Saturday, June 2, 1990: Mount Evans, 14264'

By Alan Silverstein

Mount Evans, west of Denver, is one of the two Colorado Four- teeners with roads to its summit. The first time I climbed it back in 1985, I made the trip more interesting by doing a sunrise climb and circling Summit Lake (12830') on the return via the Sawtooth and Mount Spalding. This time I made the climb more ``interesting'' by attacking a tough north face snowfield - rath- er than following a planned route up the ridge. Furthermore, I led my friend Sherry up the route for her first experience using an ice axe. We turned a simple 1440', 1:30 walk or scramble from Summit Lake into a grueling 3:40 snow climb. We spent about 2:45 of that gaining 800' on steep, surprisingly hard packed snow. This adventure was a good example of what can happen when you gamble on circumstances and change plans along the way.

Sherry had to work Saturday morning so we started the trip in the afternoon. Our goal was to camp at Summit Lake, or lower down if that was impossible, and start up the mountain about 0300 Sunday for sunrise on top. We also had ideas about traversing the ridge to Bierstadt and back. Well, we reached the lake before 1600 and it was a beautiful clear afternoon. Sure it was a little windy and cold, but that's normal, right? And we had five hours of light, and didn't mind descending by moonlight if necessary. So we decided to do the climb that afternoon, get to bed late in camp somewhere nearby, and mosey back to Fort Collins on Sunday.

We started on our way at 1635. There was still a lot of snow in the area. Summit Lake was frozen solid, totally white. Fre- quently the wind caused snow-devils to play on the surrounding slopes. We headed south around the corner of the lake and up the north side of Evans.

The first snowfield was pretty hard packed (by the wind?) despite being quite fine-grained, early-season stuff. After a while we reached a bowl at 13200' that was completely full of snow. Gaz- ing up I saw a delicious-looking snow climb all the way to the summit ridge. It was steep but appeared direct and do-able if the snow was soft, as it seemed likely to be higher on the moun- tain (uh-huh...).

After some discussion, largely motivated by my drooling over the direct route, we headed up it. At first it was fast and gentle but it grew increasingly more vertical, probably 40o half way up, and 50o near the top, with a short stretch near 70o to finish. We unshipped our ice axes and reviewed their use. However, due to the sporadic cruel winds whipping ice crystals around us, we didn't spend nearly enough time practicing arrests before con- tinuing. The snow was comfortably soft where we were, and the upper half of the snowfield looked wind-free, so up we proceeded without delay.

I led Sherry, kicking steps. Eventually we stopped for a break to warm our hands. Alas, there was little level rock to sit on. All the outcrops sloped downwards, and sported a lot of ice and crust. Somehow while messing with my pack, I managed to momen- tarily let go of a full 1.5 liter water bottle. It took off down the hill like a shot, rolling, bouncing, and tumbling for a very long time. Finally it stopped way down below in the bowl, and I made a mental note of where to find it, if we returned that way as planned.

At that point we should have turned back by glissading down after the bottle. The wind followed us up the mountain, there were no comfortable places to rest, we had to work to keep our hands warm, the snow became variable, often hard-packed, above that point, and it was, after all, our first Fourteener of the year, so we got out of breath quickly. For some reason we kept climb- ing.

Half the time making steps required several firm kicks, or chop- ping or stabbing with my ice axe to break the crust. The snow conditions varied over a matter of feet. It was slow going. Not until we were on steep and firm enough snow to make glissading dangerous did we realize we'd pretty much committed to reaching the saddle (or climbing down very slowly). I tried several times to lead us onto inviting-looking rock outcrops, but in every case they were more dangerous, on close inspection, than the wide snowfield we ascended.

So with only short breaks we continued up to the summit ridge at 2000, 25 minutes before sunset. Clambering over the edge was ex- hilarating. The panorama was stupendous; snowy mountains in all directions, long shadows, and sunset colors. We plodded up east to the summit boulders at 2015.

Sherry was exhausted and we didn't stay long, just enough to down food and water and admire the spectacular sunset. The road was still closed past the lake, and no one else was on top. At 2035 we departed across the switchbacks in the road, then east and around the flank of the mountain. In the growing darkness, aided by moonlight, we glissaded down to rejoin the road just past the lake, and hoofed back to my car at 2145 (1:10 for the descent). It was still cold and windy so we drove down to the campground about 10 miles south of Idaho Springs for the night.

In retrospect we had a memorable adventure, but walked on the wild side of safety. There were several points when a slip would have required a fast arrest to avoid building up speed. We were never in imminent danger, but we did have to move carefully for a long while. I was reminded once again to make and stick to safe plans, and to abort any climb when conditions turn out to be nas- ty.