Fun on Mount Evans

Our route around Summit Lake. Our intended route is marked as a dotted line.

It's a bit late in the season for snow climbing, but I was firmly convinced that the Sunrise Couloir on Mount Evans held snow all year long. In retrospect, I don't know why I thought this, but there you have it. We picked up Peter at 6am under cloudy skies and headed west for Mount Evans. As 14ers go, Evans is pretty tame in that it has a road all the way to the summit. However, all levels of 'real' ascents are possible. Not being terribly ambitious, we drove up the road to 12,800' and parked at the popular Summit Lake trailhead. From there it is a mellow 1500' vertical feet to the summit.

Arriving at the trailhead, we noticed the gloomy clouds and blowing snow. I'd love to say that snow in August was a novel thing for me, but sadly this is not the case. We could see from the car that the Sunrise Couloir was no longer climbable; the broad band of snow descended from the Evans-Spalding saddle only half way to the basin below. We would have to climb a couple hundred feet of likely nasty scree before getting on the snow. Fortunately, we had a back-up plan. We could climb counter-clockwise around the Summit Lake cirque taking in Mount Spalding along the way and hitting the summit of Evans at the three mile mark. It would then be an easy but steep descent down to the car.

Starting our hike at Summit Lake. The snow-dusted cliffs of Evans Norwand are on the left while the gentle Mount Spalding is on the right. The Sunrise Couloir, our intended climb of the day, is the fat snow band in the middle.

We dumped all of the technical gear (rope, helmets, harnesses, axes, crampons) from our packs noticing that they felt alarmingly light. The weather improved slightly in that it stopped snowing, but was still bracingly cold. We wore all available layers, but were still chilled. A little hiking cured us of that and we quickly started the climb up the east ridge of Mount Spalding. The trail was easy to follow and a couple scrambly bits kept things interesting. The views to the south (of Summit Lake and Evans' north face) and south (the Chicago Lakes basin and the cliffs of Gray Wolf Mountain) were impressive. Periodic steep couloir on either side suggested a variety of interesting snow climbs in the appropriate months.

Amy and Peter nearing the summit of Spalding.

...and descending the other side. The Evans ridge is in the upper left, complete with numerous false summits.

We reached the broad summit of Spalding at about 9 and had a quick rest and snack. The weather was improving and sun occasionally shone through the dense clouds. We descended the south slopes of Spalding to a wide alpine meadow. To the right was Mount Bierstadt, Amy and my first 14er lo these many years ago and ahead was the rising, narrowing slope of Mount Evans summit ridge. We stopped by the top of Sunrise Couloir and found the cornice to be very blunted and split by a wide crevasse. The snow was quite hard and would have made for good cramponning. However, looking down convinced us that the final pitch would have been quite steep and the runout pretty unpleasant.

Peter stands at the top of the Sunrise Couloir. The broad crevasse is what's left of the terminal cornice from last season.

Looking down the couloir toward Summit Lake and the trailhead. It's a neat perspective and is much steeper than it looks in this picture!

We started the gradual ascent of Evans as the slope narrowed to a dramatic ridge between the Summit Lake basin on the left and the Abyss Lake basin (with dramatic Bierstadt beyond) on the right. The trail dropped down and traversed the slope on the right, but I amused myself by sticking as close to the ridge top as possible. The rock was chunky granite, quite solid and very large. It wasn't nearly as exposed or treacherous as other ridge traverses I've done which was nice since I was having a mellow, casual climb. Two false summits came and went before I rejoined Peter and Amy and spied the real summit farther on. As with most 14ers, it's easy to spot since it's covered with people!

Looking back at one of the several false summits along the ridge. The real summit looked a lot like this, but with loads of tourists lounging around on top.

We spent 45 minutes on the summit chatting with the few fellow hikers and hoards of motorized tourists, enjoying the expansive views. It began snowing again but we were contentedly munching on Marmot Sandwiches and paid it no heed. Marmot sandwiches, for those who are curious, are a particularly scrumptious invention of Peter's involving salami, provelone cheese, and everything bagels. At noon we began the descent. The trail was faint, but well packed down the broad north-east slope of Evans and we dropped altitude in a hurry. Back on the road, it began to rain lightly and we hiked the last 1/4 mile to the car. A great, mellow trip in a very beautiful location. 4.5 miles in about 5 hours (with plenty of rest stops). Purists might scoff at the legitimacy of our summit, but we had a great time anyway.

The Wilderness Journal

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