Mount Blue Sky

Mount Blue Sky (formerly Mount Evans) is a peak of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, visible from Denver. The prominent 14,267-foot (4,350 m) fourteener is 13.4 miles (21.6 km) southwest by south of Idaho Springs in Clear Creek County, Colorado.

The peak is one of the characteristic Front Range peaks, dominating the western skyline of the Great Plains along with Pikes Peak, Longs Peak, and nearby Mount Bierstadt. The peak can be seen from over 100 miles (160 km) to the east, and many miles in other directions. Mount Blue Sky dominates the Denver metropolitan area skyline, rising over 9,000 feet above the area.

In March 2022, Clear Creek County approved a proposal to rename the peak to Mount Blue Sky, and on September 15, 2023, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names voted to rename the mountain.

Geography

Mount Blue Sky is the highest peak in a massif. The peak is 35 air miles (56 km) west of Denver, and approximately 51 miles (82 km) by road, via Idaho Springs. Other peaks in the massif are:

   Mount Spalding (13,842 ft)
   Gray Wolf Mountain (13,602 ft)
   The Sawtooth (13,780 ft)
   Mount Bierstadt (14,060 ft)
   Mount Warren (13,307 ft)
   Rogers Peak (13,391 ft)

At least seven deep glacial cirques cut into the massif, and the cirques around Mount Blue Sky are the deepest in the Colorado Rockies.

The Mount Blue Sky Scenic Byway consists of State Highway 103 from Idaho Springs on I-70 about 13 miles (21 km) to Echo Lake, and Colorado 5 from Echo Lake 15 miles, ending at a parking area and turnaround just below the summit. The latter has long been the highest paved road in North America (fifth highest in the world) and is only open in the summer. Colorado 103 continues east from Echo Lake to Squaw Pass, from which it connects, via Clear Creek County Road 103 and Jefferson County Road 66, to Bergen Park from which Colorado 74 leads to Evergreen Colorado.

The Guanella Pass Scenic Byway passes within 4 miles west of Mount Blue Sky, linking Georgetown and I-70 with Grant and US 285, 22 miles to the south.

A marked hiking trail roughly parallels the highway from Echo Lake to the summit, and a second marked trail links Guanella Pass to Mount Bierstadt. A difficult side route of the latter climbs to the northeastern peak of The Sawtooth, from which an easy ridge leads to the summit of Mount Blue Sky.

Most of the Mount Blue Sky massif is now part of the Mount Blue Sky (Mount Evans) Wilderness area in Arapaho and Pike National Forests. The exception is a narrow corridor along the highway from Echo Lake that is excluded from the wilderness. Summit Lake Park and Echo Lake Park are part of the historic Denver Mountain Parks system.

History

The mountain was originally known as Mount Rosa or Mount Rosalie. German-American painter Albert Bierstadt named it for the wife of Fitz Hugh Ludlow, whom he later married. The name is also a reference to Monte Rosa, the highest peak in Switzerland. Bierstadt and his guide, William Newton Byers, approached the mountain along Chicago Creek from Idaho Springs in 1863, and spent several days painting sketches of the mountain from the Chicago Lakes before climbing to Summit Lake and onward to the summit.

William Henry Jackson, attached to the Hayden Survey, visited the Chicago Lakes in 1873, where he took numerous photographs; the summit of Mount Blue Sky (Mount Evans) is barely visible in several of these, peeking over the col between upper Chicago Lake and Summit Lake. The Hayden survey reported that Mount Rosalie was 14,330 feet above sea level, measured by triangulation.

In 1895, 30 years after he was forced to resign as governor because of his part in the infamous Sand Creek Massacre and its subsequent coverup, Colorado's legislature officially renamed the peak in honor of John Evans, second governor of the Colorado Territory from 1862 to 1865.

The history of the Mount Blue Sky Scenic Byway is part of a larger story of the Denver Mountain Parks system. It ultimately began when the City and County of Denver initiated the construction of a series of automobile "scenic loops" to allow Denverites to explore the mountains. One road circuit, Circle G, was to traverse the ridge to Squaw Pass on to Echo Lake, culminate in a climb up Mount Blue Sky, and loop down to Idaho Springs. To achieve this goal, Denver Mountain Parks acquired a series of land parcels, including the acquisition of Bergen Park in 1915. A joint exercise between the City and County of Denver, the U.S. Congress, the State Highway System, and now the Forest Service would be completed with help of a newly formed Federal Agency, the Bureau of Public Roads. In 1918, the Bureau of Public Roads provided the plan to construct 9.41 miles of road from Soda Pass (now called Squaw Pass) to Echo Lake beginning in 1919. By October 1, 1921, the Bureau of Public Roads had completed construction to Echo Lake. The first survey for the road from Echo Lake to the peak of Mount Blue Sky was made in 1923, finishing the layout by January 1924 despite a flu outbreak in the camp, damaging windstorms, and nearly insurmountable environmental hardships. Battling the unusual problems that come with high-altitude construction, workers constructed the last 600 feet by hand, completed in 1930.

The ruins of the Crest House (1941–1942) sit nearby. Once containing both a restaurant and a gift shop, it burned down on September 1, 1979, and was not rebuilt, but remains as a place of contemplation today. The rock foundation and walls remain as a windbreak for mountain travelers, and the viewing platform is one of Colorado's premier scenic overlooks.

Mount Blue Sky, along with Echo Lake, was designated as a historic site by the American Physical Society in 2017, commemorating the many cosmic-ray physics experiments conducted on the mountain between 1935 and 1960.

Mount Blue Sky also hosts the annual Mount Blue Sky (Mt. Evans) Hill Climb, a 27.4 mile bicycle race with a total of 6,915 feet of climbing.

Climate

The atmospheric pressure on the summit is around 460 Torr (610 mbar), whereas a standard atmosphere (sea level) is 760 Torr (1013 mbar). At this pressure, many people will suffer from altitude sickness.

The climate on the summit can be extreme. The mean annual temperature on the summit is 18 °F (-8 °C). Temperatures often fall below 0 °F, and occasionally fall as low as -40 °F. The highest temperature recorded on the summit was 65 °F (18 °C), and below freezing temperatures may occur at any time of year. The maximum wind speed measured was 123 mph; the average is from 28 to 35 mph. When the wind speed is over 15 knots (17 mph or 28 km/h), the wind is almost always from the west-southwest.

Flora

The slopes of Mount Blue Sky include several distinct environments. Below Echo Lake, the montane forest is dominated by lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) and in some areas, blue spruce (Picea pungensa), with patches of quaking aspen. Echo Lake is high enough to be in the subalpine forest, where Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii), subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa), and bristlecone pine (Pinus aristata) dominate.

At tree line, the trees are reduced to krummholz, battered and twisted by wind and frost. The bristlecone pine grove on the east slope of Mount Goliath contains at least one tree that sprouted in the year 403 AD. For many years, these were the oldest known trees in Colorado, but in 1992, trees dating to 442 BC were found in the southern Front Range and South Park. The Mount Goliath Natural Area, jointly managed by the United States Forest Service and the Denver Botanic Gardens, protects this grove of old trees.

Above tree line, the landscape is mostly alpine tundra. In the lower tundra, dwarf willow (Salix herbacea) is common, along with a wide variety of flowering plants such as the state flower Rocky Mountain Columbine (Aquilegia saximontana) and various species of dwarf alpine sunflowers. Toward the summit, the vegetation shrinks until the largest plants are little more than compact green cushions in the cracks between the rocks. Here, Alpine Forget-me-not (Myosotis alpestris) plants with hundreds of blossoms occupy areas of only a few square centimeters and rise only centimeters above the soil surface.

The tundra around Summit Lake, particularly in Summit Lake Flats, the gently sloping area east of the lake, is frequently described as the southernmost area of arctic tundra in the world because it is water saturated and underlain by an extensive area of permafrost.

Fauna

The top predators found in the area are mountain lions (Puma concolor), anywhere on the mountain, and black bears (Ursus americanus), generally below tree line. These prey on bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) and mountain goats (Oreamnos americanus),[yy] as well as one of the highest densities of yellow-bellied marmot (Marmota flaviventris) in the region. Above tree-line, pikas (Ochotona princeps) are common. Below tree line, elk (Cervus canadensis) and mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) are common.

Among birds, the white-tailed ptarmigan (Lagopus leucurus) are present on the mountain, but so well camouflaged that they are difficult to see even when almost underfoot. Brown-capped rosy finches (Leucosticte australis), pipits and rock wrens (Salpinctes obsoletus) are also seen near the summit.

Geology

Mount Blue Sky was carved from the rock of the Mount Blue Sky batholith, formed by an intrusion of magma into the earth's crust about 1.4 billion years ago (in the Mesoproterozoic Era of the Precambrian Eon). Much of the rock is granodiorite, a close relative of granite, modified by later intrusions of quartz and pegmatite.[yy]

The body of this batholith has been deeply cut by glacial cirques and canyons. Each of the nearby lakes, Summit Lake, the Chicago Lakes, Lincoln Lake and Abyss Lake are tarns located in cirques or glacial canyons surrounding Mount Blue Sky. Echo Lake was dammed by a lateral moraine of the glacier that formed Chicago Canyon. Prior to glaciation, Mount Blue Sky, Long's Peak and several other summits were monadnocks in an upland Peneplain. Glaciation has not entirely destroyed the ancient Flattop Peneplain, named for Flattop Mountain in Grand County. The peaks of these mountains are all remnant features of this peneplain.

Scientific research

The easy access to the summit provided by the Mount Blue Sky Highway has made it a popular location for scientific research. Arthur H. Compton conducted pioneering research on cosmic rays on the mountain in 1931, shortly after the road to the summit was completed. The University of Denver built a pair of A-frame buildings on the summit to house cosmic-ray researchers. By the 1950s, Mount Evans, the Aiguille du Midi, the Pic du Midi, and the Jungfrau were considered the premier locations for high-altitude physics experiments.

The first accurate measurement of the lifetime of the muon (originally called the mesotron) by Bruno Rossi in 1939, used sites at this mountain, Echo Lake, Denver, and Chicago. This experiment verified the reality of time dilation, one of the key predictions of Einstein's theory of relativity.

In 1965, the Midwestern Universities Research Association began doing high-energy physics experiments on the summit using cosmic rays to explore energies above those accessible with the most powerful particle accelerators of the day. The first experiments were conducted in a semi-trailer, and then in 1966, a temporary laboratory building was erected near the summit. This building was moved to Echo Lake that fall, where research continued until 1972.

The University of Denver erected the 0.6 m (24 inch) Ritchey–Chrétien telescope in its summit laboratory in 1972. This was used to observe comets Kohoutek and Halley in 1972 and 1986. In 1996, the university finished construction on the Meyer–Womble Observatory, near the site of the A-frame laboratory buildings. At 14,148 feet this was, from 1972 to 1999, the world's highest optical observatory. It is now the third-highest.

Mount Blue Sky has also been the site of significant research in the life sciences. In 1940, for example, it was the site of a significant study of high-altitude physiology. Pioneering studies on the effects of altitude training on track athletes were conducted on the mountaih in 1966.

Mount Blue Sky Road is also noteworthy as a high-altitude vehicle testing venue for auto manufacturers. With full visibility on a public road, most manufacturers' road test teams tend to conceal their designs with various creative styles of camouflage, possibly paired with other temporary body coverings.

Renaming

Mount Blue Sky was originally named after territorial Governor John Evans, instigator of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre, which resulted in the death of between 150 and 500 Cheyenne and Arapaho Native Americans, most of whom were elderly, women, and children. In 1865, Governor John Evans resigned in disgrace, and some groups were never happy with his name on the mountain, which had been used since 1895. In 2020, Governor Polis established The Colorado Geographic Naming Advisory Board, which included Mount Evans for a possible renaming. The new name was proposed by the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. In March 2022, Clear Creek County approved a proposal to rename the peak to Mount Blue Sky, pending state and federal review. Five other names were also submitted, Mount Rosalie, Mount Soule (after Silas Soule), Mount Sisty, Mount Evans (after the daughter of Governor Evans, Anne Evans), and Mount Cheyenne Arapaho. On November 17, 2022, the Colorado Geographic Naming Advisory recommended unanimously that the name be changed to Mount Blue Sky.

On March 3, 2023, Colorado Governor Jared Polis formally asked the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to rename the mountain to Mount Blue Sky, and on September 15, 2023, the new name was made official by a vote of that board.

Attribution

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