I figured since most of the beta about the Tour de Abyss is ~10 years old, it was time for an updated trip report. We climbed this yesterday (7/5/2022) and boy was it a blast.

We left at about 330 am from Denver, making it to the summit of Mt. Evans at 5am for a 5:30 start. I HIGHLY recommend leaving your car at the Evans summit lot instead of the switchbacks. Walking down made a good warmup, and by the time we finished with Evans we got to hop right in the car and go, instead of walking another mile down to the car.

After walking down to the switchback at 13300, we found our gully to descend. As the other reports say, we descended into the Abyss lake area at the lowest point in the saddle. Do NOT descend the gully with the wooden post. Go to the left of that, and there is a much safer gully to descend. We stayed mostly to the left, and I think we chose the safest route down after looking back from the basin.

From here, you traverse straight through the valley to the wall in front of you. It looks steeper than it is. Head straight up to the left of the notable rock formations. Those are your next obstacles, and the most fun you'll have all day.

From the ridge, head up and over PT 13,641'. Traverse to the right of the formation along the grassy ledges where you will see 3 cairns to guide you. Once you get to the last cairn on the grassy ledge, it's time to go left up the center. Pick your line, take your time and make sure your route finding skills are sharp. You can definitely keep it class 3, but there are class 4/5 options if you choose those lines.

Past trip reports have outlined their exact routes with arrows over the photo, and we had screenshotted one of those to make the route finding a bit easier. Although with the cairns added and decent route finding skills, you will be fine. Once you summit this obstacle, the rest of your day will be a breeze. The route to Bierstadt after this is straightforward as you gain the summit. There is no trail, but the summit is easily visible so head up through the boulder field and send it. As always, you'll see not a soul on the Tour but once you gain the summit of Bierstadt it will feel like a zoo!

After Bierstadt, descend to the Sawtooth and work your way across. Staying higher on the Sawtooth will lead to more class 4/5 options, while following the cairns lower will be more class 2/3. There are so many cairns, the route is incredibly straightforward.

Looking at the Sawtooth from Bierstadt. Looks WAY more intimidating than it actually is!

The most difficult part of the Sawtooth by far is the exposed ledges. Some of it gets super narrow, about 10-12 inches (maybe less) across. The holds along the wall are solid, and just trust yourself. We took the route higher than the large ledge, but again there are so many cairns you pick your line and it is straightforward.

After that, work your way across the field, up toward Evans and around to get to the summit, where again you'll see hoards of people! We got caught in a hail/lightning storm around this time, so we sprinted to the summit and to our car, hence why there are no photos! All in all, we finished around 1pm with a 530am start. There was about 30 mins of hiding out from a hailstorm, but not a bad day! My watch clocked us at 8 miles, so not sure what we did to do 2 extra miles but oh well!