Mt. Shavano Trip Report 05/30/2007

Report Type	Full
Peak(s)	Mt. Shavano - 14,230 feet
Date Posted	05/30/2007
Date Climbed	05/27/2007
Author	Kojones

Beautiful Weather on Shavano
Mountain: Mt. Shavano Summit Elevation: 14,229 ft TH Elevation: 9,750 Elevation Gain: 4,550 Round-Trip: 9.25 miles TH Name: Shavano/Tabeguache Date: 5/27/2007 Climbing Partner: Liz Dunlop (my fiance) Howdy, Well, here it is, my first ever trip report on 14ers.com. I hope you enjoy it. We arrived at the Delaware Hotel in Leadville late on Saturday (26th) evening. We decided to stay there since we had never stayed there before and were interested. It‘s like sleeping in an antique store. Anyway... Waking up at 4am, we left at about 4:30 for the hour and a half drive to the TH. It was a beautiful day with a bright blue sky after the evening cover burned off. There was not a cloud to be seen. On the approach to the TH, I snapped this picture showing Shavano snow cover. If you look closely, you can see the trail above treeline. Oh look at those wonderful glissading opportunities! We arrived at the trailhead in one piece to see many other cars parked there. The TH is in great condition and the road is completely dry. The bathroom there is also very clean and does not smell (relative to other such bathrooms I‘ve seen). Here‘s a picture of my beautiful fiance posing in her REI shopping spree: We started our climb around 7:30am, a bit later than I‘m used to. The trail was completely "dry" other than some growing snow-melt streams that appeared to be temporary, as well as some snow drifts below treeline. Here‘s a great view from the trail: And a picture of the snowdrifts we encountered below treeline. We did not posthole at all through these either this time through or on the way back... they were solid: We hiked a bit further and above treeline. At this point, Liz was quite exhausted... after all this was her second time on a 14er. I felt bad, but she pushed me to continue on my own. About 1:45 hrs after leaving her, I reached the summit. 500 points to the person who can identify this peak in this shot taken from the summit of Shavano: I quickly went to work after sipping some water and found a perfect place for the new summit register tube. Of course, I placed a tribute to TalusMonkey clearly on the outside of the tube: And me posing with my handywork (thanks to whoever snapped the photo). So that‘s what I look like after climbing... I descended from the summit on the east side because I saw some great snow to glissade on and save my knees. Here are a couple pictures of the route up I took on the way down: Hmm, this slope looks perfect for a glissade and may save me time... And a look up from where the slope intersects with the trail: It definitely saved time (20 minutes from summit to intersection with trail)... I got down to this part of the trail before a bunch of people including these friendly folks who later passed us as we rested on a log: And I had to throw this in because it is quite the sight. This tree fell over across the trail while we were hiking up higher. Liz heard it fall from treeline. Don‘t lose the trail going around it: We arrived back at the car around 3:30 where we were glad to change into some normal clothes and gulp water from the gallon jugs we had. --Kojones Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):

Beautiful Weather on Shavano

Mountain: Mt. Shavano
Summit Elevation: 14,229 ft
TH Elevation: 9,750
Elevation Gain: 4,550
Round-Trip: 9.25 miles
TH Name: Shavano/Tabeguache
Date: 5/27/2007
Climbing Partner: Liz Dunlop (my fiance)

Howdy,

Well, here it is, my first ever trip report on 14ers.com. I hope you enjoy it.

We arrived at the Delaware Hotel in Leadville late on Saturday (26th) evening. We decided to stay there since we had never stayed there before and were interested. It‘s like sleeping in an antique store. Anyway...

Waking up at 4am, we left at about 4:30 for the hour and a half drive to the TH. It was a beautiful day with a bright blue sky after the evening cover burned off. There was not a cloud to be seen.

On the approach to the TH, I snapped this picture showing Shavano snow cover. If you look closely, you can see the trail above treeline. Oh look at those wonderful glissading opportunities!

We arrived at the trailhead in one piece to see many other cars parked there. The TH is in great condition and the road is completely dry. The bathroom there is also very clean and does not smell (relative to other such bathrooms I‘ve seen). Here‘s a picture of my beautiful fiance posing in her REI shopping spree:

We started our climb around 7:30am, a bit later than I‘m used to. The trail was completely "dry" other than some growing snow-melt streams that appeared to be temporary, as well as some snow drifts below treeline. Here‘s a great view from the trail:

And a picture of the snowdrifts we encountered below treeline. We did not posthole at all through these either this time through or on the way back... they were solid:

We hiked a bit further and above treeline. At this point, Liz was quite exhausted... after all this was her second time on a 14er. I felt bad, but she pushed me to continue on my own. About 1:45 hrs after leaving her, I reached the summit. 500 points to the person who can identify this peak in this shot taken from the summit of Shavano:

I quickly went to work after sipping some water and found a perfect place for the new summit register tube. Of course, I placed a tribute to TalusMonkey clearly on the outside of the tube:

And me posing with my handywork (thanks to whoever snapped the photo). So that‘s what I look like after climbing...

I descended from the summit on the east side because I saw some great snow to glissade on and save my knees.

Here are a couple pictures of the route up I took on the way down:

Hmm, this slope looks perfect for a glissade and may save me time...

And a look up from where the slope intersects with the trail:

It definitely saved time (20 minutes from summit to intersection with trail)... I got down to this part of the trail before a bunch of people including these friendly folks who later passed us as we rested on a log:

And I had to throw this in because it is quite the sight. This tree fell over across the trail while we were hiking up higher. Liz heard it fall from treeline. Don‘t lose the trail going around it:

We arrived back at the car around 3:30 where we were glad to change into some normal clothes and gulp water from the gallon jugs we had.

--Kojones

Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):

Comments or Questions

Grubneets	Peak ID 5/31/2007 4:46pm Great report, as far as the peaks go I agree with rijaca
huffy13	great pics/info 1/25/2008 3:29am Your report and pics are a great helpto me right now. I‘ve got two trips planned with my son this Summer & Fall. We are planning the Lincoln/Bross/Cameron/Democrat this May or June and then the Shavano/Tabegauche route in Sept. I‘m still relatively inexperienced to 14er hiking but all the pics and descriptions everyone has in their reports sure are a great tool when planning these trips!!
rijaca	Peak ID 11/30/2010 5:28pm The peak on the left is Mt Ouray (13,971'). The peak on the right is Chipeta Mountain (12,853').
Matt	nice job 1/19/2011 3:38am Nice job, Kojones. It looks oddly familiar... On Monday we actually used some of your glissade tracks to get speed. Thanks.
RobertPetrowsky	nice post. 9/18/2013 7:44pm glad to have the info. I plan on climbing that and tab on friday or saturday and it will really help. The peak you wanted identified is Mount Ouray and the 2 ridges running east are the devils armchair. Head to salida and look if you need to know why. The bigger looking peak is Antora

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