For some photos and a video I shot of the trip see http://www.andyintherockies.com/trip/67/Mount_Evans_The_Snave.htm

It almost seemed like cheating to be able to start so near what seemed like a pretty cool route. But I'm not one to turn down a super short/easy approach so Brian, Wes, Chris, Jamie and I met at Summit Lake at about 7:00 - destination summit of Mount Evans via The Snave.

By 7:30 we were hiking up a slope that dumped us out into a little basin below Mount Evan's north face. Our next task was to reach a snow covered ledge about halfway up the face. Roach recommends scrambling up a talus and boulder slope to below and to climbers left of The Snave, but we spied an interesting looking gully below and to climbers right of The Snave. We decided to give that a go, geared up, and set off.

The snow was pretty hard and we made swift progress toward a split in the gully. We opted for the left branch that was narrower and had a more interesting looking finish. The finish took us through a narrow 4th class passage and dumped us out onto the ledge system we were aiming for. From there we traverse down across the ledge to the base of The Snave.

We climbed a little more than 100' of snow, crossed a rock band, and then gained a little headwall. We bypassed the headwall on the left via a little 3rd class chimney. From there it was another 50' of 3rd class scrambling so we took off our crampons and made our way up to the top of The Snave. There we joined the tourons for last 100' or so to the summit. We spent a while dorking around on the summit and then made our way back down to the car via Mount Spalding.

It was a nice, easy day out.