I’ve been wanting to get some more 14er summits in for a while now (I’ve climbed Pikes Peak numerous times but no other 14ers yet). I decided that I’d try to get Mt. Evans and Mt Bierstadt in one day. My plan was to start from Guenella Pass, climb Bierstadt rather quickly, see how I felt, and then head over to climb Evans (not via the Sawtooth–I’m not that brave yet).
Upon mentioning this to Lindsey, she decided that she’d drive up with me and hang out at the trailhead while I made the climbs. Over the course of the week she decided that she wanted to try one of the climbs too and my brother-in-law Brandon wanted to come and try a climb as well. So we’d do Bierstadt together, they’d return to the car, and I’d head up Evans while they waited.
We left Colorado Springs around 4:30am and arrived at the Guenella Pass trailhead around 6:30 or 7:00am. We headed up Bierstadt trail but it was like a highway at rush hour, I was amazed at how many people we making the climb that day. We decided to try Evans first to avoid the crowds (almost no one was making that climb that we could see).
We veered off the Bierstad trail and through the ‘wetlands’ at the base of the peaks. This involved trying to bushwhack and avoid ankle deep mud for about a mile. Our feet were soaked by the time we made it to dry land.
Here we started our ascent of the drainage that would lead us to the saddle between Mt. Spalding and Mt. Evans. It was pretty steep and we took small breaks every 50 yards or so. Once we exited the drainage we headed towards Evans across the rocky terrain (now well above treeline).
There were thunderstorms scheduled for after about 1pm so I figured we’d be able to avoid those no problem and I was keeping a constant eye on the incoming clouds. None seemed to serious, but as can happen in the Rocky Mountains in summer, that changed incredibly quickly. Within 5 minutes or so the peaks surrounding us were getting dumped on and taking sporadic lightning strikes. There were a few rock outcroppings and we headed for one and took shelter the best we could (it wasn’t ideal but it worked).
We were quickly getting hailed on (though the rocks blocked most of it). Luckily the lightning wasn’t too severe and there was only one strike that was about 1/4 of a mile from us. We hunkered down under the rocks for about 30 minutes.
At that point we decided that it was probably safest to head back down the mountain than to continue on to the summit. We waited for a break in the storm and then hurried down (spreading out along the way so that, in case of a strike, it didn’t get all of us). After about 10 minutes of descent, the weather cleared and it was blue skies all the way back to the car.
If I had been by myself I would have been pretty upset that I didn’t get a summit but, since Lindsey and Brandon were there too, it was just a good day in the mountains with family (aside from the storm). In retrospect, we could have gotten the summit after the storm broke and made it back to the car without any other weather, but we didn’t know that at the time and I’m satisfied that we made the best decision we could with what information we had at the time.
After getting back home and doing some reading, I learned that being under the tallest rock outcropping on the mountain during a lightning storm isn’t the safest place to be. Luckily the lightning wasn’t too bad and we were mainly seeking shelter from the hail. Next time we’ll make a different decision (heading down as soon as the storm broke was probably the best thing to do since we ended up heading down anyway).
