Two Fourteeners in one day—a pair of 14,000-ft peaks, Mount Evans and Mount Bierstadt. I’ve climbed both several times, individually.  In summer of 2010, I took my friend Harry Kloor up to the summit of Mount Evans, and then a few months later I took Neil Peart up to the summit, in between two Rush concerts at Red Rocks Amphitheater, where we brainstormed the story of Clockwork Angels: The Novel.

But that was the easy way up.  Evans and Bierstadt are connected by a rugged (and legendary) Class 3 ridge, known as the Sawtooth. I have climbed all of the “Fourteeners” in Colorado, and now I’m just doing “fun” routes (supposedly), trails I’ve always wanted to do.  It was time for me to do the dreaded Sawtooth ridge.

I went with hiking companions Tim, Joe, our god-daughter Maren, and her friend Kiera (who had never climbed a Fourteener before).  To start the day, we drove up the Mount Evans Rd, the highest paved highway in North America, to the summit of Mount Evans.  Our plan was to hike from Evans to Bierstadt across the dreaded Sawtooth Ridge, summit Bierstadt, and then return across the Sawtooth Ridge to Evans and our car.

On the drive it was cloudy, but I was confident we would drive above it, and we did.  Reaching the summit of Evans, we looked down on the pools of clouds filling the valleys below.  We parked and got ready for the hike, said Hi to a curious Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep, and set off. A beautiful blue-sky day, with fresh snow fallen on the trail, so ours were the first footprints as we set out.

We descended from the Evans summit, surounded by great views, reached a vast open area, then made our way (without a trail) to the clear ridge that connected to Mt Bierstadt.  We encountered few other hikers, and when we reached the Sawtooth Ridge, suddenly we saw the difficulties ahead—a steep trail along a sheer edge, marked by cairns. We tiptoed our way across and down, following a knife edge, until the terrain opened up…and the trail disappeared.  We could see the route to Biertstadt ahead of us, but we had to pick our way painstakingly across an unmarked and steep boulder field. We spread out, each taking different imaginary trails, picking our way along, until we finally began our summit climb to Bierstadt, pulling our way hand and foot upward.

Joe had an unnerving experience when the rock he he was holding detached in his hands, and he nearly fell backward, but caught himself just in time.  Kiera and I got ahead of the others and climbed higher, and we reached the Bierstadt summit first.  At the top, we did high-fives, took photos, and talked with all the other hikers who had taken the *easy* way up.  Tim, Joe, and Maren arrived a while later, and we all had lunch on the summit, took photos, rested…but we were only halfway finished.  We still had to retrace our steps.

On the summit of Mt Bierstadt

Though we had started early, by now it was after noon, and we had to get moving. We did NOT want to be on the dreaded Sawtooth Ridge during one of Colorado’s traditional afternoon storms.  We set off again, working our way down the steep and unmarked slope, pretending that we saw some kind of trail, and then spreading out again as we made our way across the open and steep boulder field.

We got to the crux, crossing the Sawtooth and reaching a saddle, a nice place to rest and reassess. By now, though, we were exhausted from the hard work, and clouds were closing in.  Maren and her friend took pictures, and I realized that my phone had died (turned out that “searching for signal” all day long had drained the battery; everybody’s phone had run out of charge.)  As we rested and prepared for the final ascent up to the big open plain before the half-mile climb to the Evans summit.  Thunder exploded in the air with a sound as loud as an atomic bomb. We didn’t need any encouragement—time to go.

We did the last, steep climb up the narrow cliff-edge trail, reached the open area between the peaks . . . and then the clouds socked us in even more, surrounding us with fog so dense we couldn’t see more than 10-20 feet ahead of us.  Did I mention there was no trail?  We couldn’t see where we were going, couldn’t see the peak of Mt Evans, and tried our best to orient ourselves.

Then it began to rain, and sleet. And the temperature dropped.  We wandered, trying to find where we were going, and eventually found cairns and a trail, which we followed.  But I had the sinking suspicion that we weren’t going in the right direction.  Since we couldn’t see any landmarks it was dificult to orient ourselves.  We climbed, reaching a peak . . . but it was a different mountain entirely, Mount Spalding. On my GPS, I identified Spalding—which was not at all where we wanted to be—just about the time it began to hail heavily.  We put on our extra rain flies and jackets, but we had started out in 70 degrees and blue skies. Now, our thermometers showed the temperature had dropped to 37°F.

So we trudged back down from Spalding and headed in the general direction of where Evans should be.  Thunder boomed again.  Maren and Kiera showed us that their hair was drifting up in the air, standing straight out because the air was charged with so much static electricity.  Not good in SO many ways!

The hail hammered down again, and we took shelter amongst the rocks until the hail slowed, and finally the fog cleared and we could see Mount Evans, our destination, where the car was parked!  We set off even as the fog closed in again, but we had enough time to get to other cairns and find the faint trail again.

By now, we were running on empty. We took some energy gel packs, pressed on, as the fog closed in, the temperature dropped, and then the rain/sleet got worse.  It wasn’t far, though, and we pressed on.  Kiera and I got ahead of the others, and we kept waiting, but the temperature continued to drop and if we just stood there we risked hypothermia.  So we charged forward at full speed (with Kiera’s hair still standing out due to the static electricity) and made our way back to the car.  I had the keys, but they were in the backpack, and I huddled next to the car, digging in the backpack as hail and rain increased to torrential levels, and I finally got the car open, turned on the ignition and heater, and we sat there drenched and shivering, as the car heater did its work.

Not long afterward, Tim, Maren, and Joe arrived, very glad to have the already-warmed car waiting for them.  We drove down the sleet-slicked, winding Mount Evans Rd, so tired, wet, and hungry that we were even willing to eat at McDonalds on the way.

When I finally got home, the warm shower had never felt so good.  And Rebecca doesn’t understand why we consider this FUN.