Trip Report
Check out Videos at the bottom
Scotty and I decided to head back towards Denver for our fourth and
fifth day of climbing. I
had already done The Sawtooth route in 2004, but I had gotten
chased off the mountain by thunder and hail before I was able to grab
Spaulding. Scotty had done Bierstadt but didn't get Evans.
So, we decided to hit Bierstadt, the Sawtooth, Evans and
Spaulding. Since this route is also a CLASSIC according to Roach,
it was certainly worthy. We found a free pull-off camping spot
along the road
to Guanella Pass. We camped, and got up early.
Ultimately we got started up the trail around 4:45 am. We
started off booking it. We figured if we were going to repeat a
summit, we might as well do it fast. The Bierstadt trail is
really pretty easy. It starts with a mild drop in elevation, then
it starts going up towards the ridge. It gains the ridge, then
some boulder hopping to the summit. We made the summit in 1 hour
43 minutes. That was 7 minutes faster than in 2004. I
thought for sure we'd be faster, but oh well. We only spent a few
minutes on Bierstadt, then headed towards the Sawtooth.
Personally, I think that the downclimb off of Bierstadt is the toughest
part of this route. It is a steep boulder climb. It isn't
super hard, but it is grueling. We worked our way down to the
Sawtooth saddle. At that point, we needed to work our way back up
to the weakness in the Sawtooth ridge. The route up to the
weakness was a well cairned class 3 route. Scotty expertly lead
the way. We made the weakness in the ridge, and passed through to
the other side. At
this point I'll mention that the crux looks nasty and even impossible
from a distance. But, very quickly - as you get
closer to it, it begins to look easier. At that point we
could see the remainder of the
crux. We started by crossing on a wide shelf. Then, we made
our way up and right to the bottom of a very loose up climb.
The last bit of the crux is a loose upclimb. Again, Scotty
expertly negotiated this part of the route. It wasn't super
difficult. In fact, I was able to climb it one handed, with the
other hand video taping the ascent. At the
top of the upclimb the route passes over the top of the Sawtooth, and
starts heading toward Evans. The rest of the route to Evans is a
long and grueling boulder hop with plenty of false summits to tease you
long the way. We ultimate made Evans in about 2 hours from
leaving Bierstadt.
At the summit of Evans, the Denver Museum was doing a documentary about
how humans deal with altitude. It was neat to watch them
recording, but annoying being told, "Quiet on the SET!" on the top of a
fourteener. I guess if it were to happen, Evans - the drive up
summit - would be the place it would happen. We only spent 10
minutes on Evans, then headed towards Spaulding.
The route to Spaulding was primarily retracing our route along the
boulderfield. As we approached Spaulding, I was actually
impressed with the ruggedness of this "soft" thirteener.
Spaulding's right face was wicked looking and had some obvious class 5
routes from Summit Lake. We made Spaulding in about an
hour from Evans. Scotty and I both agreed that the summit of
Spaulding looked like a Druid worship area - like Stonehenge. It
was cool with a bunch of huge rocks. We would have spent more
time on Spaulding if it weren't for the flies. We started down
the Spaulding ridge towards the Guarnella TH. We stayed to the
right of the ridge, because the left side cliffs-out above the
willows. The hike down the ridge was easy, but long.
Ultimately we arrived at the creek. We followed the creek on no
particular trail, until we got into the willows. In the willows
we tried to follow a specific trail, but nothing seemed to
continue. Ultimately we just started plodding through the willows
towards the main trail that we start on in the morning. I
describe our travels through the willows as, "swimming through the
willows." We finally reached the main trail and headed towards
the Guarnella TH. We reached the TH in about 2 hours from the
summit of Spaulding. Just over 7 hours round trip for all three
peaks.
This was a nice repeat. If it weren't for the willows, this would
be a perfect hike. |
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