Mount Blue Sky

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

• Mount Spalding (13,842 ft or 4,219 m), 1.1 mi (1.8 km) northwest[5]
• Gray Wolf Mountain (13,602 ft or 4,146 m), 2.2 mi (3.5 km) north-northwest[6]
• The Sawtooth (13,780 ft or 4,200 m), 1.2 mi (1.9 km) west[7]
• Mount Bierstadt (14,060 ft or 4,290 m), 1.5 mi (2.4 km) west-southwest[8]
• Mount Warren (13,307 ft or 4,056 m), 1.2 mi (1.9 km) north-northeast[9]
• Rogers Peak (13,391 ft or 4,082 m), 2.33 mi (3.75 km) northeast.[10]

At least 7 deep glacial cirques cut into the massif. The cirques around Mount Blue Sky are the deepest cirques in the Colorado Rockies.[11] The bottoms of many of these contain tarns, the most notable being:

• Summit Lake at the head of Bear Creek, 0.5 miles (0.80 km; 800 m) north
• the Chicago Lakes at the head of Chicago Creek, 2 miles (3.2 km; 3,200 m) north
• Abyss Lake at the head of Lake Fork, 1 mile (1.6 km; 1,600 m) west-southwest

The Mount Evans Scenic Byway consists of State Highway 103 from Idaho Springs, Colorado on I-70 about 13 miles (21 km) to Echo Lake, and Colorado 5 from Echo Lake 15 miles (24 km), ending at a parking area and turnaround just below the summit. The latter has long been the highest paved road in North America (5th 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.[12]

The Guanella Pass Scenic Byway passes within 4 miles (6.4 km) west of Mount Blue Sky, linking Georgetown and I-70 with Grant and US 285, 22 miles (35 km) to the south.[13]

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 Evans massif is now part of the Mount Evans Wilderness area in Arapaho National Forest and Pike National Forest. The exception is a narrow corridor along the highway from Echo Lake that is excluded from the wilderness.[14] Summit Lake Park and Echo Lake Park, are part of the historic Denver Mountain Parks system.

Looking west along ridge from summit

At least 48 different tribes have ancestral ties to the area around the mountain.[15] Albert Bierstadt and his guide, William Newton Byers, approached the mountain along Chicago Creek from Idaho Springs in 1863. Bierstadt called it Mount Rosalie and spent several days painting sketches of the mountain from the Chicago Lakes before climbing to Summit Lake and onward to the summit.[16] Bierstadt's sketch, Mountain Lake, accurately portrays the view of Mount Spalding over the Chicago Lakes.[17] His painting, A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie, is based on that and other sketches.[18]

William Henry Jackson, attached to the Hayden Survey, visited the Chicago Lakes in 1873, where he took numerous photographs; the summit of the mountain is barely visible in several of these, peeking over the col between upper Chicago Lake and Summit Lake.[19] The Hayden survey reported that Mount Rosalie was 14,330 feet (4,370 m) above sea level, measured by triangulation.[20][21]

The United States Forest Service sign at the summit of Mount Blue Sky.

The history of the Mount Evans Scenic Byway is part of a larger story of the Denver Mountain Parks system. The City and County of Denver initiated the construction of a series of automobile "scenic loops" to allow Denverites to explore the mountains.[22] 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. In order to achieve this goal, Denver Mountain Parks acquired a series of land parcels, including the acquisition of Bergen Park in 1915. The Bear Creek segment from the Genesee saddle to Bergen Park was finished in 1915, while the Denver Mountain Parks committee worked to make Mount Evans a National Park, going as far as getting support in Congress for the construction of a "cement road" to the mountain. The first mile was paid for by Denver with the understanding that the State Highway Commission would do the rest.[23] The Denver Mountain Parks committee was not without disagreement and setbacks, however. $30,000 was acquired early in 1916 to construct the Bergen Park to Squaw Pass segment and all seemed to be flowing towards the goal of Mount Evans when the mayor of Denver, Robert W. Speer, appointed W.F.R. Mills as the Commissioner of Improvements, who summarily stopped the construction of the road, stating that "It is a road that starts nowhere, ends nowhere, and never gets there".[23] After studying the issue, Mills later recanted and became a supporter of the park system, and the segment between Bergen Park and Squaw Pass was constructed beginning in the spring of 1918. The next act was to get Mount Evans classified as a National Park, but 1916 was a tumultuous time between the National Park system and the U.S. Forest Service, who currently held claim to the mountain. Already in bitter struggle to prevent the formation of a National Park Service, Chief Forester Graves adamantly blocked the relinquishment of this area of National Forest, in exchange for Forest Service development of the area including the immediate construction of a road between Squaw Pass and Echo Lake (Colorado).[23] This 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 1920, the road had only managed to be constructed to Chief Mountain.[24] By October 1 of 1921, the Bureau of Public Roads had completed construction to Echo Lake.[25] 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.[26] Battling the unusual problems that come with high-altitude construction (steam shovels performing only half as effective at high altitude, difficulty of hauling coal and water, horse suicide,[26] etc.) the last 600 feet were finally built by hand, being completed in 1930.[27]

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.

The mountain, 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.[28]

Mount Blue Sky also hosts the annual Mt. Evans Hill Climb, a 27.4 miles (44.1 km) bicycle race with a total of 6,915 feet (2,108 m) of climbing.

Mount Evans Scenic Byway above Summit Lake, highest paved road in North America

Mount Blue Sky was carved from the rock of the Mount Evans 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.[41]

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.[42] 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.[43]

View from the summit of Mount Blue Sky of the end of the Mount Evans Scenic Byway, Crest House and the Meyer–Womble Observatory, 2010.

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.[44][45] By the 1950s, Mount Blue Sky, the Aiguille du Midi, the Pic du Midi and the Jungfrau were considered the premier locations for high-altitude physics experiments.[46]

The first accurate measurement of the lifetime of the muon (originally called the mesotron) by Bruno Rossi in 1939, used sites at Mount Blue Sky, Echo Lake, Denver and Chicago. This experiment verified the reality of time dilation, one of the key predictions of Einstein's theory of relativity.[47][48]

In the summer of 1948, MIT, Cornell, Princeton, NYU and the universities of Michigan and Chicago and Denver conducted an intensive experimental program on the mountain and at Echo Lake. Bruno Rossi and Giuseppe Cocconi were among those involved.[49]

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.[50]

The University of Denver erected the 0.6 m (24 in) 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 (4,312 m) this was, from 1972 to 1999, the world's highest optical observatory.[31] 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.[29] Pioneering studies on the effects of altitude training on track athletes were conducted on Mount Blue Sky in 1966.[51]

Mount Evans Road is also noteworthy as a high-altitude vehicle testing venue for auto manufacturers.[52] With full visibility on a public road, most manufacturers' road test teams tend to conceal their designs with various creative styles of camouflage, e.g. wild zebra paint motif, possibly paired with other temporary body coverings.[53]

Mount Evans was named after territorial Governor John Evans. Commissions at Northwestern University and the University of Denver—both universities were established by Evans—determined the Evans was among those responsible for the 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.[54] Attempts have been made to change the name in Colorado due to the history and actions of Governor Evans.[55] In 2020, Governor Polis established The Colorado Geographic Naming Advisory Board, which included Mount Evans for a possible renaming.[56] The new name was proposed by the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. According to the proposal, the name "signifies the Arapaho as they were known as the Blue Sky People and the Cheyenne who have an annual ceremony of renewal of life called Blue Sky".[57] In March 2022, Clear Creek County approved a proposal to rename the peak to Mount Blue Sky, pending state and federal review.[58] Five other names were also submitted, Mount Rosalie, Mount Soule (after Silas Soule), Mount Sisty, Mount Evans (after Anne Evans), and Mount Cheyenne Arapaho.[59] On November 17, 2022, the Colorado Geographic Naming Advisory recommended unanimously that the name be changed to Mount Blue Sky.[60]

On March 3, 2023, Colorado Governor Jared Polis formally asked the United States Board on Geographic Names to rename the mountain to Mount Blue Sky.[61] The board delayed any decision after the Northern Cheyenne Tribe requested a consultation, with tribal administrator William F. Walks Along saying the proposed name "conflicted with his nation’s use of the term in their confidential sacred ceremonies."[62] On September 15, 2023, the BGN voted to change the name, effective immediately.[63] Despite the peak's name change, the efforts to make a corresponding name change for the Mount Evans Wilderness Area still requires congressional approval.[64]

On October 16, 2023, Joe Neguse (Colorado D-2 Democrat) introduced H.R. 5962 to the 118th congress titled "To redesignate the Mount Evans Wilderness as the "Mount Blue Sky Wilderness", and for other purposes".[65][66]

• List of mountain peaks of North America
  • List of mountain peaks of the United States
    • List of mountain peaks of Colorado
      • List of Colorado fourteeners
• Mount Evans Scenic Byway — Colorado State Highway 5
• Mount Evans Hill Climb

• Mount Blue Sky on 14ers.com
• www.mountevans.com
• Mount Blue Sky on Distantpeak.com
• Mount Blue Sky on Summitpost
• Tim's Guide to Mount Blue Sky
• US Forest Service, Mount Evans Byway