Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

September 5, 2026

4349m

Idaho Springs, CO

The original, long lasting name for this fabled 14er is Mt. Evans but the government decided to change it to Mt. Blue Sky and this has been made official as apparently Evans killed a bunch of American natives, so fine I’ll stick with this new name. This is one of the two CO 14ers that can be driven (mostly) to the summit and due to the increasing exposure on social media it’s inevitable that some regulations had already been implemented. Currently one has to have a timed reservation to drive past the entrance gate at Echo Lake Campground and the road can be subjected to closure at any time without explanation. Honestly the most sure way to do this peak with contingency is to hike up from the west but I planned to take Clair and Cheesecake to the summit, and hiking up the entire profile would not be very feasible for that purpose. Instead, I joined the hordes and reserved two time slots on the 5th and the 7th. These was the September long weekend so I had to do the logistics weeks ahead. I figured that on one of those days the weather would cooperate, and if the first window worked out I could cancel the second reservation for refunds.

Then it came the first day of this long weekend and the weather did show some chances of afternoon thunderstorms. Clair and Cheesecake wouldn’t land until mid-morning so the 1 pm reservation made the most sense. Earlier in the day we hiked up Genesse Mtn. mostly to kill time but also to acclimatize, but then we got denied entering due to some freak car accident. Apparently someone had rolled his/her vehicle more than 100 meters but luckily there wasn’t a fatality. They did allow us to drive the initial 5 miles but our intention was the summit so that’s of no use, so we turned around and dashed up Warrior Mountain to kill more time. We returned about 2 hours later and got denied again, and nobody actually knew the ETA of the re-opening. I sensed no further need to play the gambling game and we decided to check into the hotel first. The hotel was only an hour away anyway but before going there we opted to check out Loveland Pass as it’s basically on the way. A few hours later we decided to give Mt. Blue Sky a 3rd try. I was honestly not too keen as based on my past experience this kind of situation could easily take a day or two to clear, but we had nothing else to do. The weather was also pouring in the vicinity of Silverthrone but cleared up as we drove back towards Idaho Springs. If the road did reopen this could turn into a very memorable outing at the sunset time.

We drove past the gate at 6:20 pm and nobody was working there. In fact, if one drives in after 6 pm then there’s no need for reservation nor payment. This implied that we could have driven in predawn since the road wouldn’t be manned 24/7/365. I sure wished I knew this beforehand, but whatever. I still didn’t know if we could drive past the 5-mile mark but at least we could get some incredible sunset views in one way or another. It turned out that the road had fully opened up not long after our 2nd try. Most people were going down so the uphill traffic was actually not bad at all. Clair wanted to stop at Summit Lake for some photography and I reluctantly agreed. We didn’t walk to the shore of that lake as I did think we should prioritize summitting and watching sunset from much higher up.

Resuming the mechanized “ascent” we quickly started the final dozen ish switchbacks and the views completely opened up. We even encountered a few hordes of sheep and then goats and stopped frequently for photography. This was shaping to become a very spectacular trip. What I did not know was that Mt. Blue Sky isn’t entirely a drive-up and the final 30 vertical meters had to be gained on foot. That’s totally fine with me, but Clair had come straight from sea level with hardly any acclimatization, and that could easily be too much for her. We had a talk but she still wanted to try, and I was impressed that she could actually do it. There was definitely some struggling but she did get to the top including the true summit boulder, and we even lingered past the sunset for the maximum amount of views. Not wanting to get altitude sickness I then drove us straight back down into Idaho Springs and had dinner there. This was the lowest possible elevation as our hotel in Silverthrone would be 500 m higher. We killed as much time as we could and eventually went back to the hotel to conclude the exhausting but fulfilled day. A few days later I received an email that my first reservation (on the 5th) was also refunded due to the road closure, so that’s excellent.