14er Report #13: Mt. Shavano and Tabeguache Peak (Fall Conditions, East Slopes)

Shavano Sunset. Mount Shavano, Colorado, 2014

…get out there and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains. Run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space.

—Edward Abbey

Thanks for that one, Ed. May you rest in peace somewhere out there in the lonely desert of southern Arizona.

Now, on to important matters…

Yesterday’s 14er adventure was a bit of an experiment. Up until this trip I had always done a very early morning, oh-dark-thirty drill to get me up near or on the summit by sunrise. This time around, with the thunderstorm threat now about nil, I decided to try going late to be on top for sunset–then hiking down after dark. You’ll see how it went and what I think about this in the full report below.

On a completely off-the-wall note, today’s objective–to climb both a “mount” and a “peak”– led me to wonder about naming conventions. What is the difference between a “Mount” and a “Peak”, anyway? I would think a Mount would be massive and a peak would be pointy but, if you look around at Colorado high points (like today’s pair), it seems that the designation could be a bit subjective.

Surprisingly, someone has actually done a legitimate, scholarly, statistical analysis of this very question (no doubt prompted by many fart-fueled and cramped hours of storm-bound, high-altitude, tent debate with his or her companions).

The research paper in question? Here you go: Are Summits Titled by Topography or Whim? A Multinomial Logistic Regression Study on Mountains, Mounts, and Peaks, by Steph Abegg, March 2010. I won’t spoil the conclusion–you’ll just have to feed your own curiosity starting AT THIS LINK.

OK, on to the trip report–one”Mount” and one “Peak”.

Trip Report: Mt. Shavano (14,229′) and Tabeguache Peak (14,155′)

Route:

The standard East Slope Route up Mount Shavano, then out and back over to Tabeguache Peak, and a descent back down Shavano. Something like 5600′ total vertical and 11.25 miles round-trip, so the guidebook says.

Timeline:

As mentioned above, I flipped my schedule to be at the summit for sunset instead of sunrise. A few of my considerations:

1) Thunderstorms are much less likely this time of year, so getting off of the mountain by noon isn’t that important.

2) Pre-dawn mornings in late fall can be pretty butt-cold. The afternoon would be warmer and nicer for hiking.

3) The days are much shorter now. Even after walking down after sunset, I could be home by midnight or 1a.m., which makes for a somewhat more normal schedule than my usual leave-Boulder-at-midnight, sleep-deprivation, sunrise plan.

So…

I departed Boulder about 8:00a.m. and was on the Shavano trail by 12:05p.m. In case it is in your future plans, I passed a really nice campsite with fire ring and comfy sitting logs about 50 minutes up from the trailhead (when the creek is running, there is water nearby). I made tree line by 2:05p.m. and was on the summit of Shavano by 3:40p.m.

I spent only a very few minutes with some Shavano summit photos then headed over to Tabeguache–I didn’t want to dawdle and get back too late to Shavano for sunset. Moving quickly and without my pack, it took only about 50 minutes to make it over to Tab and about 55 minutes to come back, despite some unfun crossing of snow patches mixed into boulder fields here and there, mostly on the Tab summit ridge. So, by about 5:40p.m. I was back on Shavano’s summit awaiting the sunset (scheduled by the Universe for 6:13p.m.).

After some photography, and a show from a chilly blue, orange, and red sunset, I started down from the summit at 6:20p.m. and made it back to the trailhead by 8:55p.m.–a slightly faster than normal descent for me. Using the fading skylight, I actually made it to treeline on the descent before switching on the headlamp.

Total time, trailhead to trailhead: just under 9 hours. You might be able to go a bit faster with no snow patches and not hanging out to put your camera on a tripod. The young and super fit can surely go a lot faster. (But…Faster? Why go faster? Better to stay up there in that dream world awhile and come back down to uncivilization only reluctantly, dragging your feet and complaining bitterly the whole way…)

Weather Conditions:

Except for the snow patches on the high ridges, it was like summer. I saw 66 degrees when I started at noon and 45 degrees when I returned around 9p.m. I even managed to hike all the way to the summit of Shav in my summer hiking pants and a cotton T-shirt (I put on the wool layers and a wind shell immediately after stopping on the top, though!). The skies stayed a perfect Colorado blue all day and the wind was reasonable–calm below treeline, 5 to 25mph from the west up on the summit ridges.

Is this summer’s last hurrah?

Trail Condition:

No traction was needed and I only wished for my gaiters through a very few, very short patches of snow.

The trail was dry all the way up to the “Angel of Shavano” and, even there, you could bypass pretty much all of the snow with some creative route finding or walking the outer edge of the trail. In fact, everything was so dry that the creek advertised in most route descriptions (maybe 45 minutes up from the trailhead, near the campsite) wasn’t there, just some logs across a dry wash.

This is also a trail you could do by headlamp with no real problems–the junctions are well-signed and the path well worn. On the way down by headlamp, I only hesitated very briefly a handful of times whilst locating the trail (sometimes the trail looks very much like the rest of the forest floor).

The last 100 vertical feet or so of the bouldery Shav summit had some nice, ankle to shin-deep collections of wind-blown snow between the rocks, but previous human feet had packed footprints into where you needed to walk.

The ridge coming down to the Shav-Tab saddle from Shavano was actually fun–staying to the eastern side and doing a bit of boulder hopping one could move fairly quickly and the view was superb. Sometimes it was fun just to scramble along the granite directly on the ridge itself. Note of caution: Even though the Tabeguache summit is “only” a mile away from Shavano, it involves a fairly strenuous, near two-hour, workout to get there and come back–make sure you have good weather before you commit.

The summit conditions of Tabeguache were probably a bit more difficult than Shavano–you could boulder hop and skirt around much of the snow, but there was just no avoiding many snowfields on the final summit ridge and I saw few other human footprints. Mostly the snow was ankle or shin deep, but I did inadvertantly find one thigh-deep hole!

A summary of the sections of the Shavano trail as I saw it: Trailhead – short Colorado Trail section – the Straight Rock Gully That Goes On Forever – the Forest Glen (the creek area) – the North-ish Ridge – the Traverse (across the “Angel”) – the Saddle – the Summit Boulders.

Photography Issues:

–Maybe I am way off, but it seems like the morning sky is different–better–than the sunset sky. Today, for example, there were some wonderful clouds in the morning, but they had burned off by mid-day, thus I was left with a boring sky for my photography. All you can do, then, is just minimize the sky in your pictures. I am not sure I’ll do another sunset trip–I may stick to my sunrise habit.

–I hauled my full-sized tripod up the mountain today. I just love having the quality and flexibility of it as compared to the little one and, in my view, it was worth the extra pound or two on my back. (On the other hand, I hauled up my two-pound 14-24mm wide angle lens and never used it!)

–I had in my notes that there would be a fingernail Moon in the sky, best visible at 6:32p.m.–but I forgot to look! Dang–perhaps a missed image opportunity? I was imagining an other-worldly fingernail Moon enlarged through the telephoto lens, just above a Rocky Mountain horizon, surrounded by the blue-orange-red of the alpine sunset. But it wasn’t to be.

Unusual Events/Comments:

–Shavano and Tabeguache are the southernmost 14ers in the Sawatch Range. It took about four hours to get there from Boulder (via 285 and Fairplay), get my pack organized, and get on the trail.

–I am slowly running out of “two-fers”. That is, two 14er peaks that can be climbed on the same outing. Some purists say that one ought to climb each 14er individually and that at least 3,000 vertical feet must be climbed to count each as a true ascent. I say each individual can make up there own rules for what is really a very personal game. For me, if a second peak is there, and it makes sense to climb it on the same trip, I will. I am up there more for the idea of “just being there”, visiting the summits, and for the photography. And, like I said, it’s all just a huge, non-sensical game, anyway…an excuse for getting out into the real world of Pachamama.

–Speaking of rules of the game…My wife says that no one has yet to really climb all the 14ers. She believes that one ought to begin at sea level for each peak and ascend the full 14,000+ feet to the summit on foot. Repeat: a full 14,000′ on foot for each peak! Now that would be quite an athlete’s feat!

–I only saw three other humans all day–one friendly guy from Salida (Drew) on his way down, and a young couple (also on their way down) eating lunch on the lee side of some boulders near the saddle. Mostly, I had the mountains to myself.

—Colorado 14er Senior Challenge summit count: 22 of the basic list of 58 (p. xxiii in Gerry Roach’s 14er “Bible”, Colorado Fourteeners, 3rd Ed.); 28 of the long list of 73 (pp. 347-348, with South Wilson added, also in Roach’s “Bible”.

Selected Images:

You will drive about nine miles from US 285 to the trail head, about six miles of it on a 2WD but washboardy dirt road that will loosen the nuts and bolts a bit. Shavano is the obvious, snowy, high point in the picture. Tabeguache is hidden behind: