Mount Neva - North Ridge
Mount Jasper - Ridge from Neva & down Snow Lion (I think)

July 18, 2020
10.8 miles
3,598' gain
3 hours 25 minutes
Strava Link

I used to write a lot of trip reports, but I also used to do a lot of more interesting things and realistically had more time to spend on such things (kids, am I right?). Looking back, my last one was back in 2015 and my motivation was pretty low to write then as it was. Here is my attempt at shaking off the dust and just getting a short report out there...

Considering that I’d wanted to do Neva for years, my level of preparation was substandard. I’d made “plans” to get up and do it so many times that it almost had become a joke, and pretty much every outing just led to shorter, easier, and closer to home ventures. The morning had been basically the same, and my wife seemed suspicious when I’d said I was going to make the drive up the next day. Midnight rolled around, and after a night of poor dietary and beverage choices I had given up on my desire to go. Not to mention that I hadn’t packed, or so much as looked up the route… I justified it to myself that I wouldn’t set an alarm, but on the chance I woke up naturally I would go. Much to my unpleasant surprise, I was wide awake about 3:45 and started rummaging groggily around for my stuff. Pretty soon I was rolling up Boulder Canyon thinking that the construction was just as annoying at night as it was in the day time.

To my complete lack of surprise, the trailhead was full by the time I got there, but I was able to find a spot relatively close to the start. A quick transition from slippers to trail runners and up the trail I “ran”, quickly realizing how I’d be paying from my consumption from the night before. Having been up South Arapaho a few times I wasn’t too concerned about where to go and made decent progress up the trail despite the large number of people that were out and about. It quickly became a routine of catching up to a party and then scaring them to death as I tried to pass. After one wrong turn toward Diamond Lake, I was once again back on track and had soon passed the turnoff for the Arapahos. This was all new terrain to me and I enjoyed the great views of Neva. The crowds had all disappeared and the lack of people and a nice low-angle trail made it possible to alternate jogging and walking pretty much all the way up to Lake Dorothy.

Now was the time where I would either suffer for my lack of prep work or somehow manage to get lucky. I’ve always enjoyed steeper terrain, mainly because it’s a great excuse to hike, and I worked steadily up toward the obvious ridge above while enjoying not having to pretend to run anymore. Upon gaining the ridge, the views to Neva were outstanding and I made out while staying right on the ridge crest. Some exposure came suddenly, and I was almost diverted by a small notch but managed to work out a downclimb to keep moving. Pretty soon I came across another similar downclimb, and although I tried to downclimb, I decided it wasn’t worth killing myself when easier terrain was 20 feet to the left. As the terrain edged back upward I came toward a beautiful wall with pink streaks and was surprised to run into another hiker. He said he was from Denver and we chatted through a short steeper section that popped out onto much easier terrain. We parted ways and I trotted the remaining section up to the summit.

Neva’s summit was a lovely place to be and I hung out for a minute checking out the Arapahos and wondering how my friend Bill was doing between North Arapaho and Navajo. Not wanting to sit around too much, I eyed the ridge to Jasper and was happy to see that although it looked far it did not appear to be challenging. The ridge proved to be some splendid terrain and was actually able to move pretty quickly and topped out on Jasper about 30 minutes later. Sitting on the summit and taking in the views I was liked that making it up on the fly and paid off. Flipping onto my watch’s small topo, I tried to see if I could figure out how to get down. I decided to go for a direct route and made for what I thought was the northeast ridge but soon ended up getting pushed right by a large snowfield. Pretty soon I was cursing my lack of research as I was sidehilling steep dirt and talus while not being able to figure out how to get back up to the ridgeline. Stopping for a minute and contemplating going back up to the summit, I looked around and figured that the snow didn’t look too steep and had a great runout. Working down an intimidating chute filled with loose debris gave me access to a thin finger of snow that came up toward the ridge. I tossed a rock down onto the snow and was happy to see it looked pretty soft and committed to the last vertical section down to the snow. To great relief, I was off the dirt, but my dreams of a lovely glissade were smartly dashed by the fact that I was wearing running shorts and was scratching up my undercarriage while sliding quickly down.

Although uncomfortable, the descent to the lake went quickly, and other than roughing up my ass I was in decent shape. For a minute, I had almost forgotten that I had no idea where I was. Thankfully, my watch’s topo had a small label that said I was about to Upper Diamond Lake and off in the distance showed the dotted line of a trail. Some good marshy running got my feet nice and squishy and it became apparent that the dotted line on my watch wasn’t really a trail. Still, I made good progress and soon got to the bigger Diamond Lake. Here there was a trail and also a TON of people. I pulled my buff up and trotted downhill until I could start to see where there Arapaho Pass trail was on my watch, but being lazy and wanting to avoid the masses I made out for what my watch showed as the “Fourth of July Road” off into the underbrush. Surprisingly there was a faint trail that came and went, lots of boggy running (which I didn’t mind too much since my feet were already soaked), and I soon came out on an actual road that put me back to my car before I knew it.

The total outing had been a success and other than a few turn arounds it had worked out really well. I was happy to have pretty much had all the good terrain to myself and thought it was odd that with how crowded the Arapahos were that only the one guy had wandered over to Neva. Not something to complain about!