photo-Joel Paula skiing the Angel. photo by Zach Taylor, 2013.
5/18/2013
Members of Group: Ben Jordan, Sam Jordan, Christine Avena, Teal Potter, Joel Paula, Zach Taylor
Ascent/Descent Route: Angel of Shavano
The Angel of Shavano is the southernmost 14er in the Sawatch range. It is a gentle, rounded peak and is relatively easy to climb for Colorado 14ers. It does have one easy but pretty classic snow climb/ski descent on it though, the Angel of Shavano. Some years the Angel never comes in but fortunately for us in 2013 it was in. The line comes off the southeast side of Shavano and bears a faint resemblance to an angel when filled with snow. This angel is seen as an inspiring symbol of Christianity to the religious.
To our group it only represented a nice ski descent. Our group's religious beliefs were non existent (all atheists except for one lone agnostic) and our conversation over the course of the day ranged from the irreverent (bashing Deepak Chopra and young earth creationism) to the scientific (discussing my neuroscience degree's thesis and Christine and Teal's biology research at CU). It was a great day out with others of the secular community!
I had a couple weeks off between spring and summer semester and had decided to take off for a while and climb some mountains. Shavano sounded like a good warm up and I gathered a good crew for the trip. Since I would be traveling solo and meeting up with different friends for climbs in different parts of the state over the next couple weeks,I drove up on my own and met everyone at the trailhead the night before the climb.
We got up well before dark and began hiking up the Mt. Shavano trail with all our snowboard/ski gear shouldered on our backs in the early morning dark. As the sun began to rise and we neared treeline we were able to begin skinning into the basin below Shavano...
photo- Ben and Sam Jordan skinning towards the Angel of Shavano. photo by Zach Taylor, 2013
photo- Christine Avena, Joel Paula, and Teal Potter skinning towards the lower section of the Angel of Shavano. photo by ZachTaylor, 2013.
We skinned up to the base of the Angel and then switched over to axes and crampons as we made our way up the lower section. About a third of the way up the Angel of Shavano snowfield splits into the two "arms" of the Angel. We took the climber's right "arm" and continued our climb towards the summit. The snow pitch was fairly gentle, maybe 30 degrees or so. It was easy snow climbing and we spent a lot of time talking about science and mountain climbing.
photo-Sam Jordan climbing the Angel of Shavano. photo by Zach Taylor, 2013.
photo- Christine Avena, Joel Paula, and Teal Potter climbing the Angel of Shavano. photo by Zach Taylor, 2013.
The Angel of Shavano tops out several hundred feet below the actual summit. From there there we had a brief hike up snow to the summit. Near the summit the snow got bony but we thought we could probably piece together a summit descent.
photo- The summit of Shavano viewed from the top of the Angel. photo by Zach Taylor, 2013.
photo-Zach Taylor climbing up the summit hill of Mt. Shavano. photo by Joel Paula, 2013.
The snow on the upper mountain had not even begun to soften so we hung out for quite awhile on the summit. We thanked the Great Flying Spaghetti Monster for allowing us to summit and prayed to him for a safe return to the trailhead!
photo- Sam and Ben Jordan hanging out on the summit of Mt. Shavano. photo by Zach Taylor, 2013.
photo- Christine Avena, Teal Potter, and Joel Paula. photo by Zach Taylor, 2013.
After hanging out on the summit for an hour or so it became clear that snow was not going to soften for us and we began to ski off the icy, bony summit. We skied off the summit hitting many rocks, hopping over rocks, and linking together narrow strips of snow. We were quite the anomaly to all the hikers as they watched us repeatedly ski/snowboard into rocks in order to get our summit descent!
photo-Joeal Paula, Christine Avena, and Teal Potter on the summit of Mt. Shavano. photo by Zach Taylor, 2013.
photo-Sam Jordan skiing off the summit of Shavano. photo by Zach Taylor 2013.
photo- Teal Potter skiing off the summit of Shavano. photo by Zach Taylor, 2013.
photo- Christine Avena skiing off the summit of Shavano. photo by Zach Taylor, 2013.
photo-Ben Jordan just below the summit of Shavano. photo by Zach Taylor, 2013.
Once we got a couple hundred feet below the summit the rocks became more intermittent and we opened up our turns as we snowboarded/skied down to the top of the Angel. The upper Angel never softened but we enjoyed some nice corn turns once we got about halfway down the Angel.
photo- Sam Jordan skiing the Angel of Shavano. photo by Zach Taylor, 2013.
photo-Teal Potter skiing the Angel of Shavano. photo by Zach Taylor, 2013
photo- Christine Avena skiing the Angel of Shavano. photo by Zach Taylor, 2013.
photo- Sam Jordan skiing the Angel of Shavano. photo by Zach Taylor, 2013
photo- Sam Jordan skiing the Angel of Shavano. photo by Zach Taylor, 2013.
We were able to ski down to about 11,000' before shouldering our planks and walking out to the trailhead. We thanked the Flying Spaghetti Monster for giving us a safe day in the high country on this religious icon. R'amen!
photo- Our group hiking out after a ski of Mt. Shavano. photo by Zach Taylor, 2013.
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