Climbing Colorado's Fourteeners

• Class 1
• From Echo Lake Trailhead:
  29.2 miles, 3,700 feet
• Via Northeast Face Route:
  20.0 miles, 3,700 feet

This is the easiest route up Evans, but it is long and high. Start at the Echo Lake Trailhead and walk, run, ski or bike up the Mount Evans Road. A significant shortcut for hikers uses the Northeast Face Route above Summit Lake instead of following the road. People who have driven a car up Evans have told me, with evident pride, that they climbed the peak! Ahem. If you drive up, your vehicle has climbed the peak. You are awarded a nice view but no mountaineering credit at all.

There has been a sporadic Mount Evans Trophy Run up the Mount Evans Road. It is billed as the world's highest road race. The race starts at the gate just beyond the parking lot at the junction of Colorado 103 and Mount Evans Road, and finishes in the summit parking lot. The distance is 14.6 miles. The men's record is 1 hour, 41 minutes, 35 seconds, and the women's record is 2 hours, 7 minutes, 14 seconds. Any male finisher under 2 hours, 40 minutes, and any female finisher under 3 hours receives a special trophy, usually a rock mounted on a plaque. Runners reveal a mountaineering appetite if they continue 300 feet past and above the summit parking lot to reach Evans' highest point.