Elevation Gain - 5,600 feet
Time - 9 hours
It had been almost a year to the week since I had last climbed a 14er. Coincidentally enough, I said the same thing a year ago when making a post about my hike up Quandary Peak. This trip was a little bit different though, since I had taken the week prior off from work. Since I had a free night in a hotel to burn, I decided to drive down on Friday for some extra down time prior to the hike.
Things were a little touch and go with the weather forecast for Saturday, but I decided to drive down to Salida anyway. It wouldn't be the first time that the weather forecast was wrong, and sometimes you just don't know until you get there and wake up early the morning of the hike.
I woke up in my hotel room at 4 a.m. and was on the trail hiking by 5:15. Although it had poured the night before, the skies were clear at the trail head. I also wasn't the only one hitting the trail at that time. There were probably a dozen cars in the parking lot getting ready to go at the same time I was.
As you can see in the pictures, the weather was great. In fact, the weather made for some really cool fast moving cloud formations that made their way in and around the mountains around the hike. Although the hike was long in distance, it actually was a lot of fun and went by fast because of the great people I met along the way.
I had tried to hike Mount Shavano in the winter several years ago with Josh and Mark Rockefeller, but we were turned around by gale force winds. The hike up to Mount Shavano comes first, with Tabeguache Peak only a small saddle and ridge a mile farther along the route. Out and back from Shavano to Tabeguache, then back down to the trail head the same route you came up Shavano.
These two peaks put me over the 1/3 mark of 14ers climbed (18 total)...not too shabby.
Morning shot at treeline, summer coated goat, a look back at the trail in the morning
A look at the route up Shavano, a look back down the same route, a rocky few more feet to Shavano
From the summit of Shavano, some cool cloud shots and proof I actually climbed it
Some shots at the summit of Tabeguache
Borrowing a previous hiker's sign, coming back down and seeing trees again, a look back at Shavano driving away
Handstand at the top of Shavano, the fog that came and went, and the stream following a portion of the lower trail
