Hike: Mt. Shavano and Tabeguache Peak

My coworker, Bart, wanted to climb a fourteener this weekend and he invited me along. It was a bit spontaneous. I didn't know about it until the evening before, and we planned to leave at 3AM. The goal was to climb Mt. Shavano, a fourteen thousand foot peak, and its slightly lower cousin Tabeguache Peak, another fourteener. We left my place around 3:15 and arrived at the trailhead by around 5:30. We were on the trail at 5:45, still surrounded by darkness, but just enough light that we did not need headlamps.

We spent considerable time in an inspiring gnarly aspen/pine forest, changing to pine before leaving timber line. The sun slowly descended an amazing ridge before us, a buttress holding up the world. There wasn't enough snow in the famous "Angel of Shavano" couloir to really see its iconography, but the views were spectacular nonetheless. Cresting the large saddle at the base of Shavano, the views got better and remained all the way to the summit, about four miles in. We summitted before 9:00, and fog lay thick in the Gunnison valley to the west. The next peak was Tabeguache to the northwest. It was a descent of about 500 feet (?) from Shavano to a connecting saddle and then an ascent to the peak. The views were even better from Tabeguache. The only trouble was we had to go back the way we came, which meant re-ascending Shavano. So, technically, we climbed three fourteeners in one day! (My hindquarters are still aching.)
On the top of Shavano, some low, thin, fast-moving clouds rolled in. It was a neat feeling, standing in the clouds at fourteen thousand feet.

We finished the hike around 1:30, I believe. A spectacular day at high altitude.