We planned to do a few more peaks before Sam and Raquel had to head off for the next Wanderlust Festival or whatever they had to head off to do but fate intervened. This time it was in the form of vehicular trouble. No, not the classic peace love car (the PLC), a 1988 Festiva with over 500,000 miles on it, but my little truck. I think one of the belts broke (possibly chewed on by a porkupine at a trailhead? but it was probably due for replacement anyway) and then that stopped the water pump and it overheated and the radiator exploded - the top literally shattered with a bang and a whump and steam poured out from under the hood. So we got it to the side of the road and spent the night there and then spent a day trying to find a radiator locally and ended up cajoling and pushing (with the PLC) the car closer to Denver and then used a long distance tow to get there where Sam picked up the parts I needed while I took out the old radiator and then installed the new one in a Home Depot parking lot. By then it was time for them to head off, so I went back up to tick a few more off before Wanderlust 108 in Ft Collins.
I pulled in to the Guanella Pass parking lot/trailhead in the evening with spitting sleet and rain plus low clouds. It was not looking so great but the forecast called for clearing so I planned for that. It did open up a bit with a tiny shot of sun before sunset.
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8-25-2017 It was a cold morning and I tried to get moving quickly without actually getting out of the truck. Luckily I could mostly avoid brushing against the wet plants next to the trail and a good bit of the trail was snow free. I wasn't the first person heading up this morning, but I was still tromping through snow up higher and I wasn't always able to follow the trail. Luckily it was pretty straightforward in that I mostly just had to head up. The sun broke through a little on the summit but it was still cold and snowy. I didn't linger long before heading down the saddle towards the Sawtooth. Here I was breaking trail on snow covered talus and improvising trying to either stay on what looked like solid level snow or else clear rocks. Sometimes I punched down in between the talus - which is never much fun. There was a little interesting route finding but for the most part the rather improbable looking path was quite straightforward and not hard. Once across the saddle I went up to the summit of The Sawtooth and then started traversing over towards Mt Evans.
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Mount Evans is unusual in that there is a paved road nearly to the summit, so after traversing across some pretty wild terrain all alone I began to see more and more people with veritable crowds on and near the summit as well as wildly inappropriate clothing and footgear for a 14er that was freshly covered with snow. Of course if you could just drive up it wasn't that inappropriate after all. I didn't linger long since some ominous clouds were starting to build. The traverse back seemed to go more slowly and the snow was a bit wetter. I bypassed The Sawtooth and headed down a gulley. This was mostly snow free by now which probably saved me a few slips. At the bottom I followed some faint trails back towards the main Bierstadt trail trying to avoid the expanded beaver ponds and extra swampy sections. There was a little bit of thunder and rain once I was down low but it really started coming down after I got back to the truck. That night I headed down with a few navigational challenges to spend the night in a lovely house near Evergreen - thanks Julie.
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Summary of August 25th, two 14ers and a bonus 13er, about 10.25 miles and 3900 feet of elevation gain. A cold start with plenty of fresh snow as well as exciting traversing and a summit full of tourists. Also thunder, mud, and rain.