A few days ago we drove up Mount Evans (14,264), which is one of Colorado's fourteeners 
(fifty plus peaks in the state above fourteen thousand feet). It's one of two peaks 
you can actually drive up to. The other is Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs, but that's another matter: it not only hosts a well-known car race each year but also sports a very popular narrow-gauge train to the top. Mount Evans retains a little more mystery--you must drive about fourteen miles from I-70 to the entrance sta
tion and then fourteen miles after that on a oh-my-god road.
(fifty plus peaks in the state above fourteen thousand feet). It's one of two peaks 
you can actually drive up to. The other is Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs, but that's another matter: it not only hosts a well-known car race each year but also sports a very popular narrow-gauge train to the top. Mount Evans retains a little more mystery--you must drive about fourteen miles from I-70 to the entrance sta
tion and then fourteen miles after that on a oh-my-god road. 
Sid's climbed about thirty of the fourteeners in the state and, when we first met, wanted me to attempt some with him. I did two but it wasn't pretty. It took me three separate tries to get up Gray's Peak (14,270). I'd get to the last pitch, where the mountain goats were, and then some part of me would give out. Finally, I did it. Then I did Mount Bierstadt (14, 060) in one try. After that, it was literally down hill. We tried the highest peak in Colorado--Mount Elbert (14,433 ) twice. Each time, I got to the final pitch. The first time it snowed and the peak disappeared. The second time a thunderstorm drove us back. But by that point in the trail I'd had it anyway. My back hurt and I was panting for oxygen like a malamute in hundred degree weather. I knew the descent would throw out my knees and blacken my toe nails, so I was not a happy camper.
To encourage me, Sid gave me a statuette of Winged Victory with two gold plates on the base showing two mountain names and the date I got up them. There was room for two more plates. But I wasn't to be moved. I could live with a half-filled base.
Now, Mount Evans seemed to be another matter. You could drive up as far as you wanted and walk to the top. I had visions of an easy plate for my trophy. Of course it was craven and Sid wasn't encouraging when I suggested it. "It's cheating," he said. "You need to climb a couple of thousand feet to claim it." I suspected he just wanted to see me earn my plate the hard way. So matters stayed, but then for some reason he relented and said we'd go up. As we drove up the narrow road with its sharp drop-offs and eroded asphalt, Sid told me he’d never taken anyone else up there. It turned out that he used to climb up from Crater Lake, across a sawtooth ridge and on to Mount Bierstadt the back way. I looked at the ridges and secretly thought he was crazy, but he looked so wistful I couldn't say anything. He rwas remembering the Mount Evans area from long before it became a stop for visitors on their way into the mountains from Denver.
They’re powerful, these memories linked to places as we remember them as they no longer are. I remember seeing Waikiki when the pink lady, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, was the tallest building along the shore line. Now she is dwarfed by towering high rises that almost seem to be one piece. Not all change is progress, as Sid likes to say—and that applies just as much to the Colorado Rockies, which are being loved to death. Some trails are so popular that it’s possible never to be alone. We certainly weren’t alone at the end of the Mount Evans road, which has a sign saying that it is the highest in North America. Above us was a rock pile several hundred feet high marking the real top of the mountain. I was struck by summit fever and was prepared to climb over the boulders, but it turned out that there is a sedate set of mild switchbacks leading up to the top. The summit was packed with people from Oklahoma and Texas savoring the view of Denver and the Front Range of mountains. It was, as Sid said, a destination stop.
They’re powerful, these memories linked to places as we remember them as they no longer are. I remember seeing Waikiki when the pink lady, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, was the tallest building along the shore line. Now she is dwarfed by towering high rises that almost seem to be one piece. Not all change is progress, as Sid likes to say—and that applies just as much to the Colorado Rockies, which are being loved to death. Some trails are so popular that it’s possible never to be alone. We certainly weren’t alone at the end of the Mount Evans road, which has a sign saying that it is the highest in North America. Above us was a rock pile several hundred feet high marking the real top of the mountain. I was struck by summit fever and was prepared to climb over the boulders, but it turned out that there is a sedate set of mild switchbacks leading up to the top. The summit was packed with people from Oklahoma and Texas savoring the view of Denver and the Front Range of mountains. It was, as Sid said, a destination stop.
I suppose some of Sid’s ethics must have rubbed off on me because I have decided that I won’t claim Mount Evans on my statuette. I guess I have to live with myself. The first two plates represent mountains where I struggled and pushed myself on, plodding one foot down after the other. I can’t claim what was really just a walk in the park. I'd secretly like to bag Elbert and maybe Blanca in Alamosa, but I know they're beyond me now. I will, though, smile whenever I see Mount Evans looming above the Denver skyline and will definitely take visitors there the senior way--in my sure-footed all-wheel-drive Subaru as long as they don’t mind getting scared out of their wits on the undulating and crumbling road.
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