Mount Evans & Mount Bierstadt, via Sawtooth

My latest adventure included a lot of sitting time along a long and quite road, between Kimball, NE and Ft. Morgan, CO. So my adventure begins.

I talked to Jerry and made plans to climb Mt. Snowmass on the western side of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. I took off work early Friday the 21st of September. You would think it was Friday the 13th the way the beginning of the trip went.

I left town around lunch to get over to Jerry's a little earlier in the day, since Snowmass was a 4.5 hour drive from his house. I got about 30 miles on the south side of Kimball when my alternator went out on my pickup. My last cellphone call was to my dad telling him I was stranded between Kimball and Ft. Morgan. An hour and half later, my dad rolls up and pulls my pickup into Ft. Morgan. An hour later and lots of greasy and oily hands, the alternator was changed and I was on the road back to Jerry's.

I got to Jerry's around 6:30pm, a little late. We decided to climb Mt. Evans and Mt. Bierstadt, via the Sawtooth instead of Snowmass. I've been wanting to do a class 3 climb, so it was decided. We packed out stuff and headed out.

We got to Mt. Evans and threw our tents up in a nearby campground. We talked to a few people walking by the campground and they said there was a black bear at a lower campground a night or two before. Jerry decided to put all of our food in a container and throw it up in a tree to keep the bear from finding it. He said he had heard stories of bears tearing into vehicles to get at the food and I guess he didn't want claw marks on his new Nissan. I don't blame him.

After a uneventful night of snoring, we got up and hit the trail sometime around 7:00am. We decided to go up the Northeast Ridge of Mt. Evans, since the road to the top was closed on Sept 3rd. An hour later, we were at the windy and rather chilly peak of another 14'er. We shared the views with five, snowy white mountain goats. What an experience.

We decided to circle around the west side of Evans and caught the backside of the Sawtooth Ridge. We stopped for a minute and sat down. We marvelled at the sight of the Sawtooth. I told Jerry that I had my life insurance paid up but didn't think I wanted to chance it on the Sawtooth. Jerry suggested that we ditch our packs here (along with our water) and walk over to the ridge and where we felt uncomfortable, we would turn around. I agreed.

We started out climb and made it over to where we crossed over to the east side of the ridge. The trail was a lot wider that it appeared at first, though it would have been a lot harder if it was raining out or snow on the ground.

We crossed over to the east side and ditched out jackets in the rocks. Jerry "marked the spot" with his GPS and we finished the climb up to the top of Mt. Bierstadt. We celebrated and started out hike back down to retrieve our jackets. When we got near our jackets, Jerry pulled the lcoation up on the GPS. It said our jackets were 300 miles to the east in Kansas. "CRAP", I old Jerry. We eventually found our jackets by backtracking when we crossed over onto the east side. Don't ask me how we found them with the rock all looking the same, but we did.

We went back over the Sawtooth and grabbed out packs. By this time, Jerry and I were both feeling the effects of not drinking water for at least a good hour. We took a break and at some trailmix and quenched our thirst for water. We decided to descend via Mt. Spalding West Ridge route. Not quite sure how long it took us to descend, but it wasn't long and we were knuckling touching at the vehicle. Another two 14'ers and a 13'er done in one day.