Mt. Shavano
(14,229 ft)
7-01-06

Wow, it took me a long time to post this! For our first fourteener trip of the season, my dad and I chose Mt. Shavano and its neighbor, Mt. Tabeguache (though we did not get to summit Tabeguache for reasons you’ll see below), due to their proximity to Colorado Springs and the relatively good conditions of the dirt road leading to the trailhead.

I woke up at 2 AM, finished packing, and drove to my parents’ house to meet my dad. Predictably, my dad was still asleep when I arrived, which made us about 20 minutes late (yes, some things never change). The drive was peaceful and relaxing once we left the city limits, and I had a chance to doze a bit.

Around 6:30 AM we hit the trail. We met few people for the first hour or two, a nice surprise considering it was Independence Day weekend. Due to our slow pace, multiple groups passed us before we reached the tree line.


Dad!

On the ridge leading to the summit, we met a German named Fritz who became our companion for the rest of the hike. He was an interesting fellow; 72 years old, a search and rescue volunteer at a ski resort, and a former gourmet pastry chef. We spent about six hours in his company and learned his life story (multiple times, in fact, haha). He has climbed 30 fourteeners since he turned 62 and told us that he hopes to climb them all within the next couple years. His knowledge of hiking and the outdoors in general greatly impressed me.

Fritz is the only reason we were able to summit Shavano, actually; if not for him, I would have turned back when I spotted black clouds forming over the summit. I pointed them out to Fritz, and he said we would be fine. Minutes later it began hailing, then snowing, then raining, alternating a few times. Looking at the worsening condition of the sky, I wanted to turn back, but Fritz pushed us onward, telling us stories of some terrible storms he had been in recently (not especially comforting).


Nearing the summit

About one hundred feet from the summit a group of teenagers passed us on their way down. They stopped and began pointing at Fritz’s hair; it was standing straight up. They told Fritz so, and Fritz, with childish delight, begged them to take a photo of him. “Lightning is close! I feel it on my fingertips!” He said cheerfully. I was far from amused. He urged us the last few feet to the summit, telling us to throw our trekking poles down.


Note the nasty clouds...

When I reached the top, I could feel every hair on my body stand up; I never knew that I had so many hairs of the tops of my ears, but I felt them all quite distinctly. I heard crackling in the air, and when I tried to speak, my words sounded like buzzing. I yelled down to my dad, who at that point was about 40 feet behind me, to hurry up and summit so we could get down as fast as possible. He pushed on, barely touching the rocks at the top before turning around, then the three of us raced down the mountainside.


Andy + Shavano's summit

At one point before we even reached treeline, Fritz—much to my simultaneous irritation and amusement—halted our descent to call his son on a cell phone and wish him a happy birthday. “It’s very dangerous here, so I’ll call you later!” He finally said, and we continued on.

The rainy descent proved exhausting; I had not prepared well for Shavano, and as a result I began aching terribly. At one point I felt so awful that I began thinking, “Why do I climb fourteeners? I’m not having fun, this is not fun at all. I think this will be my last one. I don’t want to get struck by lightning…” (and of course, two days later my feelings changed, and I planned a trip with Josh for August, haha). I did decide, however, that making it to any summit is not worth risking my life and that in the future I would turn back if weather conditions became dangerous. The signs of extreme lighting danger were plain, and it was very foolish of us to have summited with such awful weather.


Dad and Fritz

When we finally made it back to our car, Fritz and my dad exchanged cell phone numbers, hoping to hike together again in the future. Fritz wants me to go with him on some of the more technical climbs, such as Crestone Needle. Hmm, I think I’ll pass…