the people you meet

"I've got two weeks off coming up, and I'm going to hike the Colorado Trail.  Figure I'll need to average about 35 miles a day"

He was telling us this as he shouldered his fully loaded backpack he wore to train for his trek.  Then he told us that the woman he was with was his 33-year-old crossfit workout partner.  She had left a few minutes earlier, and he seemed to want us to know that she wasn't his girlfriend.

Well, she was a bit annoying.  For one, she was blasting music from her cellphone, for all to hear on top of a mountain, whether we cared for her music or not amidst all that nature.

She'd said, "I'm slow going down", and Hiker Man told her to go ahead and get started without him.  He seemed to want to chat with us for a while to further the distance between him and Music Lady.

Chaco and I have continued to climb the occasional 14er.  My count is now up to eight, which is a baby number compared to the true zealots.  We met Hiker Man and Music Lady on the summit of Missouri Mountain (Yes, it's in Colorado 😋)

Another hiker was a soft spoken young man who counted Missouri Mountain as his 20th 14er.  He pointed out a few others he'd done as we looked over the landscape.

He gave us a cordial farewell before beginning his descent and inserting his considerate earbuds.


Prior to this summer, the only other 14er I'd hiked was Pikes Peak, which, unlike these others, is a bit of a zoo on the summit.  In addition to the hiking trails, there's a paved road to get there as well as a cog railway.  There's also a crowded gift shop, and hikers are greatly outnumbered by tourists who have driven or ridden.

Despite the crowded conditions, the only people that Chaco and I spoke with briefly atop Pikes Peak were visitors from out of state who could not believe we'd walked up there.

I find much tranquility in these other less traveled peaks.  And the only people at the summits are those who have also hiked up there, making for a bit of instant rapport - even if they have some annoying traits like blasting music from their phones.

A woman atop Mt. Yale complimented our cardboard sign (Chaco makes 'em). I noticed that she was wearing a "Yale University" hat and asked if she was an alumnae, which she was.  I imagine that getting into and graduating from Yale University is more difficult than summitting Mt. Yale, but if you do the first, you might as well do the other!  Wearing the hat, of course.

losing Denver

On Monday, Chaco talked me into climbing another 14er.  His secret plan was to actually climb two, but that wasn't revealed to me until I was already committed.

Mt. Belford is one of the Collegiate Peaks of the Sawatch range, sitting among Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc....  I'd never heard of Belford University before.  Apparently it's in Texas.

Yet another pic with cardboard and the hat

Not far from Mt. Belford is Mt. Oxford.  Nice to have a prestigious Brit university among the crowd.  It's a bit of a steep ridge to get down from Belford toward Oxford, but nothing I hadn't done as a kid, before I had much sense.

Some clouds were moving in, but they looked to be blowing away from us, so Chaco had talked me into making the extra trek to Oxford.   Once on the summit, we found a couple of canisters held to the rocks with cables and containing logs we could sign.

Checking out the register on top of Mt. Oxford

As we sat and scarfed some snack sustenance for the descent, another hiker joined us.  I was beginning to wonder why we were the only ones there, so with this guy, I was able to stop wondering.   We had seen him on Belford where he'd asked if we'd seen his buddy, who was wearing a huge backpack, and was easy to spot and remember.  We told this guy (never got his name) where we'd last seen Backpack guy.  

Apparently, when Backpack guy arrived at Belford, he was less than thrilled to continue on to Oxford, what with that big old backpack and all.   So Denver (let's just call the guy "Denver" since that's where he was from) decided to hike to Oxford by himself, then rejoin the buddy on the way back (gotta go back to Belford to get down).

Chaco'd made a sign for Oxford too, complete with date.
How could I say, no?

It was quite windy and some new clouds were gathering, so we thought we'd better get going.  Denver asked if he could join us back across the ridge as it was kind of hairy in the wind.

Chaco took the lead with me close behind and Denver right behind me.  We could see a big cloud moving our way with the wind.  The cloud filled in the whole valley as we looked over the edge of the trail. Then it covered us and became fog instead of a cloud.

Right?  Fog is a cloud that you're in??

Anyway, the fog was very cool and a bit surreal and spit graupel at us.  I was glad I'd bothered to carry my windbreaker and put it on atop Oxford.  As we made it back to the summit of Belford, I looked back for Denver - the guy, not the city.  Didn't see him.  Where'd he go??

I wasn't really that worried about him as he is probably in his mid 20s and seemingly quite fit.  During our conversation, he'd told us that Oxford was his 18th fourteener, so this is something he does regularly.

But we never saw him again.  And I'm still wondering.

freedom day and a twofer

Happy Independence Day weekend!  I guess many Americans are already celebrating.  It's always a bit "inconvenient" when the fourth falls in the middle of the week, but we should be grateful for the holiday.

My summer tutee is a college woman who is from a country other than the U.S.  We were looking over our schedules for this coming week, and noted we couldn't meet on Tuesday.

"Oh yeah, it's "Freedon Day", or what is it?" , she said.

"Independence Day", I answered (knowledgeable tutor that I am...)

"Oh, right", she replied, "We don't have that in my country!", she said with a laugh.  She, in fact, is a quite strongly opinionated and independent woman and certainly knows what the holiday stands for even if she gets the name wrong.  It's safe to say she likes living here.

And I like living here too!  So thanks to those rebels who got the ball rolling on that one.

Speaking of the good life, Chaco and I made another trek to the mountains yesterday.  I know of a few people, mostly younger than I am, who just love climbing the state's 14ers whenever they get a chance.  Now I think I'm starting to understand the "addiction".

Yesterday we enjoyed a beautiful hike up Gray's Peak and then shuffled on over to Torrey's Peak before descending back down again.  This is a popular route, known as "Gray's and Torrey's", which allows climbers to bag two lovely 14ers in one triangular day hike.

SOURCE
Gray's Peak on the left, Torrey's on the right

This is an extremely popular hike, and if we'd had our act together, we probably would've driven up the night before and camped.  But it was really a Friday evening spur of the moment decision, and at least we had our act together enough to leave in the wee hours of Saturday morning and make good time to the trail head.

Despite the crowds, we both really enjoyed this hike.  Plus, the other hikers were all very friendly. I went passed a little boy with the smallest pair of YakTrax I've ever seen strapped to his little backpack.  Precious!

Behind Chaco, heading up to Gray's Peak

I really enjoyed the views and variety of terrain.  It was very rocky for good portions of the climb compared to Mt. Elbert.  We also enjoyed some snowy areas, but they either weren't as bad as Elbert or I'm starting to like them.  We did encounter a couple of hikers who were a bit freaked out by the snow and thus held up the hikers behind them a bit.  I didn't mind since I could sympathize with them, and I was just happy that I wasn't the freaked out one.

because it's there?

The hills are alive!

Okay, sorry, I just couldn't help myself...

I ended up hiking to the top of Colorado with Chaco yesterday.  He's using some vacation time this week, and he started out with a backpacking trip over last weekend.  During that trip he climbed Mt. Massive, one of Colorado's 14ers.  When he returned, he said he thought he'd go back and climb Mt. Elbert, which is next to Mt. Massive and the tallest peak in Colorado.

My schedule is pretty flexible right now.  I've got that new job that doesn't start for about another month, and I've stopped taking new tutor students, so I asked Chaco if I could tag along.  And, oh what fun!

Despite its prominence, Mt. Elbert is a relatively "easy" climb - meaning we didn't need any technical climbing gear/skills.  It was still fairly steep with a total round trip distance for us of a little over 12 miles, and it's still a 14er.  All in all, it was a very fun and satisfying hike.  I'm glad I had the time and went for the spur-of-the-moment adventure.

Chaco at the start of our trek.  Mt. Elbert summit in the background

And it was a beautiful day for it.  The trail started out weaving through thick forest of Aspens.  Eventually we were above treeline, but despite the lack of trees, I was surprised at the little grasses and pretty wildflowers covering the landscape at that elevation. Very Sound of Music, and I felt just like Maria/Julie Andrews!

Thankfully to the others, I needed to preserve my oxygen, so did not break out in song.

As we continued upward, conditions got very windy with blow-you-off-a-mountain gusts.  The biggest threat during the summer, and the thing we were most wary of, however, is lightning.  Despite the windy conditions, the sky was blue and sunny.

The little grasses and flowers eventually disappeared and gave way to rocks and dirt... and SNOW.  Portions of the trail were still covered in snow, which meant we had to traverse the stuff.  Acrophobic me was not particularly happy about that, but I just went for it with a keep moving don't look down keep moving don't look down keep moving don't look down strategy.  It worked.  I think if I'd have stopped and/or looked down, I'd still be on that mountain.





The wind continued to batter us, and the summit seemed to be eluding us.  But next we knew, we were there.  There were a few other windblown people at the top, taking in the amazing views and
snapping pics while trying to stay shielded from the wind.

Everyone was sitting since to stand would mean getting blown off the mountain

This bloated pack of fig bars was ready to burst
at the seams from the change in pressure during the climb

So many other peaks to look down at!

So a lovely time all around (except for the snowy bits).  Some observations:

• I need some real hiking shooz if I'm going to do much more of this.  My trail runners were wimps at climbing and descending.
• Most others on the trail had trekking poles, but we didn't.  I could see where they might come in handy, but am not rushing to get some.
• Despite being tagged as a relatively easy 14er, the wind made it more of a challenge than otherwise, which made the summit all the more sweet.
• The mountain marmots are oh so cute!

Round trip was a little over six and a half hours.  Well spent 😊

walkin' with Zeb

Pikes Peak was named after Zebulon Pike, an explorer in Colorado in the early 1800's.  Good old Zeb tried to reach the summit of Pikes Peak, but ended up having to give  up the arduous task.  Today, people can drive a paved road to the top or ride the cog railway.  OR, they can hike it since there is the lovely 12.6-mile Barr Trail that Zebulon didn't have.

Katherine Lee Bates wrote "America the Beautiful" (originally titled "Pikes Peak") after taking a train ride up and being so inspired.

For years, I've thought about hiking to the summit and knew that "someday" I'd go.  I FINALLY got around to it yesterday.  And, OMG, it was beautiful.  I know just how Katherine felt!

A view of the summit from the trail, once the sun came up

I went  up with Chaco, who's hiked it twice before with friends.  Wolfgang has also gone up twice when participating in The Ascent.  The three of us originally planned to go in early September, but that was right when my allergy-induced balance problems hit me.  It was a task for me to just walk out to the mailbox, let alone climb a mountain, so we kept moving our trip date out.

Wolfgang, in the meantime, used a couple of those "lost weekends" to instead take mountain biking trips with the university.  He ended up coming down with a bummer of a cold, so thought better of making the Peak trek this weekend.  Chaco and I decided to go ahead with it, though, as the nice weather days are slipping away.  Meego would've gone, but he's deep in the throes of marching band season, and alas, Magnum wasn't sure if his knees could put up with it.

So, Chaco and I hit the trail in the wee morning hours, temperature around 35 F.  The stars were still out, and it was actually kind of awesome hiking in the dark.  Despite our headlights, I did bite it once when I forgot to watch where I was going and tripped.

It was a beautiful fall day to be out.  We took our time enjoying the trail, and Chaco shared with me stories from his previous hikes and information he'd learned while researching.

After about 9 miles, we hit treeline at around 10,000 ft.  In a lovely clearing just off the trail is an A-frame shelter that, I think, the forest service built in case of getting caught in storms or just wanting a way cool spot to hang out on the mountain.

A plaque there is dedicated to this woman who died near this spot just shy of her 88th birthday during her 14th hike of the mountain.  I thought a lot about her as I worked at dealing with the hike and the elevation, thinking she'd died doing something she obviously loved doing.

SOURCE

I knew that the final three miles were pretty much a boulder field, and expected it to be a rather desolate place of no vegetation.  Oh, how wrong I was!  That portion of the hike proved to be the best part for me.

What looks like a lifeless area of grey rocks and dirt from below is  actually a beautiful environment of unique geological formations.  It was absolutely breathtaking, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't just the lack of oxygen making me feel that way!

Taking in the scenery

Cell phone photos can't do justice to the area.  The rock formations are like nothing I've seen before.  Couple that with the amazing views to the east, and it was a sort of magical place.  Everything even sounds different.  We weren't sure if the thin air has something to do with that, or if it's just that it's just so quiet there.

We definitely felt the effects of the elevation by this point.  We continued to slog along the trail's many switchbacks.  Our movements would easily qualify us for jobs as extras on "The Walking Dead".

With about two  miles left until the summit, the trail skirts the deep Cirque, to which my acrophobia doesn't allow me to give the appreciate it deserves.  Chaco said it's a great view into the 1500' glacial formed bowl.  I'll take his word for it and instead take a pic with the sign while facing away.

Note my vice-like grip on that sign!

Continuing onward, we eventually made it to the "16 Golden Steps", the final series of switchbacks until the summit, so named because the climb becomes a bit steeper.  Nothing like scrambling over rocks at nearly 14,000' with legs that just say, "Stop already!" into your oxygen deprived brain.  But I thought, "what a lovely name".

Here, Chaco warned me that there were "a lot of false summits".  Just when it looks like we'd made it, we'd switch back and realize we hadn't (I wasn't bothering to waste energy on counting golden steps).  "You're not at the summit until you see the train", he continued.  This the cog railway train that we would ride back down.

And soon enough, there it was - the train!  We'd made it.  Thank you, baby Jesus, and much thanks to Fred Barr, whatta guy!

What an amazing day.

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