Guanella Pass, twelve miles up a narrow switchbacked road from the small town of Georgetown, provides parking and a trailhead with access to two 14ers: Mt. Bierstadt (14,060 feet) and Mt. Elbert (14,264 feet). You can do a loop trail hitting both summits, but the catch is you have to cross a steep, serrated connecting ridge known as The Sawtooth (which is exactly what it looked like silhouetted by the rising sun).
Summiting Mt Bierstadt was easy enough. Mountain goats and blinding white morning light welcomed me as I neared the top, three miles and a 2,850 vertical feet from the trailhead. I examined the aptly-named ridgeline below to my north. It looked tough but traversable and, as I snacked, I resolved to press onward to Mt. Evans.
The hardest part of The Sawtooth is the beginning when the trail descends down the other side of Bierstadt. I took it slowly, taking extra precaution around loose rocks and patches of ice. About an hour or so later I had negotiated my way around the gendarmes and to the other side of the rock bridge between the two mountains.
Across The Sawtooth, the trail opens up into a slanted, boulder-strewn field. The way the terrain just drops off drew to mind the edge of the world. A long, oxygen-deprived trudge later, I was at the top of Evans. The highest paved road in America leads to the summit, but it had already been closed for the season so I had the glorious pinnacle at the top of everything almost all to myself. Just two or three other people were within eyeshot and there was plenty of space. Endless space, above everything.
I was exhausted by the time I closed the ten mile loop back at the parking lot in the early afternoon. But I had succeeded in my mission of doing something Coloradan. I have now reached the tops of two Colorado 14ers. Just 52 to go.
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