for us to get down from this summit is by hitchhiking." I was torn: on the one hand, a complete loop hike requires doing the whole thing by foot; on the other hand, the descent next to the road was unattractive, my toes were protesting, and anyway it did seem sort of bizarrely fitting to hitch a ride with a tourist. So we did. |
conclusions and notes |
I add my emphatic agreement to Gerry Roach's assessment of this
"Tour d'Abyss" as a "classic climb". The rock quality, the exposure,
the scenery, the altitude, the solitude, and a level of difficulty that
is challenging without being daunting combine for an experience
that Taimi and I agreed was Top Ten. The day was just pure enjoyment
from start to finish. Of course, part of the pleasure came from
the perfect weather and from having a partner whose skills and fitness
matched mine so well, such that it was truly a joint exploration
rather than having one or the other of us always in the lead and
making the decisions. It surprised me a little that Taimi and I made better time and had fewer routefinding difficulties than I had expected based on Chris's trip report. I think it was partly because we had his notes to work from, partly because there were two heads figuring things out rather than just one, and partly because of our technical climbing backgrounds. People who have "trad" lead climbing experience will have the routefinding skills and the appropriate comfort level with the moves and exposure to enjoy this route. Alas, most climbers seem to be more interested in the "numbers game", preferring the pursuit of ever harder technical grades over an alpine scramble at a technically easy level. Their loss. I don't mean to imply that climbing experience is necessary to be safe and comfortable on third class routes. "Third class" is basically just a route where you need to use your hands to make upward progress (scrambling). What distingushes this from technical climbing (fourth and fifth class) is the level of difficulty; handholds should be plentiful and obvious, and the moves should not be overly awkward or strenuous. If they are, you're in the wrong place -- and the art of determining if a sequence is only third class, or if it's harder, before actually committing to the moves, is the key to routefinding. Downclimbing is harder than going up, but it's absolutely necessary to master. Practicing these skills on less committing, less exposed routes, will get you ready for alpine third class. Our total time was 6 hours including rest stops. Total distance was about 5.5 miles (excluding the bit we hitchhiked). Total elevation gain according to Roach is 3000 ft, with the lowest point being the pond at 12,350 ft and the highest the summit of Evans at 14,264 ft. |