After a few miles of that, we came to an opening which was right at the base of the steep gully we were about to embark on. The trail became very unclear and we mainly relied on finding the cairns that were dispersed along the faint trail. The middle section of the gully, we totally lost the trail and ended up scrambling up a class 2 section. It was actually a bit fun being on hands and feet crawling up and around boulders...kind of like playing on a jungle gym. But after awhile it got pretty tiring as we were at about 12,000 to 13,000 ft in elevation. Off to the side of where we were, I finally spotted a large cairn and we were back on a trail. We followed the trail all the way up to the saddle that is between Mt. Evans and Mt. Spalding. The view was absolutely amazing! We could see Summit Lake below us, and a lot of cars on Mt. Evans Rd. 
Also, we spotted a lot of people hiking from Mt. Evans, so we knew we weren't too far from the summit. The hike was a bit easier in comparison to the gully we just came from. However, after we got to a notch after going over a hump, the trail became it little more class2-ish. We pretty much traversed along the north slope of Mt. Evans for about a mile, and then finally came up to the busy switchback trail where all of the visitors were walking up to the summit. There were quite a number of visitors there, but we managed to get through them and reach the summit. Ominous clouds were closing in, so we didn't spend too much time up there, just had a snack and took some photos. I was a bit depressed we couldn't have our warm meal of ramen on the summit. 
To our surprise, it actually took 5 miles to get to the summit, where instead the internet had said it would take 4 miles...we weren't too happy about that. No wonder we were so tired! Anyways, we started back down the trail, traversing back to the saddle, when it became totally dark gray and we heard thunder around us. This signaled that we needed to head down as quickly as possible, but that was pretty difficult when the terrain was very rocky. As rain drops started to fall, we donned our rain gear and hiked quickly, but safely as possible to the saddle. At the saddle, it began to hail and I heard a buzzing sound and my hair on my head was vibrating!
It was a very odd feeling. I even took off my hat and rubbed my head, but I still felt the buzzing! Jake said he could see my hair standing straight up! Yikes! There was definitely electricty in the air! As it hailed, we made our way down to the gully, and slowly and carefully we hiked down the steep section using our trekking poles. The rocks were slippery, and the gravel-y ground was getting loose. We were fortunate that the thunder was never on top of us, but it was still very scary. Also, we were lucky to follow the trail down the gully as we were able to avoid the class 2 boulders that we scrambled on the way up. Slowly, but surely we made it down the gully and into the open meadow. Here the clouds gave way to the sun and boy did that feel good. We stopped to boil some water, and finally got to eat our warm and delicious ramen noodles! That definitely lifted our spirits! After gobbling up our noodles (I even brought chopsticks to eat), we kept on our rain gear in anticipation of going through the wet marshy willows and headed onward to the wetlands again. We hiked pretty quickly through the willows and came upon the Mt. Bierstadt trail. It was a relief to get back on a normal trail and know that we were almost back to the car. At about 5:30 pm, we finally reached the car and boy were our feet and legs sore! It felt so good to take off our soaked shoes and socks, but our poor feet were totally pruned! This day we hiked a total of 10.5 miles in 9 hours...phew!
