I'm sorry if I bore you, but this blog is a perfect opportunity for me to chronicle my 14'er expeditions so that I can reflect on them for years to come and maybe pass down some tricks-of-the-trail for the next generation.
My dad, brother-in-law Graham, and I jumped out of bed (OK...sort of rolled-out) at 0300 on September 6th and drove to an intersection just east of Monarch pass where we met up with Graham's old friend, Ray Cameron.
The Stalwart Crew
Our goal? - climb Mt. Shavano and Tabeguache Peak, 14'ers located at the south end of the Sawatch range in central Colorado. The road that led from the main highway to the trailhead (Angel of Shavano) was paved and short. I was sort-of hoping to give my Jeep Cherokee a workout, but alas...it wasn't meant to be.
Let me just mention that I noticed a lot of spiritual parallels from this hike, one main lesson in particular: Many people muddle around in life without God because they work from the wrong assumptions (i.e. people are basically good by nature, we all evolved from single cell organisms, etc.). If you don't start with the right assumptions - the TRUTH (we are created by God, for God, sinful from birth, in need of forgiveness and redemption - everything the Bible teaches), nothing will ever make sense in life. Well the same applies to hiking! If you start at the wrong trailhead, none of the topo and trail maps make a lot of sense! And you'll spend a lot of time trying to figure out why you're not gaining any ground in life. Yes, we missed the trailhead from the very get-go. The trail we intended to take was a seasonal route up the face of Mt. Shavano that resembles an angel with arms uplifted - that is, if there's snow on the ground. No snow yet in September, so we missed the whole thing. We spent an extra hour thinking we were on the right trail when we were really just on the Colorado Trail - which is beautiful, don't get me wrong! Aspen forests like this are my idea of heaven-on-earth, along with the mountain-top experiences. And the mountain-top called us ever onward and upward.
The Lowland Trek
After we finally started up a marked trail (it turned out to be the Blank Gulch Trailhead) the elevation started to rise markedly. The Blank Gulch TH starts at 9,800'. Let me say that I really hand it to my dad for sticking this whole hike out. As you can see from the picture below he started losing some steam before we got to treeline (He still had a sense of humor at this point, which really meant he wasn't that tired yet).
Not Even to Treeline Yet, Dad!
Once we reached timberline, it was a beautiful, vista-filled hike along the SE face of Shavano to a saddle at 13,330'. We were a little wary of reaching this point in our ascent since several parties had already turned around before reaching the summit and reported that the winds from the saddle up to the peak were "gale-force" and "too strong to contend with." We figured that arriving a little later may have given the winds a chance to calm down a bit. We also prayed for a break in the gusts. Again - God was good and gave us a slight reprieve upon reaching the saddle. The winds were still howling, but nothing we couldn't handle for the short term.
Ray and the 13,330' Saddle between Shavano and Espirit Point
Shortly after reaching the saddle, we realized that if we wanted a chance to summit the second peak (Tabeguache) and make it back down before nightfall, we would have to go ahead of dad, summit Shavano, and race over to Tabeguache (this required hiking BACK OVER Shavano after Tabeguache, in order to take the trail back down). We gave dad a cell phone and let him work the last 900' at his own pace. He did GREAT, as we found out later...took it step by step, and made it to the top like a real pro.
Graham and Matt on Mt. Shavano (14,229')
After a couple-hundred yards enroute to Tabegauche, Ray started getting a headache and feeling light-headed. He wisely decided to abort the second peak and hike back to Shavano where my dad would be waiting. We told them to start hiking back down the mountain together, and that Graham and I would meet up with them after we summited Tabeguache.It took Graham and I about 1 hour to make it over to Tabegauche. The hike was fairly easy except for the opportunity for sprained ankles. The trail in between the two peaks involved a lot of jumping from large-boulder to large-boulder. Below is a pic of Graham and I on Tabeguache with Shavano in the background (looking SE).
Graham and Matt on Tabeguache Pk. (14,155')
After traversing the 13,700' saddle again between Tabegauche and Shavano, we summited Shavano a 2nd time before the descent. By this point we were getting tired and wanted to meet back up with the other guys. We were receiving text messages from Ray informing us where they were and that they were OK - good news! Finally about 1 mile before we reached the car, we intercepted Ray and my dad. They looked about as beat as we felt!
We finally made it back to the vehicles where we had one more good laugh about our bad mountaineering from the start, and then parted ways with Ray. Graham and I had been dreaming about a nice cold beer and some grub in Gunnison before we headed back to Montrose. We found a nice little hole-in-the-wall restaurant in downtown Gunnison and had our fill.
Graham couldn't finish his beer - he must have been tired!!
