One of many
trip reports under the
SilGro home page for Alan Silverstein and Cathie
Grow.
Email me at
ajs@frii.com.
Last update: June 14, 2024
(Previous trip report: 1985_0809-11_NorthMaroon.htm)
(A
Fourteener
trip report.)
(Originally posted to internal newsgroup:
/* hpfcla:hpnc.general/ajs / 11:52 am Aug 26, 1985)
Here's a trip report on Mount Evans, Pikes Peak, and while I'm at it, Indian Hot Springs at Idaho Springs, and the Florissant Fossil Beds. All four of these interesting locations came equipped with roads, but two of them were over 14000', and therefore worth climbing. (If you're doing all the Colorado Fourteeners, sooner or later you must make the best of Evans and Pikes...)
Friday and Saturday, Aug 16-17: My wife Spring Carlton, daughter Megan Silverstein, and I spent some time at meetings in Denver, then drove up to Idaho Springs Saturday night.
Sunday, Aug 18: Early in the morning, I mean real early (0330), I dragged out of bed, leaving wife and daughter sleeping, and drove up Colorado 103 to Echo Lake (14 miles) and thence to Summit Lake on Mount Evans (since renamed Mount Blue Sky; another nine miles to about 12850'). It was a cold, dark, starry night...
At around 0445 I started up the road -- now paved all the way to the top, unlike six years earlier. I didn't attack the rocks directly because (a) it was too dark and (b) I needed to warm up anyway (brrrr....). After a while, when it got just light enough to see, I cut up the northeast flank to the summit on moss and boulders.
I must have hauled (it's hard to remember, that early in the morning) because I made the summit (14264') at 0555, a good 15 minutes before sunrise, climbing about 1400' in 70 minutes. Anyway there was nobody else up there. Just before sun-up one small station wagon of gagglers pulled in, but they didn't even get out, just shot flash(!) photos of the mule-deer in the parking lot from inside their vehicle with the engine running.
It was a pretty sunrise, with the city lights, lakes, clouds, and all. Nothing quite compared with catching the first rays on the top of a high peak, watching the shadows appear to the west. It was a lot nicer last year on top of Longs Peak though! [Apparently no trip report on that hike though.] Mount Evans's summit was downright depressing back then, with a burned-out restaurant, cracked asphalt parking lot, occasional litter, etc. (If the human race vanished today that peak would probably take several thousand years to return to a natural state...)
About 0625 I took off to the west along the summit ridge, crossed the 14256' sub-peak, made a nice narrow ridge-walk down to a saddle, then up a short ways to the top of the Sawtooth at about 0730. This was a pointy bit of real-estate with several-hundred-foot sheer cliffs down one side. If you were to cross to/from Mount Bierstadt on this ridge, you'd probably go below Sawtooth on the south, never actually topping out on it.
Well having climbed Mount Bierstadt before, I decided not to bother crossing over to it. The fast-building clouds and bitter cold winds helped motivate me to continue on around the loop. (Hey it was like autumn up there! It looked like a cold quick winter might be on the way. I saw two marmots packing suitcases and buying airline tickets for Florida...)
Continuing on around to the north took me 300' up Mount Spalding with a great view of Evans, Sawtooth, Bierstadt, and down to Summit Lake. From here it was a steep but fun and easy ridge-walk around the north side of the lake and down to the trail northwest from the lake parking lot, where I watched a couple of mountain goats grazing. My total round-trip time was only 4:30 for about 1800' elevation gain.
Now, the Colorado Mountain Club says that to really climb a Fourteener you must do the last 2000 vertical feet. I think I made up for that by hiking in the dark and making the loop around Summit Lake. As far as I'm concerned I climbed that peak about as thoroughly as I'd ever care to! There were just too many nicer places to spend the time.
By 1015 that same Sunday morning I was relaxing in the Idaho Springs mineral-water pool. But: Thumbs down on this place! A room for the night in the old (1905) Indian Hot Springs lodge was $35, and we were lucky to have a bathtub -- no shower. Small and old, very noisy from a band playing downstairs until late, smelly too. The pool was cold for a hot mineral springs -- dunno why, I guess they turned off the water overnight -- and they let people smoke anywhere, butts all over, ecch. It was run down and over-priced.
The next weekend I didn't manage to round up anyone for a Blanca trip. Instead I took my family down to Colorado Springs.
Friday, Aug 23: We found a very nice campsite at Crags Campground (10000') on the west side of Pikes Peak for the night. This Forest Service campground was three miles in on a decent gravel road from Colorado 67 (the way to Cripple Creek). It had nice designated sites, pit toilets, running water, no camping fee, and lots of sites available even at 1930 on a Friday night in August. A very pretty, quiet location; I recommend it.
Saturday, Aug 24: The weather was a lot warmer and clearer than the week before, but in the morning under starry skies there was ice on the car and picnic table. By 0545 I was on my way alone up the Crags trail to Pikes Peak. The Borneman-Lampert description was very accurate and worth using. Once I found the "hidden" trail 1/4 mile from the campground it was comfortable and easy to follow, well-cairned and never too steep, most of the way to timberline... Fast and mellow.
From the end of the trail -- or where I chose to leave it -- it was less than a mile through lovely woods up to a steeper, meadowy slope. Now being a little uncertain whether I'd actually found the right drainage (it was dark at 0600), I decided to be "conservative" and traverse right (south) before reaching the high ridge (and first sunlight) at 0740 and about 12800'.
Well I found myself in full view of the summit and the road, half a mile away across a deep valley! I had to traverse back north then drop across and back up, which took 40 minutes, adding about 300' vertical and maybe 30 minutes of hiking.
From the first meeting with the road, Pikes Peak was not much of a thrill. Too much dust-raising traffic and not enough scenery -- it was rather rocky and gravelly. I stayed well left of the road, as recommended in "The Book", and as a result had to drop about 100' twice, back down to the road, at some switchbacks. Finally when the road headed around to the right there was a pleasant boulder-and-gravel ridge to the summit, about 800' away... Easy, enjoyable scrambling.
I really moved fast (for me) on this trip, arriving on top (14110') at 0935 (3:50 for 7.5 miles and about 4300' of gain). I didn't get there in time to see the winner of the Pikes Peak Marathon (that same day!) arrive at about 0910, but I did pick a nice spot in the crowd near the finish line to watch our own Kathy Harris (of HP) cruise past. She was 12th in the women's division, 3rd in her age/sex class, out of 1350 runners, in the staggering time of 3:14:13. That was for the Barr Trail, 13.5 miles, 7500'... Amazing, just amazing. It made me feel a lot less proud of what I'd just done by comparison. (Then again I probably had more fun than anyone racing, drained as they were, and anyone who had driven up either -- what a zoo! -- they don't know what they missed.)
After an hour and a half, some junk food from the Summit House, and a year's worth of grossing out at the cars, noise, garbage, tourists, and gaudy trinkets, I started back down. I could have caught a ride, but what the heck, it only took an hour and some to reach the 12700' saddle above the northwest side. It was an easy, enjoyable stroll off the summit, mainly on soft granitic gravel, with very little ascending needed once I knew just how to cut across.
Beyond the saddle I left all the dust and chaos behind. Ah, that alpine mountainside! I followed a steep rocky creekbed back below timberline, to the Crags trail, and out to the trailhead. Total time from the summit: 2:50; and that was with stops to enjoy it.
That same Saturday afternoon we bopped around Cripple Creek, rode the narrow-gauge train a mile or two up and back (eh, do once), and found a pleasant private campground called Lost Burro four miles out of town on the dirt road to Florissant... Just $7.50 for a thick grass campsite and a hot shower (ah...).
Sunday, Aug 25: We spent some time at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, a relatively new addition to the Park Service (1969) [at that time]. It was a nice place, with some easy short trails to various features like partially-petrified 35-million year old sequoia(!) stumps. Chips of geologically-recent petrified wood (whitish, not opalized) were lying all over, mixed with slate and mudstone from volcanic ash from the Sawatch Range eruptions that formed the fossil beds.
After that we spent most of the day driving home without ever using I-25 or I-70, on rocky back roads -- what a mistake. The one from Florissant to Westcreek was terrible, lots of unmarked turns, took an hour to go 20 miles (with several mid-course corrections :-) It was paved to Deckers and then up to US 285, but there was a lot of slow traffic and it was windy and twisty. It would have been a nice drive if we weren't trying to get to Boulder by 1400 -- forget that, we didn't make it until 1550, after leaving Florissant (city) at 1145... Oh well.
Now I'd climbed all the Fourteeners in the Front, Sawatch, and Mosquito ranges, half the Elks, and one of the Sangre de Cristos. Pikes was the big number 30 for me... Yeah!
Alan Silverstein
(Next trip report: 1985_0830-0903_BlancaEllingwoodLB.htm)