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| Mount Evans' biggest draw is baby Mountain Goats |
I have talked about Mount Evans before but never (I think)
in depth. So, it’s about time.
Just like Moosecapade, Mount Evans is (at minimum) an annual
trek for Caty and me, And, often, Scott comes along. It’s also a place we
frequently take visitors. Why?
Because it is freakin’ awesome!
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| Mount Evans, 2016 |
First, it is breathtakingly gorgeous.
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| Mount Evans view, 2016 |
But more important, it is inhabited by Mountain Goats and it
is the best place to go see baby Mountain Goats. And, there is nothing cuter
than a baby Mountain Goat.
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| Awwwww |
This year, we decided to go for Father’s Day, but we delayed
a week because of bad weather. That turned out to be a good call. Father’s Day
might have been a bit early (although we have seen babies around that time) – the baby goats start to appear in late June and
we always see them around the 4th of July.
Located near Idaho Springs, Mount Evans – at 14,271 feet –
is one of Colorado’s 54 14ers. Unlike most 14ers, you can (almost) reach the
summit by automobile – you have to hike the last 100 feet or so to the top.
The highest paved road in North America, the Evans Scenic
Byway travels 15 miles from Echo Lake to a parking area and turnaround just
below the summit. The road is open only in the summer, with the opening date
dependent on snow. And, it can snow any time of year.
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| Playing in the snow |
Most of the Mount Evans massif is now part of the Mount
Evans Wilderness area in Arapaho National Forest and Pike National Forest. The
exception is a narrow corridor along the highway from Echo Lake that is excluded
from the wilderness. Summit Lake Park and Echo Lake Park, are part of the
historic Denver Mountain Parks system.
Mount Evans was originally known as Mount Rosa or Mount
Rosalie, named by Painter Albert Bierstadt for the wife of Author and Explorer
Fitz Hugh Ludlow. Bierstadt later married Rosa, so there’s that!
The name is also a reference to Monte Rosa, the highest peak
in Switzerland. Bierstadt was the first white man to ascend the mountain (along
with his guide, William Newton Byers in 1863). His painting, A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie,
is based on sketches from that trip.
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| A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mount Rosalie by Albert Bierstadt |
In 1895, 30 years after he was forced to resign as governor
because of his part in the infamous Sand Creek Massacre and its subsequent
cover-up, Colorado's legislature officially renamed the peak in honor of John
Evans, second governor of the Colorado Territory from 1862 to 1865.
The Evans Scenic Byway was a part of a project spearheaded by the City and County of Denver to build "scenic loops" that allowed locals to explore the nearby mountains.
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| Photo: VisitDenver |
The Denver Mountain Parks Committee,
hoping to get Federal funding, attempted to get Mount Evans designated as a
National Park. Although that didn’t happen, they did get support in Congress
for construction of a "cement road" to the mountain.
The first mile
was paid for by Denver with the understanding that the State Highway Commission
would do the rest. All seemed to be going well when W.F.R. Mills, a newly
appointed Commissioner of Improvements, stopped construction, saying that
"it is a road that starts nowhere, ends nowhere and never gets
there." But, in my opinion, that might be the best kind of road!
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| Mount Evans, 2011 |
Fortunately, he later changed his mind and construction
resumed. A collaboration among the City and County of Denver, the U.S.
Congress, the State Highway System and the Forest Service, the road was completed
with help of a newly formed Federal Agency, the Bureau of Public Roads. It took
14 years to make it happen – and the last 600 feet were built by hand!
The road is a thrill to drive – narrow and winding, often
pitted with potholes, crumbling at the edges or distorted by frost heaves. A
lot of work has been done on the road over the past two years (delaying the
2016 opening and closing for long periods in 2017 and 2018), so it’s not too bad. But,
you can sure pick out flatlanders on the drive up.
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| Photo: US Forest Service |
The mountain used to have a restaurant and gift shop, the
Crest House, at the top.
Built in 1941-42, it burned down in 1979 and was not
rebuilt.
Now, it acts as a windbreak, viewing platform and occasional Mountain Goat
habitat.
The climate on the summit of Mount Evans can be extreme. Although
temperatures rarely fall below 0°F, it can drop to -40°F. The highest
temperature recorded on the summit was 65°F, but cold and wind are more the
norm. On our recent trip, we had some really brutal winds and a bit of light
snow.
Wind is pretty
typical. The maximum wind speed ever measured there was 123 mph and the average is 28-35 mph. In 2012, a weak,
short-lived tornado touched down northeast of Mount Evans' summit at an
elevation estimated by the National Weather Service of 11,900 feet, the second
highest tornado ever recorded in the United States. It didn’t cause any damage
because it was above tree line.
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| Echo Lake |
Mount Evans includes several distinct environments. Below
Echo Lake, the montane forest is dominated by lodgepole pine, blue spruce and aspen. Echo Lake is subalpine forest, where Engelmann spruce,
subalpine fir and bristlecone pine dominate.
At tree line, the trees are tortured and twisted by wind and
frost. The bristlecone pine grove on the east slope of Mount Goliath contains
at least one tree that dates to the year 403. For many years, these were the
oldest known trees in Colorado, but in 1992, trees dating to 442 BC were found
in the southern Front Range and South Park.
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| Mount Goliath Bristlecone Pines, 2017 |
Above tree line, the landscape is mostly alpine tundra. Dwarf willow is common, along with a wide variety of
flowers. Toward the summit, the vegetation shrinks down to tiny, tiny flowers and little patches of spongy tundra plants. Mostly, it's just rocks and talus. It is amazing that there is enough food for those goats.
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| Mama and baby |
At the top, animals include Mountain
Goats, Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep Yellow-Bellied Marmots and American Pikas
(or so they claim, I only hear the Pikas; I never see them). Below tree line, Rocky
Mountain Elk and Mule Deer are common.
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| We don't see Elk that often on Mount Evans |
White-Tailed Ptarmigan are present on Mount Evans but are so
well camouflaged that they are difficult to see even when almost underfoot.
What I always see are American Pipits.
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| American Pipit, 2017 |
Mount Evans is composed of magma that intruded into the earth's crust about 1.4 billion years ago. Much of the rock is
granodiorite, a close relative of granite, modified by later intrusions of
quartz and pegmatite.
The lakes along the road -- Summit Lake, the Chicago Lakes,
Lincoln Lake and Abyss Lake were formed by glaciation.
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| Lincoln Lake, 2016 |
On this particular trip, we traveled up on a windy Friday
afternoon, staying until the sun started to sink. We saw some Bighorns ...
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| Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep |
... and a
nice smattering of Mountain Goats ...
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| Rambunctious baby |
We were also assaulted by wind and snow.
We stayed in Idaho Springs at the historic Indian Hot
Springs Lodge, a so-so hotel with a very old-school hot springs pool. It also
has a spa and “clothing optional” hot springs caves. Caty and I went to the
pool one night, but although pleasant, it would have preferred an open roof so
you could see the stars. We didn’t hang around the Lodge too much. The location
was great for accessing the mountain, but the walls were so thin it was
difficult to sleep (especially when your next-door neighbors come in drunk and
rowdy at 3:00 a.m.!).
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| Indian Hot Springs pool; photo: Indian Hot Springs Lodge |
The advantage of staying was that we could go to the summit
early in the morning. We arrived at about 7:00 a.m. and it was a festival of
goats. We saw groups of goats at multiple places near the summit, but the best
group was right by the Crest House. At one point I saw eight babies at once.
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| On the top |
We weren’t the only people to think of going up early. It
was a regular paparazzi stake-out. For wildlife photographers, you cannot beat
Mount Evans.
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| Photographers |
They are so much fun to watch as the jump, nuzzle and play
with each other.
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| Nuzzle |
The Mountain Goat, also known as the Rocky Mountain Goat, lives in subalpine and alpine areas in North America and is known for its sure-footedness on steep cliffs, snow and ice.
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| Cliffside Goat |
Despite their name, Mountain Goats are not related to other
wild goats or domestic goats. Rather, they are more closely related to antelopes,
gazelles, cattle, “true goats,” sheep, the chamois and the muskox.
Probably descended from Himalayan goats, the Mountain Goat's
ancestors probably came to North America on the Bering Land Bridge. The known
fossil record, however doesn’t prove this. It is fairly recent, entirely from
North America, and barely differs from the living animals.
A small prehistoric
mountain goat did live in the southern Rocky Mountains, but DNA pegs it as a
sister species of the living Mountain Goat, not an ancestor.
Both billy (male) and nanny (female) Mountain Goats have
beards, short tails, 6-11-inch-long black horns and woolly white coats. A billy
stands about 3.3 ft at the shoulder and can weigh up to 310 lbs. Billies
usually weigh about 30 percent more than the nannies and have longer horns
and longer beards. This time, we saw mainly nannies and kids.
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| Mountain Goat nanny |
The fine, dense wool of their undercoats is covered by an
outer layer of longer, hollow hairs. These double coats help them withstand
winter temperatures as low as −50°F and winds of up to 99 mph. They molt in
spring by rubbing against rocks and trees, with the adult billies shedding
their extra wool first and the pregnant nannies shedding last. On Mount Evans,
it is not unusual to see big pieces of recently shed wool floating past on the wind.
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| Losing winter wool |
Designed for climbing steep, rocky slopes, the Mountain Goat's
feet have inner pads that provide traction and cloven hooves that can spread
apart to grip rocks.
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| Leaping |
The tips of their feet have sharp dewclaws that keep them
from slipping. They have powerful shoulder and neck muscles that help propel
them up steep slopes.
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| Mountain Goat pair |
The Mountain Goat natural habitat is the Rocky Mountains, Cascade
Range and other mountain regions in Washington, Idaho and Montana through
British Columbia and Alberta, into the southern Yukon and southeastern Alaska.
Introduced populations can also be found in Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Oregon,
Colorado, South Dakota and the Olympic Peninsula of Washington.
Mountain Goats
were introduced to Colorado from the 1940s-60s for hunting and they were brought Mount
Evans in 1990s.
Mountain Goats are herbivores and spend most of their time
grazing. Their diets include grasses, herbs, sedges, ferns, mosses, lichens and
twigs and leaves from the low-growing shrubs and conifers.
In the wild, Mountain Goats usually live 12 -15 years, with
their lifespans limited by the wearing down of their teeth. Generally, Mountain Goats have a single kid, but we did see
what we assumed was pair of twins.
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| Mountain Goat family |
It is difficult to tell because the nannies
and kids tend to stay together in groups. And, they may take care of other kids as part of the herd.
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| Mama love |
Nannies can be very competitive and they
fight with each other for dominance. We saw a few doing this -- circling each
other with their heads lowered, displaying their horns. More often, however, we saw the kids playing at this same behavior.
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| Playing on top of a boulder |
Mountain goats can occasionally be aggressive towards
humans, with at least one reported fatality resulting from an attack by a
mountain goat. We were wary in the midst of the herd on Mount Evans, but they
didn’t seem to mind us. On several occasions, I had to move out of the way, but
not because of aggression. Just because they were heading my way.
Although Mountain Goats have never been domesticated and
commercialized for their wool, pre-Columbian peoples of the Pacific
Northwest incorporated their wool into their weaving by collecting molted wool left by wild goats. I have often said you could put up a big
next downwind and collect all that wool drifting down the mountain.
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| Molting |
In the afternoon, we also encountered a Red Fox den on the road
from Idaho Springs to Mount Evans. It was behind a rather junky old house and
they were hanging out at a rusted pipe. A woman came by to feed them hotdog
buns. I am not a big fan of feeding white bread to wild animals, but I guess she's been doing it for awhile. Based on what we saw, these foxes didn't have a great diet anyway.
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| Left, Red Fox with dead snake and garbage; right, with hotdog bun |
And, they seemed to enjoy playing with food just like cats do.
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| Red Fox tossing a rabbit leg in the air |
Anyway, she told us that there were six foxes, but the most we saw was three.
Most for the time, it was just two who obliged is by posing ...
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| Watching us watch them |
I have been to Mount Evans many, many times, but this trip
was definitely the best. A few Bighorn Sheep ...
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| Bighorn Sheep |
... the usual of Marmots ...
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| Yellow-Bellied Marmot, 2017 |
... and Pipits ...
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| American Pipit |
... lots ...
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| Such a treat |
... and lots ...
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| Snuggling with mom |
... of Mountain Goats ...
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| In the flowers |
... and some Red Foxes thrown in for
good measure.
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| Red Fox |
Oh, and by Echo Lake, we took some pictures of some very cooperative Broad-Tailed Hummingbirds.
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| Resting Hummingbird |
Plus, we had burnt ends (the LAST order) at Smokin’ Yard’s
BBQ and a really great breakfast at The Main Street Restaurant (French toast
made with homemade cinnamon bread – yes, please!).
We took a little break from the goats to go to Georgetown to
ride the historic railroad. That will be my next post.
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| Georgetown Railroad |
Trip date: June 22-23, 2018
