A couple of miles along, the trail cuts into the woods, up and away from the gentle valley of Ute Creek in the Terryall Mountains of Southpark, Colorado. Here the Ponderosa Pine's have a deep scent of butterscotch and vanilla from their crusty rough bark. Once a rich resource for the Ute Indians who harvested the inner bark for food and medicine, cuts in the trees can still be seen from such inhabitants living here several generations ago.
The heat of the day was temporarily quelled by thick juicy snow flakes falling for five minutes. Genesis minutes. Each like a day of falling crystalline galaxies gravitating to eyelashes and melting on contact with parched ground. I put my sweater on just in time for the sun to break through the clouds again, the tall translucent grasses and tiny wildflowers around me again glistening in passing rays.
Every once in a while Bison Peak, the highest point in the area at over 12,000 feet, would peak through the clouds, catch the light just right and leave me in awe. Late afternoon, folks coming down, my trail is getting nothing but steeper... up. Thinking about my one and only, now half empty, medium-sized water bottle, I asked a group if the trail meets up with the small creek I had been hiking along earlier and saw continues along the trail according to the map.
"Oh no, you left the creek long ago. Why are you planning on camping up here?" the elder gentleman said.
"Yea, a few nights if I can manage."
"Well up at the top of the ridge there are some people camping. About six tents, you won't be alone up there! There is some snow up there if you got a way to make that into drinking water."
"Thanks for the heads up." And I was on my way again- shirt soaked through with sweat, a light breeze sent a spark of chills from my lower back on up my spine, time to get a move on.
I wanted to set up camp as soon as possible and decided I would as soon as two conditions were met: snow to put in a pan over fire for drinking water and a decently flat spot on the spine of this jagged mountain ridge to pitch a tent. I could see the first of my amenities was in sight on yonder mountain but not here on this south-facing slope.
The switchbacks got steeper. The thinning air began to smell of dampness as the waning sunlight was swallowed by thick clouds gathering overhead. Debbie's warning yesterday of "weather" rang in my ear. The ominous clouds unleashed a second round, what at first was a pleasant showering of cool wet snow over my sweaty, steaming self. Within a few minutes however, I could see that this cold and wet would soon cease to be refreshing, and start to be exactly that: cold, wet and dark.
Cresting the steep ridge once more I walked down its spine searching for flatness. None. I would have to settle and sleep on a slant. No gloves, a jacket hardly water resistant, by the time I laid down my pack to get out the tent my hands were already drained of any color. Somewhere in between being numb and frozen is a unique, tingling pain that floods the hands and retards their movement. And so I set up my brand new tent- out of its packaging for the first time in the dark and snow. Thankfully it was a fairly easy set-up. Next, drinking water. I began collecting twigs for a fire, I wanted to get them before they got too soaked. I gave up within minutes, my fingers, frozen like hardened icicles ready to snap, burning in the cold.
Its funny how our minds work. Even when we are completely safe and sound, the mind wanders into fear, doubt, anxiety. With a cliff bar for dinner and a couple drops from my empty water bottle, I went to bed that night, not quite warm and cozy in my summer sleeping bag below the pelting of heavy wet snow, worrying about my basic needs: water, food, shelter. Although not as met in the moment as I might have liked, a part of me was confident that they would be guaranteed sometime in the earlier part of tomorrow. And yet still the worry, why? "Calm down, mind" I told myself... "What is the absolute worst that could happen? Instead of continuing into the mountains tomorrow, I could turn around and go back to the car, to the general store and the nice lady who warned me about the impending weather- I could even pack up the tent and start walking down the mountain right now and arrive before dawn... Calm down, everything will be fine..."
I woke up several times throughout the night with the tent nearly completely collapsed on me, weighed down with collecting snow. I pounded up and recreated my roof, only to last a few more hours before caving in again, bowing to touch my sleeping form.
The morning was only slightly warmer than yesterday evening had been. I packed up my things, rolled up my drenched tent and started up the trail again, sloshing through shallow snow that stuck to the soles of my shoes with frozen pine needles along for the ride. Not too far up the trail I stopped on a steep eastern facing slope amongst small embankments of packed snow and made a fire, melted drinking water and cooked a delicious meal over an open flame. Quinoa, lentils, dried mushrooms, garlic and basil, some olive oil, nettle and sea salt stew. The sun peaked through the clouds, and I shed my layers basking in the glory of radiant forgiving rays, soaking in the feeling I had told myself to embrace the night before - calm, reassurance, its all good. Even the tent got (almost) dry.
The switchbacks got steeper. The thinning air began to smell of dampness as the waning sunlight was swallowed by thick clouds gathering overhead. Debbie's warning yesterday of "weather" rang in my ear. The ominous clouds unleashed a second round, what at first was a pleasant showering of cool wet snow over my sweaty, steaming self. Within a few minutes however, I could see that this cold and wet would soon cease to be refreshing, and start to be exactly that: cold, wet and dark.
Cresting the steep ridge once more I walked down its spine searching for flatness. None. I would have to settle and sleep on a slant. No gloves, a jacket hardly water resistant, by the time I laid down my pack to get out the tent my hands were already drained of any color. Somewhere in between being numb and frozen is a unique, tingling pain that floods the hands and retards their movement. And so I set up my brand new tent- out of its packaging for the first time in the dark and snow. Thankfully it was a fairly easy set-up. Next, drinking water. I began collecting twigs for a fire, I wanted to get them before they got too soaked. I gave up within minutes, my fingers, frozen like hardened icicles ready to snap, burning in the cold.
Its funny how our minds work. Even when we are completely safe and sound, the mind wanders into fear, doubt, anxiety. With a cliff bar for dinner and a couple drops from my empty water bottle, I went to bed that night, not quite warm and cozy in my summer sleeping bag below the pelting of heavy wet snow, worrying about my basic needs: water, food, shelter. Although not as met in the moment as I might have liked, a part of me was confident that they would be guaranteed sometime in the earlier part of tomorrow. And yet still the worry, why? "Calm down, mind" I told myself... "What is the absolute worst that could happen? Instead of continuing into the mountains tomorrow, I could turn around and go back to the car, to the general store and the nice lady who warned me about the impending weather- I could even pack up the tent and start walking down the mountain right now and arrive before dawn... Calm down, everything will be fine..."
I woke up several times throughout the night with the tent nearly completely collapsed on me, weighed down with collecting snow. I pounded up and recreated my roof, only to last a few more hours before caving in again, bowing to touch my sleeping form.
The morning was only slightly warmer than yesterday evening had been. I packed up my things, rolled up my drenched tent and started up the trail again, sloshing through shallow snow that stuck to the soles of my shoes with frozen pine needles along for the ride. Not too far up the trail I stopped on a steep eastern facing slope amongst small embankments of packed snow and made a fire, melted drinking water and cooked a delicious meal over an open flame. Quinoa, lentils, dried mushrooms, garlic and basil, some olive oil, nettle and sea salt stew. The sun peaked through the clouds, and I shed my layers basking in the glory of radiant forgiving rays, soaking in the feeling I had told myself to embrace the night before - calm, reassurance, its all good. Even the tent got (almost) dry.
Moving onward I summited Bison Pass and continued down the other side of the mountain with Bison peak hovering nearby, occasionally jutting through the rapidly shifting clouds. Bison Peak is a collection of boulders that jut out of the mountain, perched precariously like giant horns embracing a certain rustic elegance.
Continuing down the north face of this mountain meant a lot more snow. I curved and swerved away from and back to the trail to avoid knee high embankments and sometimes just had to trudge through with moistening socks in return. The trail lay just where the slope of the pine forested mountain to my west gently leveled into a valley of low lying willow bushes before again cutting sharply upwards as the cliff faces below Bison Peak. The grand overlooking vista of my summit now gone in this narrow valley, a creek reemerged in the shrubby overgrowth, clearly the stomping grounds of elk and bear. Clumps of wooly hair found in branches. It was nice to filter water at the creek and not have a smoky after-taste with each sip. Instead, the the crispest, clean, clear, cold mountain water of the Rockies. The valley became more and more narrow with high walls of steep forested hills and giant rocks jutting up until the trail became a passage paralleling the bellowing stream. The chute suddenly opened into a brilliant open pasture. Golden grasses and low lying shrubs growing out of flattened earth moistened by snow-melt and the gentle stream. A couple hundred yards in the distance the surrounding hills engulf the valley and highlight the glistening snow capped mountains on the horizon.
A part of me wanted to camp here, find a place where the sun's early morning rays would find my tent as it rose above the eastern hills of this valley, but I knew it was too early in the day to stop. I examined the map and saw that only a few miles ahead was what looked like a similar prairie-like valley, exect several times the size of where I currently found myself.
And the map didn't lie. After falling down into another narrow, winding chute along the stream on the back side of willow shrub valley, the trail leveled into a thick pine forest and hugged the eastern side of more steep hillsides before dropping into another immense valley. The breathtaking vista at the southern tip of the opening revealed more shrubby willows and glowing golden grasses gently pushing and filling the outer limits of what remained flat under a network of dark, forested mountains and ridges falling into this mammoth open space. I found the spot where I hoped to cross the rocky wetland grass, shrub pasture a couple miles in the distance - where the space between two opposing mountain ridges was most narrow and made my way. I rock hopped across where I could and otherwise had to guess where the earth under thick grasses trampled by hooves was most solid in the lowlands of muddy snow-melt.
On slightly higher ground I found a white, thick thighbone on dry earth. Wind was constant from the south - the narrow, deep ravine my trail had followed, surely channeling sinking frigid air from nearby summits. Here, pine trees testing their limits, growing boldly in the flatland before following their brethren up the nearby hills accompanied with mossy rocks and singing birds. Within minutes my tent was erected behind the protection of tall trees. I went back out into the open to catch some sun before it disappeared from the brilliantly lit sky behind peaks I could no longer see, now once more in the belly of a valley.
Within just a few minutes of taking out my little pocket book to scribble some notes, they started falling from the sky. First just one or two, and then a relentless swarm. Pebbles of ice the size of swollen knuckles tickled where they found clothing and stung where they pelted open skin, scalp, cheek. I tried being patient, but again each minute passed like a day, each piece of hail its own hour collapsing on itself and on me. I had to get up and return to the tent - just in time for 5 minutes to elapse and bring along the rising sun of five mornings over.
as I could, the three other 14 year-old racers were not far off my tail - within a minute they frantically skidded to a stop around me, blowing clouds of dust into the dry thin Colorado air. Muddy legs desperate for rest yet eager to speed away held thrashed bike frames between them. Empty water bottles somehow eked out another slurp down parched throats, overflowing off dripping chins.
Towler blood biking in the Tarryals, cousin and OWA guide Ryan Sullivan. Me currently being without a camera = although site specific, all photos in this post courtesy of google :(