Mt. Eva Trip Report 09/26/2013

Peak(s):	Mt. Eva - 13,131 feet Parry Peak - 13,367 feet Mt. Bancroft - 13,262 feet
Date Posted:	09/26/2013
Date Climbed:	09/26/2013
Author:	emohr

13er Thursdays
13er Thursdays Peaks: Mt. Eva(13,130'), Parry Pk A (13,391'), (Unranked)Mt. Bancroft(13,250') Route: Chinn's Lake Loop Distance: ~6.5 Miles Elevation Gain: ~3,300' Class: Class 1 & Class 2 Crew: emohr, Hank, Kyle, Takota Hike Time: 5 Hours Difficulty: 4/10 With school and consistently crappy weather hampering any plans to go to the mountains lately, I made sure I used my Thursday off from class to go play for a little bit. I'm hoping I can use my Thursdays to explore some of the Front Range 13ers. 13er Thursdays are my gateway to the hipster realm, one peak at a time. I knew Hank had to be back to class by 2, so I wanted to do something close by, and the Eva/Parry loop looked perfect. It's only an hour away and is only class 2, so it wouldn't present any problems if we ran into more snow than we were expecting. Hank, Kyle (both Mines students), Takota, and I made it to the the Sherwin Lake Dam just as the sun was starting to light up the mountain sides. The trail we started on is at the far North end of the Dam in between Chinn's and Sherwin Lakes. The road up to Chinn's Lake is Beast Mode to say the least. It may not be Lake Como, but this isn't one of those roads where "Oh your Subaru could probably make it bro" The trail above Sherwin Lake was faint, and disappeared from time to time. We kept the bushwhacking to a minimum, and followed the drainage wherever we could avoid the willows. The temperature was low and the views were grand. Nothing peaks the sense of adventure like a faint 13er trail few people have traveled Once we made our way above the lakes, the sun slowly peaked its way over the East horizon and began to warm up the cool air. Not a cloud in the sky, aspens turning yellow in the valley, and ice forming along the banks of the streams; Fall hiking has finally begun Chillin Takota appreciating the sunrise One of the few willow sections we had to cross Once we got above Slater Lake, we started to see more snow drifts, and most of the small pools of water below the willows had completely frozen over. We hung to the South side of the ridge to avoid any chance of getting our feetsies wet Last remnants of Summer along Mt. Eva's slopes Progressing through the basin. Slater Lake to the lower left Frozen ripples The wind started to pick up once the sun was over our heads, so we put on the wind breakers, and pushed onwards towards the saddle below Mt. Eva. We might not have taken the most efficient route, but we got a little distracted by the herd of big horn sheep we saw Enduring some wind on our way to the saddle Minimal snow crossings And they just kept running and running! Mt. Eva in the distance Mt. Evans, The Sawtooth, and Mt. Bierstadt to the South Gore Range Simple slope up to Mt. Eva It was pretty interesting to see the debris left behind from whatever the heck was happening on Mt. Eva. It looked like a big propellor was attached to the fallen tower, and the floors had fallen out in the building. We checked out the cool debris for a bit, investigated the building, and started making our way towards Parry Pk A. Hank and I kept getting distracted by all the cool rocks along this ridge. It took Hank about 50 feet of hiking with a 15lb quartz rock to realize it just might not be worth it Blown over radio tower 13er summiters. I feel more hip already! The traverse to Parry Pk A that looks much longer than it really is Looking back at Mt. Eva Once we finished the slog up to Parry Pk A, we were greeted with awesome views of Rocky Mountain National Park, and realized we had 360 degree awesome views from here; Evans, Bierstadt, Grays, Torreys, Gore Range, Winter Park, Rocky Mountain, Longs Peak, and of course the awesome basins we had been climbing around all day Summit of Parry Pk A Looking North towards Rocky Mountain Final ridge back down to the lakes We finally made our way to the drainage that led down to Fall River Reservoir, and it was quite a bit steeper than I was expecting. I slid out several times and I imagine this would be pretty tough to ascend. Unfortunately for Hank, once we reached the bottom, he realized he left his camera near the top.. so Kyle, Takota, and I fetched the X-Terra, and brought it around to Fall River Reservoir to pick up Hank once he retrieved his camera Moon making its way down to the horizon Forest shrubbery Where we came out after descending Mt. Bancroft Mt. Eva's East Ridge behind Fall River Reservoir Waterfall we found while searching for the car We ended our day feeling tired, but satisfied. The mountains prove to be the perfect cure for the real world once again Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):

13er Thursdays

13er Thursdays

Peaks: Mt. Eva(13,130'), Parry Pk A (13,391'), (Unranked)Mt. Bancroft(13,250')
Route: Chinn's Lake Loop
Distance: ~6.5 Miles
Elevation Gain: ~3,300'
Class: Class 1 & Class 2
Crew: emohr, Hank, Kyle, Takota
Hike Time: 5 Hours
Difficulty: 4/10

With school and consistently crappy weather hampering any plans to go to the mountains lately, I made sure I used my Thursday off from class to go play for a little bit. I'm hoping I can use my Thursdays to explore some of the Front Range 13ers. 13er Thursdays are my gateway to the hipster realm, one peak at a time. I knew Hank had to be back to class by 2, so I wanted to do something close by, and the Eva/Parry loop looked perfect. It's only an hour away and is only class 2, so it wouldn't present any problems if we ran into more snow than we were expecting. Hank, Kyle (both Mines students), Takota, and I made it to the the Sherwin Lake Dam just as the sun was starting to light up the mountain sides. The trail we started on is at the far North end of the Dam in between Chinn's and Sherwin Lakes. The road up to Chinn's Lake is Beast Mode to say the least. It may not be Lake Como, but this isn't one of those roads where "Oh your Subaru could probably make it bro"

The trail above Sherwin Lake was faint, and disappeared from time to time. We kept the bushwhacking to a minimum, and followed the drainage wherever we could avoid the willows. The temperature was low and the views were grand. Nothing peaks the sense of adventure like a faint 13er trail few people have traveled

Once we made our way above the lakes, the sun slowly peaked its way over the East horizon and began to warm up the cool air. Not a cloud in the sky, aspens turning yellow in the valley, and ice forming along the banks of the streams; Fall hiking has finally begun

One of the few willow sections we had to cross

Once we got above Slater Lake, we started to see more snow drifts, and most of the small pools of water below the willows had completely frozen over. We hung to the South side of the ridge to avoid any chance of getting our feetsies wet

Last remnants of Summer along Mt. Eva's slopes

Progressing through the basin. Slater Lake to the lower left

The wind started to pick up once the sun was over our heads, so we put on the wind breakers, and pushed onwards towards the saddle below Mt. Eva. We might not have taken the most efficient route, but we got a little distracted by the herd of big horn sheep we saw

Enduring some wind on our way to the saddle

Mt. Evans, The Sawtooth, and Mt. Bierstadt to the South

It was pretty interesting to see the debris left behind from whatever the heck was happening on Mt. Eva. It looked like a big propellor was attached to the fallen tower, and the floors had fallen out in the building. We checked out the cool debris for a bit, investigated the building, and started making our way towards Parry Pk A. Hank and I kept getting distracted by all the cool rocks along this ridge. It took Hank about 50 feet of hiking with a 15lb quartz rock to realize it just might not be worth it

13er summiters. I feel more hip already!

The traverse to Parry Pk A that looks much longer than it really is

Once we finished the slog up to Parry Pk A, we were greeted with awesome views of Rocky Mountain National Park, and realized we had 360 degree awesome views from here; Evans, Bierstadt, Grays, Torreys, Gore Range, Winter Park, Rocky Mountain, Longs Peak, and of course the awesome basins we had been climbing around all day

We finally made our way to the drainage that led down to Fall River Reservoir, and it was quite a bit steeper than I was expecting. I slid out several times and I imagine this would be pretty tough to ascend. Unfortunately for Hank, once we reached the bottom, he realized he left his camera near the top.. so Kyle, Takota, and I fetched the X-Terra, and brought it around to Fall River Reservoir to pick up Hank once he retrieved his camera

Where we came out after descending Mt. Bancroft

Mt. Eva's East Ridge behind Fall River Reservoir

Waterfall we found while searching for the car

We ended our day feeling tired, but satisfied. The mountains prove to be the perfect cure for the real world once again

Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):

Comments or Questions

boudreaux	Outstanding! 9/27/2013 2:24pm That's one for the books, nice job on the loop! I did it the opposite direction and finished with Witter. Either way it's a fine loop on the divide. Chinn's Lake basin looked like a tough one to plow through, I got my money's worth coming down the side of Witter between the 2 lakes, but cutting the slopes over to Fall River Res was murder.
rajz06	Oh boy... 9/27/2013 2:53pm ...someone's got the 13er bug! Well done - shot of Eva behind Fall river is a beauty!
flagship47	Fun Loop 8/26/2018 4:35pm Thanks so much for your TR. We pretty much followed the route, though think we may have gotten slightly off trail on the descent from the saddle of SE Bancroft Ridge. Not that there is much of a trail to begin with from SE Bancroft down to Fall River Res. A few things I would like to add that I thought might be helpful. Last 2 miles of Rainbow Rd is a bit rough and slow going, but would rank the 4WD road as a 3 of 6, Easy 4WD. There were 2 Subarus, a 4Runner, Tacoma, Xterra and a Jeep Grand Cherokee all at the Fall River Reservoir. Our stock Wrangler made it with ease. Pretty easy to find the trail from the reservoir up to Chinns Lake which is in the SSE corner of the Reservoir.We chose a clockwise route from Fall River Res. Our times: Fall River Res to Mt Eva 140 minutes, Eva to Parry 45 minutes, Parry to Bancroft 40 minutes and 90 minutes back down to TH from Bancroft summit. Total time with 32 minutes of stops on the 3 summits was 5 hours, 40 minutes. The descent from the saddle of SE Bancroft Ridge is a bit steep, and you may have to do some route finding, but was mostly stable as we just followed the gully. Total mileage was 6.91 per my GPS and 3335 elevation gain total. Starting at Fall River Reservoir is ~10830 Elevation.

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