Mount Shavano

A couple of weeks ago Louis Morton and I endeavored to climb Mount Shavano, in the southern Sawatch Range. At 14,229 feet, it is the 17th highest in the state of Colorado. Those of you who follow this blog will remember Louis Morton from a previous entry when I wrote about our ride from Boulder to Ward. Climbing up one of these peaks is never easy but Louis is usually game for just about anything. Plus, it had been a while since either of us had climbed a "14er", which seems to be a bit of a shame, since I live so close to all of those fine mountains.

We drove up the night before and stayed at my aunt and uncles house just outside of Buena Vista. They just moved here from Florida and seem to be perfectly happy in their new surroundings which consist of 40 acres on the lower slopes of Mount Columbia (35th highest). We were going to take a motel in Salida, or even camp, but since we were going to drop off Masha at their place anyway and they had extended the offer, we decided to spend the night. This turned out to be a good decision, and we had a very nice visit.

I was up by 7 the next morning, not bad by my normal Saturday standards, but not nearly as early as I would like on a day I am planning a climb. Even though it was the end of September, and the summer monsoon season should really be over, it is still best to get an early start. To make matters worse, so to speak, it was bitterly cold in the morning and my aunt and uncles hospitality made it hard to get out of house until we had had several cups of coffee and some delicious bran muffins made with Grandma Betty's old special recipe.

After we finally got on the road we still had almost an hour to drive to get the trail head, which is down near Poncha Springs at the southern end of the Arkansas River Valley. The morning weather was gorgeous, and it looked like we were going to have a fine day out on the mountain. To make things even better, the golden fall colors of the aspen trees were in full bloom. This was surely one of the nicest times of the year to be up in Colorado's mountains.

We were in good spirits when we started out on the trail. Although the morning air was still very brisk, we soon heated up as we began the long uphill grind. I got so hot that before long I even took my shirt off, which is not something that I have felt especially comfortable doing lately after putting on a little extra blubber. Those additional pounds weren't exactly helping my effort at getting up the mountain either, but I wasn't doing too badly. In the meantime, Louis was going like a bat out of hell.

The lower part of the trail follows part of the Colorado Trail. This was a pleasurable stretch where the grade was not too steep and we were often walking through brilliantly colored aspen groves. The going got much tougher as we turned left on to the Shavano Trail itself. Unfortunately for Oscar, this is one of the few mountain trails I have hiked in Colorado where we didn't cross any streams, so I had to let him drink from my own personal supply which probably did not give him quite as much as he otherwise would have liked to have.

Once we got above timberline, the views were exceptional looking back toward the southeast. The long valley below us was full of the color of thousands of aspens. Beyond that stretched the golden plain of the Arkansas River Valley. To my dismay, however, there were clouds that appeared to be building fast. While it was only 10:30 or so, the sky was already showing some ominous signs.

I have a long ingrained fear of getting struck by lightning when I am high on a mountain, away from the cover of trees so I was watching the developing weather with great trepidation. By this point Louis had opened up a sizable lead on me and although I could see him up ahead, I knew he would be listening to his I Pod and would not be able to hear my calls for him to hold up for a conference. So we went on and on, climbing toward saddle high above where the route would lead to the summit ridge.

By 11, I was starting to see bolts of lighting flashing from the black bank of clouds hovering over a mountain several miles to our south, but it was still not looking too bad where we were headed. After another half an hour, though, some very threatening looking clouds started billowing over the ridge for which we were headed. I passed a few people heading down who had obviously gotten a much earlier start on the trail than we did. They all said that things didn't look any better on the other side. Louie had found a comfortable rock to sit on while he waited for me to catch up. He was actually looking a little concerned also, as we were beginning to hear the occasional distant rumble of thunder. We went on a little further hoping for some miraculous clearing, but it the thunder only got closer. He and I finally decided to turn back. We figured we had reached about 13 thousand feet, easy striking distance of the summit, but Shavano would have to wait for another day.

Somewhat despondent, we made our way back down the mountain. This part of the day seemed to take a very long time. Descending is never my favorite thing anyway, its much tougher on the knees and feet than going uphill. After reaching the bottom we had an early dinner at Amica's in Salida and drove up to Buena Vista to pick up Masha and say goodbye to Debbie and Jerry. By the time we got up to their place, the weather was really bad. there wasn't lightning, but a front had definetely moved in and it was cold, windy and an icy rain had started to fall. According to Jerry, Masha had sat by the front door all day looking out the window. I'm sure she felt bad that she wasn't able to come with us. Old dogs never understand their limitations.