We had two friends from Minnesota staying in BV for a few days and all decided that we should tag a 14er or two... but nothing too easy as this was "mountain boot camp" for our friends... and years ago when I moved to Colorado they first took me up Quandary west ridge just to see me shake in my shoes (I don't like heights/exposure) for my first non walk up 14er.

We found a few reviews of the Jones Tab Shav link up but decided the "traditional" route sounded horrible, aside from getting to sit by the lake. But no thank you to side hill tulas or sandy scree filled shoes. So we followed the most recent report and went up Jones first on the east ridge. We all agreed after that this is the best route as you get to climb up the fun class 4 difficulties on the ridge (and not down them) and you get to jog down an actual trail at the end (down shav) not a loose hillside.

Just start out by staying on the CT until around 2.25 to 2.5 miles from the parking lot and then find a good place to head straight up to the ridge line. Once on the east ridge there is pretty much a herd path that follows the ridge up to the open alpine. There is an old mine entrance way up high that you could get into to get out of the weather if needed. The east face of Jones can be kept easy on grass to the south, or easy class 3 up the center, or exposed, solid rock, class 5 to the north side. Choose your fun.

Once on top of Jones we enjoyed some Tropical Bear Coffee! Life's too short to drink bad coffee.

Link to a video of our loop: https://youtube.com/shorts/B2Rhq6q9Bsg?si=6J4oR60g9mi5NdZK

We found the ridge fun and playful with incredibly solid and sticky rock. It can be kept very easy class 3, but also has some fun variations to make it easy, low exposure, class 4. There is almost always an easy walk around. We only found one spot that we felt it was better to do a low class 4 move then walk around on the loose tulas.

After you make it to UN 13721 (some call it West Jones) it is a very straight forward rock hop over to the saddle between Tab and Shav. 10mins up Tab, 6mins back down and then a quick ascent up Shav to finish out our peaks for the day.

Fun jog down shav on some amazing reworked trails (thank you 14er initiative!). Probably going to see some new FKT times on the standard route when they finish all the reworks... wow was it nice running down on a trail and not loose sand and scree. I was cruising along and apparently came 5 feet from broadsiding a big horn... guess he moved just in time and I didnt have my eyes up as i flowed over the rocks.

This loop is actually about 11 to 12 miles with 5,750ft of gain, but I went for a few bonus laps in the parking lot to get to 13.1 and bring the gain to 6,000ft... have fun, make it interesting.

Link to Strava: https://strava.app.link/EDMLagClsWb