Mount Evans

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!

Mount Evans, 2016

First, it is breathtakingly gorgeous.

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.

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 4^th 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.

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.

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. 

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 ...

Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep

... and a nice smattering of Mountain Goats ...

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.!).

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.

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.

Photographers

They are so much fun to watch as the jump, nuzzle and play with each other.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

Left, Red Fox with dead snake and garbage; right, with hotdog bun

And, they seemed to enjoy playing with food just like cats do.

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 ...

Watching us watch them

I have been to Mount Evans many, many times, but this trip was definitely the best. A few Bighorn Sheep ...

Bighorn Sheep

... the usual of Marmots ... 

Yellow-Bellied Marmot, 2017

... and Pipits ...

American Pipit

... lots ... 

Such a treat

... and lots ...

Snuggling with mom

... of Mountain Goats ... 

In the flowers

... and some Red Foxes thrown in for good measure.

Red Fox

Oh, and by Echo Lake, we took some pictures of some very cooperative Broad-Tailed Hummingbirds.

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.

Georgetown Railroad

Trip date: June 22-23, 2018