Hiking Mount Shavano in Salida, Colorado

What a snow-deprived fall it has been. Skiing is my favorite activity, but with the lack of snowfall in Colorado this fall and the limited terrain the ski resorts have open, last week Mike and I found ourselves considering weekend activities I would normally do in the summer. One of those activities ended up being hiking Mount Shavano, a “14er.” We’ve hiked a handful of the 14ers, but haven’t made it a priority, and in many cases completely avoid them, because of how busy those mountains typically are. We were planning to head down towards Buena Vista for the weekend to bike one day and hike the next.

When I think of Buena Vista, I automatically think about the Collegiate Peaks range for hiking and that range has no shortage of 14ers. I had read some recent trip reports that there was no snow yet on Mount Shavano and many hikers reported seeing no one else the whole day. To us, that sounded like the perfect scenario for us to hike this 14er and also check out what the Angel of Shavano looked like for a potential backcountry ski adventure next spring.

Saturday morning we headed down to Buena Vista to do some mountain biking and decided we would car camp by the Mount Shavano trailhead that evening with a plan to hike Shavano the next morning. It was a cold night to camp - it was 14F when we woke up in the morning and the ground was covered in an inch of snow. Instantly my heart sank as I was worried about how much snow may have accumulated at higher elevations and might prevent us from summiting that day. Since we were literally at the trailhead, we decided we’d give the hike a try and turn around if conditions became too dangerous. To our disbelief, the most snow had accumulated at the trailhead and as we went up in elevation there was less snow!

Trip reports had mentioned 95 mph winds earlier in the week so we were waiting for the winds to pick up at any moment. It ended up being a perfect day from a weather perspective with no winds higher than 10 mph and there wasn’t one cloud in the sky the whole day. I had packed enough layers in my backpack to be ready for sub zero temperatures with the wind chill and ended up not wearing any more layers than a base layer and a fleece. We couldn’t have asked for better weather, especially in November.

Back to the hike itself. We set out from the trailhead around 8am to give the snow some time to melt and the temperature to warm up some. The trail quickly connects to the Colorado Trail for just over a quarter mile until it branches off to the left and starts the ascent of Shavano. The moment we left the Colorado trail, the trail got much steeper and rockier. There was still snow on the trail at this point and thankfully there were a few other hikers in front of us whose footprints we could follow to prevent us from getting lost. This trail was pretty relentless in terms of elevation gain. My GPS said we walked 4.41 miles to get to the top and that came with 4,427 ft of elevation gain. An average of 1,000 vertical feet per mile is a pretty steep hike in my opinion, and I would make sure you are in good hiking shape before attempting this hike.

Approaching treeline where the trees have a little more “character”

The first few miles of the hike were below treeline and then the trees started getting shorter and disappearing all together, and we had our first great view of the Angel of Shavano. What is the Angel of Shavano? In the spring when a lot of the snow has melted, the remaining snow is typically shaped like an angel that you can see all the way from Salida. It’s a backcountry ski run I’d like to do at some point. Let’s keep our fingers crossed it happens this spring!

Mike & I with the Angel of Shavano behind us

The “deepest” the snow got the whole hike

Me at the saddle with the last 500 ft of vert behind me

We made our way up to the saddle right before the last push to the top with very little snow on the trail. The remaining ~500 vert looked like it had no snow on it whatsoever. It turned out that the last 200 ft had some snow between the large boulders so it was a little bit slippery, but very manageable if you were paying attention. We made it to the top and took a few pictures. We enjoyed being on the top of a 14er and not encountering strong winds.

Mike’s favorite view was looking down towards the valley and appreciating how high we had hiked!

We took a snack break few hundred feet below the top. We could see Monarch Mountain in the distance, along with too many other mountains to count.

About a half mile before we reached treeline on our way down, we ran into some mountain goats. There were 3 in total and they were some of the bigger ones I’ve seen. Mountain goats can weigh over 200 lbs. so they are animals I always make sure to keep my distance from as I don’t need to find out what it feels like to be head-butted by an animal twice my size. They all had a very full coat of fur and seemed ready for the winter. They watched us as we walked past, quickly lost interest in us, and continued grazing. We made it back to the car without any further incident, although our knees were ready for a break from the pounding they took on the steep trail on the way down.

This is as close as I needed to get to meeting the locals

Heading back down - the knees earned a day off after this descent

Overall, it was probably one of our favorite hikes we’ve done. I’ve certainly never hiked a 14er and only seen four other people the whole day and doubt it will ever happen again. The views were breathtaking and the weather was fantastic. I always love a hike when there’s a mountain goat spotting too. The hike ended up being 8.82 miles with 4,427 of vert and took us right around 6 hours, including breaks. This is a strenuous hike, but well worth the effort.

I’m hoping Mother Nature starts bringing us some snow and this is the last hike of the year, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.