MT. BIERSTADT
(14,060 ft.)MT. EVANS
(14,264 ft.)September 24, 1999
By Tim Briese
My friend Brian and I planned to do a late September climb of South Maroon, but an early season snowstorm in the Elks rendered that impractical. We decided to climb Mt. Bierstadt instead and continue across the Sawtooth Ridge to Evans if conditions permitted.
We arranged to meet on Friday morning at Guanella Pass to begin the climb. I was about a half hour late because of a traffic accident on I-70 west of Denver but Brian waited patiently at the trailhead for me to arrive. This was our third climbing outing together this year, not bad for two guys who live in different states. Brian remarked that he wouldn’t miss a chance to climb another mountain with me before he returned to Minnesota, and that made me feel good.
We hit the fine trail at 8:15 and quickly hiked down through the willows into the Scott Gomer Creek drainage and then began to ascend the slopes on the other side. The weather had been clear and beautiful most of the week but today was chilly and blustery, with a threat of showers from the dark clouds that scooted past overhead. We rapidly ascended Bierstadt’s west slopes, finding it useful to step on bare rocks to avoid patches of snow that we encountered above 13,000 feet.
At 10:15 we reached the summit, completing a brisk two hour ascent. The temperature was a chilly 30 degrees and a stiff breeze blew out of the northwest. We took a look at the Sawtooth Ridge below to the north and decided that it looked doable, with most of the snow from the recent storm having melted off its sunny eastern side. We hunkered down on the leeward side of the mountain to rest for a few minutes out of the wind. Brian invited another climber who was on the summit to join us and he gladly agreed. He was Jason Mayfield, a young hiker from Denver, and he was interested in joining us on the ridge traverse and the ensuing hike to Evans.
At 10:30 the three of us left the summit and headed down the steep rocky slope to the north toward the saddle below. There was no trail to follow on this 900 foot descent but routefinding was quite straightforward. At one point I slipped on a patch of snow and tumbled a few feet down across the talus. I suffered only a couple of minor scrapes, but it could have been much worse. I resolved to slow down and be more careful, especially on rocks that were partially covered with snow.
When we reached the saddle the terrain became markedly more rugged. After a short break we carefully eased our way across some rocks above a twenty foot cliff, realizing a slip here could spell disaster. In retrospect I wondered if it might not have been a better idea to climb down below the cliff to the east. We scrambled up around some rough outcroppings, finding it necessary to make some strong class three moves here and there. We stayed on the right (east) side of the ridge initially, using a few scattered cairns for guidance. When we arrived at the last significant notch in the ridge we crossed over to the left side of the ridge and very carefully skirted along a narrow snow-covered ledge above a heart-stopping six hundred foot cliff that dropped precipitously away below. This is the impressive sheer face below the Sawtooth visible from Guanella Pass. The ledge was perhaps six to ten feet wide, just adequate for safe passage, but its snowy surface demanded extra caution.
After this exciting stretch we crossed a short scree gully and then ascended a wide ramp on the upper face of the Sawtooth. At the top of the ramp we stepped out onto a broad, gently sloping area, and the ridge traverse was over. The transition from the rough ridge to this gentle terrain was abrupt and unexpected. We turned back and looked with exhilaration at the route we had followed from Bierstadt’s summit. The traverse took us about an hour and a half.
After a short break we turned to the east and hiked up across gentle tundra to Evan’s west ridge, and then proceeded to follow this airy ridge toward the summit. I found the ridge to be fun and exciting, just as I had when I was on it in May of 1997, with a sporty scramble around two false summits along the way. We were beginning to tire somewhat, after all the miles we had covered, and dark clouds to the west were threatening, but we pressed on along the ridge and reached the summit at 1:15.
We sat on top and rested for a while and gazed about at the views. The summit highway was closed because of the recent snow, and there were no other hikers here today so we had this popular summit all to ourselves.
At 1:30 we started down. It seemed like we had a long way to go back to Guanella Pass. We worked our way back along the west ridge, staying more to the south side of the crest this time to avoid the elevation gain that going back over the false summits would have entailed. I paused for a moment to enjoy the fine view of Bierstadt and the Sawtooth Ridge from this vantage point. We could see showers of snow falling from clouds around us, and it was a relief to see that a big dark cloud to the north skirted past. After we reached the end of the ridge we struck off to the northwest down a gentle slope covered with grass and a little snow. The view of the valley below to the west was quite spectacular.
We hiked steeply down a grassy slope into a drainage and then followed it to the west as it dropped down into the broad valley. We attempted to find a trail to guide us through the marshy, willow-choked terrain in the boggy valley, but found only traces of a sketchy route. The route was at least much more reasonable than when I had been on it in May a couple of years before, when water standing everywhere in the vast sea of willows made it almost impassable. Snow began to fall on us as we bushwhacked across the terrain, and my clothes began to get a little wet. We hiked along a stream for a while, then went along the fringe of a pine forest that stood on higher ground, and pushed our way through the last of the willows and arrived back at the trailhead at 4:30.
I was cold, wet, and tired, but still found it exhilarating to look back at the Sawtooth and the long, challenging route we had hiked. We hiked some eleven miles and climbed 4000 feet of elevation gain on this grand loop. Before parting company we three mountaineers exchanged goodbyes and then headed down the road. Little did I know that we would all be together again on future climbs.
