Quandary Peak, Colorado

The second day of my Breckenridge hiking weekend, I awoke at five, hit the snooze button twice (like I was putting off getting up for work or something instead of an exciting hike up a fourteener, phwaha), and prepared myself breakfast. While I was eating, I was looking out the mesh door of my tent, and about halfway through my meal, I heard a rustling sound, which surprised me, because I was nowhere near any sort of trail in the area - why would someone be walking by? Why? Because that someone was a BEAR, toddling on its way not five feet from my tent door. I squeaked loudly and then immediately fell silent and froze, like a mouse. The bear stopped and surveyed my tent when it heard me, but thankfully nothing seemed to register (why didn't it smell my food?) and it moved on with its bear day. Thoroughly shaken, I waited ten minutes to make sure it wasn’t coming back, and then hastily threw everything together and moved quickly back to my car.

I was able to leave my camping accoutrements in the car, so I had a relatively light pack for the day. It was rough; I’m embarrassed, frankly, at how poorly I did. Happily, I did not experience altitude sickness, but I was so slow, I don’t know what my excuse was. No matter how slow I went, I still summitted, bagging myself a new altitude record in the process (up from 14,264 feet to 14,265 feet!).

Happy fourth, everyone!

My plan for the descent was to glissade down the Cristo Couloir, but found the snow far too soft for safe sliding or easy self-arrest. I did watch some folks armed only with large sticks slide successfully down much of the couloir, but there again is that paradox - am I just cowardly or are they ignorant? All I could think about was the possibility of breaking my tailbone on a rock beneath the snow. I cut over and picked my way slowly down the side of the mountain on the loose scree. This did offer some pretty unique opportunity to interact with a herd of fearless mountain goats, who did nothing more than stare at me blankly as I plowed my way through the meadow they were grazing in.

This was not nearly as fun and cute as people think it is when I tell them. These are animals and they're strong as, well, goats. Plus they have horns. It was actually pretty scary.

I was just pulling out of the trailhead parking lot headed home when I was flagged by a group of sad-looking people standing around. “Are you going to Denver?” they asked. Yes, I was. Well, their ride had lost her keys somewhere on the Quandary hike, and now they were stranded, would I give any of them a ride? I ended up agreeing to give two of them a ride back (the other two found another ride, and besides I couldn’t fit another person with my pack and all my camping junk still piled unceremoniously around my car from the bear encounter this morning). So I ended up driving Ginnie and her boyfriend back to their respective living places in Golden and Capitol Hill, and that was my good deed for the weekend. That and picking up a hitchhiker called Smiley on Saturday night, too.

Upper and Lower Mohawk Lakes in Breckenridge, Colorado

What a crappy awesome weekend! Absolutely nothing went right, but I still had a blast! I drove out to Breckenridge to do a little mountaineering over the long weekend; my goal was to push myself, and I certainly did that.

After some last-minute paper-polishing for class, I got to my first trailhead at Spruce Creek very late. Anticipating this, I planned a little night hike for myself - it followed a northern fork of Spruce Creek Trail until it met up with a four-wheel-drive road, which I would follow until reaching Upper Crystal Lake, where I would make camp. Early the following morning, I would summit Crystal Peak, do a little scramble to Father Dyer Peak, and depending on conditions, possibly scramble across to Mount Helen as well.

What *actually* happened (get used to hearing that) was that I sniffed back and forth over several miles of trail trying unsuccessfully to find the fork. I’m not a sweet trail-finder in broad daylight, so I was piss-poor in the dark. The trail I could find was helpfully marked with reflective blue diamond blazes and led to the Mohawk Lakes. So I went with it because I was exhausted.

But before I could sleep, I became nauseated from not eating that day, and it was all I could do to set up my tent (kudos to Big Agnes for making a tent that even a vomiting person can set up!) and collapse in it. The next morning, I awoke weak but refreshed.

I made my way up to the Mohawk Lakes very slowly; as I trudged up the path, I began to hate everyone who wasn’t also carrying a 25+-pound pack (which was everyone, except for some poor parents forced to tote their toddlers in those special baby backpacks).

The way to Upper Mohawk Lake involved crossing two snowfields. I find the more I learn about mountaineering, the more of a coward I am. I couldn’t believe how people were carelessly crossing these snowfields, while I walked across the fields with my (borrowed) helmet on and my (borrowed) ice axe in hand. I didn’t need them to cross, but I sure would’ve needed them if I fell. Admittedly, I probably would’ve done it, too, if I didn’t happen to bring equipment.

This is a picture taken just as I was approaching the upper lake. You approach from below the lake, and the shore is practically level with your eyeline as you walk up. It was like this perfectly clear crystalline pool held in place by magic or something, because you feel like by all means it should be pouring over.

On the way back, I did a fun glissade down one of those aforementioned snowfields between Lower and Upper Mohawk Lake, earning myself brief pseudo-celebdom among the picnickers at the bottom.

The Great Colorado Loop Continues

Glenn had been six days on the trail when I met up with him on Saturday morning at Kenosha Pass; he said he smelled funky, but since I don’t have a sense of smell, I couldn’t tell. The main point of my driving out there was to drop off Glenn’s snowshoes, heavier hiking boots, and gaiters; apparently Georgia Pass is pretty messy with snow right now. We hiked six miles to Jefferson Creek, where we stripped down to wade (OMG cold) and then set up camp; it is just before the climb to Georgia Pass begins, so it was pretty flat and easygoing terrain. The Colorado Trail is very busy, full of horseback riders and mountain bikers. Glenn told me a useful tip about sharing the trail with mountain bikers: when you let them pass you, you should always stand on the lower side of the path, because mountain bikers are easily spooked by large packs and they might rear or bolt. Or maybe he was talking about horses, I don’t remember which.

At our little campsite, we started a campfire so Glenn could take a hiker-bath, which consists of standing in the smoke of a fire until it covers up the stench of body odor and sweat that comes from hiking for days without washing. I also appreciated the mosquito-deterrent; I’ve never camped anywhere really buggy, and even with a generous dousing of Deet and smoke on my body, I’m covered in bites.

I gave Glenn my freeze-dried beef stroganoff because I’m such a nice person. I finally cooked the little oxygen absorber packet in my meal.

Looking up at the sky from our sleeping mats.

This should be my last involvement in the Great Colorado Loop for some time now, so my weekends are my own again. Anyone interested should follow Glenn’s journal on his website, or check out his stuff on Trailjournals.com.

Sidenote: I’ve noticed a change in my hiking style: I used to be about food when I hiked - I was hungry constantly and I’d have to bring a goodly amount of candy bars and snacks to make it through one; however, lately, I only need minimal food but I’m finding myself slurping down water like a drowning person. Not that I don’t enjoy the snacks still, but I feel more refreshed and energized by drinking water than I do by eating.

The Great Colorado Loop Officially Begins

Saw the man off on the Colorado Trail today from the alternate trailhead at Indian Creek; I walked with him about three miles before we parted ways, at which point he returned once again to Lenny’s Rest, where we’d hiked in January, and I walked back to his truck. Not exactly a good day, but I did make unusually good time back to the truck - three gently-uphill miles in about fifty minutes - and Glenn’s truck has a pretty decent sound system.

I’m Glenn’s thru-hiking sentinel of sorts; I am tasked with periodically sending out boxes of supplies, called “maildrops” in thru-hiking lingo, to strategically-chosen locations; the first goes out to the Fireside Inn in Breckenridge, which Glenn will be reaching in approximately ten days. We’re also scheduled to meet next Saturday afternoon for a campout at Kenosha Pass, when I will be bringing his snowshoes and an alternate pair of boots.

Saint Mary's Glacier, Colorado

Although he had just come back from an extended camping trip in Nevada, Glenn agreed to come with me this weekend to test-drive my new equipment, which is good because I had no idea where I was going to go, and my indecision had already cost me a night of my precious three-day weekend. We spent the night at St. Mary’s Glacier, which is *not* a glacier, as I found out to my great disappointment. It’s just a permanent snowfield not too far from the Mount Evans area. Permanent might be too strong a word, though – Glenn told me about an older guy he’d spoken to a few years ago who said that the snow had dramatically receded since he first saw it, so St. Mary’s might be on borrowed time.

We set up camp using some extra heavy-duty stakes so my brand-new tent didn’t get torn up in the winds that St. Mary’s Glacier is famous for. The winds are so strong on St. Mary’s that half of every tree is completely bare of branches and foliage. Glenn frightened me with a horror story about his friend’s tent in which the poles snapped and sliced through the tent fabric in the wind on St. Mary’s; however, I’m charmed when it comes to weather, so we never experienced more than a breeze for the entire time we were there.

The way you set up a tent in the snow is by tramping the snow down in an approximate outline of the tent, staking it out, and then rolling around on the tent before it’s put up to flatten out the middle part. Glenn also dug out a small hole at the front of the tent so we could sit on the edge and have our feet hanging down like sitting in a chair (Glenn advice: don’t ever put your equipment in this hole, because there’s a good chance the wind will blow snow into it and you will have to dig out your stuff from underneath two feet of ice and snow).

We brought ice axes and practiced self-arrest techniques in the snow all day. We saw some cross-country skiers, a lot of tourists who stood around at the bottom of the glacier for ten minutes taking pictures before leaving (one woman spent the entire time on her cell phone), and a couple of other people practicing with ice axes, but it was actually pretty quiet.

Anticipating more snow, I had rented snowshoes and dragged the things up to the glacier only to find them completely unnecessary. However, we snowshoed out just to justify my spending the $15.

Climbing in the Garden of the Gods

There was a time last summer where if I didn’t spend Monday and Tuesday in severe pain from whatever I did on Saturday and Sunday, I considered it a weekend wasted. Then winter came and I got lazy - but now I’m back, doing actual cool things! My parents got me a Groupon for a group guided climbing trip with Front Range Climbing Company last year, and I completely lucked out and the other three people in my group cancelled. I was a little concerned about being stuck in a group of newbies who lack my capacity for handling exposure and heights and who took hours to do one route, but I found myself in a one-on-one climbing lesson in the Garden of the Gods with an experienced guide called Logan.

We did a series of 5.7 climbs - not the iconic New Era, which had a queue, but some respectable climbs nonetheless. We started on Montezuma’s Tower, where we climbed the North Ridge, followed by West Point Crack on South Gateway Rock; we climbed Potholes on the Red Spire, scrambled up Tourist Trap Gully (so named because of tourists’ habit of climbing it and getting stuck, requiring formal rescue) and rappelled down the west face of North Gateway Rock.

I also got to try rappelling for the first time, which I took to fairly easily. Halfway down my first rappel off Montezuma’s Tower, I was bouncing down the wall like Batman.

Potholes was an technically easy but physically strenuous climb up a spire in the middle of a pavilion. I gathered an audience and got a round of applause upon reaching the top, and took a bow to cheers down at the bottom. The crown jewel of the day was the aforementioned 175-foot rappel from North Gateway Rock, which included 15-20 feet of free-rappelling.

The long blue and yellow strips of fabric wrapped around my waist and torso are called (I think) webbing, and you can hang off of them - they are deceptively strong. So are the quick draws, the shorter pieces of fabric with each end attached to a carabiner; each can withstand 6,000 pounds of force! The little bell-shaped device in the front is called an ATC, an acronym that stands for, believe it or not, “air traffic controller,” and is used for belaying and rappelling.

I wanted a doofy picture of myself pretending to hold up this rock formation, but I had nobody to take it - one of the downsides of solo adventuring.

UPDATE (Monday): Can’t move my arms. Summer’s here!

Mount Sanitas, Colorado

Walked up Mount Sanitas in Boulder with Glenn today. Fairly easy hike, short but vertically strenuous (lots of steps), the eternally patient Glenn waiting as I climbed around on the various rock piles dotting the area. Weather beautiful, got to unzip my cargo pants into shorts for the first time. Summit underwhelming, but I was glad for the exercise.