My partner wanted to join me on my (new) yearly tradition of going to Colorado in September and make a big trip out of it since she had family in the state. After spending a week with them it was time for us to head into the mountains and hike some mountain peaks! We (read I) chose Mt. Shavano as our first peak to do together. It was another easy Class 2 trail, but it had a lot of elevation gain, somewhere in the area of 4,500 feet.
We camped at the trailhead in my small Duplex Zpacks backpacking tent. It is technically meant for two people, but our air mattresses were pushing the sides out and it was a cramped fit. It might be time to upgrade to a tent that is actually meant for two people. As a result though we didn't get much sleep, and were eager to get and get going as soon as possible. By 5:00 am we were on the trail.
After a short, flat, part of the trail that shared some trail with the Colorado Trail, we started to ascend over rocks and big tree roots. We passed by some small water sources on the way up, and probably should have stopped and chugged some water and then refilled our water bottles, but we didn't.
About two and a half hours later and we were above the trees, and taking in the views of the area. Since this was my partners first time being above 9,000 feet, we took it slow, watching for signs of AMS. As a result we took lots of small breaks, each of us huffing and puffing though given that this was the first one in over a year for me, and thanks to COVID-19 I wasn't able to go on a thru-hike over the summer. Two hours later and we're past the tree line, usually it doesn't take this long.
We saw maybe three people on the entire trail all day, but that makes sense since we were out here on a Tuesday, a week after a holiday weekend. There was little to no vegetation, not even weird looking plants, as we ascended up the mostly rocky mountain sides.
At this point we were starting to run low on water, given that the ascent so far had taken longer than it normally does. We reached the col between two mountains and the summit trail after another hour. Time to begin the march to the summit.
About halfway up the summit we took a break. While we were snacking someone was coming down from the summit and they told us that the view wasn't worth the risk and trickyness of the summit, so after they left we decided to turn back early, partly due to that warning but also the fact that we had mere drops of water remaining in our bottles.
Our spirits started to drop rapidly as we went down the trail. The lack of water made it doubly rough thanks to the rising heat from the sun blasting down on us. After struggling for nearly three hours, and having practically zero energy thanks to the heavy amounts of dehyrdation we were experiencing, we finally made it down into the trees, and were maybe an hour from the car. Here we came upon the smallest of water trickles coming out from between two rocks, and nearly sunk to our knees in joy. We busted out our water filters, and drank so much water.
Bodies rehydrated, we continued making our way to the car. The rest of the way down wasn't too bad, and was only a little tricky when we got back to the rocks and roots section at the beginning.
We were happy to be alive and back at the car finally. This was the roughest and longest 14'er to date. The lack of water resources on the trail really made it doubly rough.
