Mt. Shavano W0C/SR-004

I summited my first 14er when I was 16 years old, on a trip to Colorado to visit my cousin. My uncle, an avid outdoorsman, had the idea and led us on a backpacking trip and eventual summit of Mt. Missouri. It was a grand time!

It was a formative trip to be sure, and probably part of the reason I moved to Colorado. I made a point of hiking a few 14ers every summer once I moved. After so many summers I got dangerously close to summiting all 58 of the peaks, with one white whale left: Tabeguache Peak. It’s not difficult as these things go, but I went up Mt. Shavano over a decade ago and never did make the trip over to Tabeguache, just a mile away.

I did attempt to summit in the winter several years ago and got shut out due to weather. I went again early this year on my splitboard and made it to 13,200’ before turning back.

When the same family planned a camping trip near the trailhead of Mt. Shavano I jumped at the chance. It was great to catch up around a campfire, and my cousin was all in on hiking a 14er he had never done. We made a plan to start early on Sunday and set our alarms. It felt fitting that he was there on my first 14er over 20 years ago, and he’d be there on the last one.

We hit the trail at 6:05am, just a bit behind schedule. The standard route up Tabeguache requires summiting Mt. Shavano, and that was our first goal for the morning. It’s a 4.5 mile trail with over 4,000’ of vert, so it feels like climbing a very long flight of stairs.

We kept a steady pace up the trail, at first under headlamps then in the dawn of a rising sun. At treeline the trail mellowed a bit up to the saddle just under Mt. Shavano.

We trudged up the last few hundred vertical feet to the summit, with perfect late-season weather.

We made excellent time to the top, summiting at 9:05am - exactly three hours to cover the 4,500’ of vertical and 4.75 miles.

We didn’t dawdle long. With the early time, we decided to jet over to Tabeguache Peak, a mile and some 500’ of vert.

We moved a bit slower due to gathering clouds. We got a bit of graupel and cooler temps, but the skies cleared as we summited.

After tagging my last 14er summit, we headed back to the summit of Shavano to gain the trail back to the truck.

In my SOTA career thus far I have zero repeats in my log. I am quite proud of this - rather than going up the same set of summits over and over to “get points”, I’ve tried to challenge myself to mix it up, not doing repeats. As I get older and my life changes with having a kid, my priorities must change too.

Even though I’ve activated Shavano before in 2012, I decided to activate it again. It’s time for me to face the reality that this is fun, it’s not always about doing things the exact way I’d like to.

It was a great day for 20m, and I was able to make 15 contacts in less than 10 minutes. Storm clouds continued to gather so we didn’t spend long on the summit, but it was nice to have my first repeat be on the summit of my very first SOTA activation from back in 2012, and on the trip of my last 14er.

The hike down was nice in cool weather and gathering clouds. The fall foliage is just starting to turn. After spending a decade and a half here in Colorado, I am firm in my belief that fall is indeed the best season.

• 11.4 miles
• 5,200 feet of vertical gain
• 7:24 total time, 6:09 moving time
• Two summits, one SOTA at 14,230'
• GPX Track