Good Bye to RMNP

Our friend Jason Brenno from Colesville (Binghamton area) came to Rocky Mountain N.P. for a little more than a week. If you read the previous blog post, you know that we took Jason on what we thought was a hard hike up Long’s Peak, but then he topped that off with two even harder hikes. The first was an overnight, or an overnight and a half. Jason got back at 4:00 AM in the morning after hiking out in the dark from the Neversummer Mountains. He thought we would call the rangers if he didn’t return by the next day, so instead of making camp for the night, he kept hiking. After a difficult time hiking up a few of the peaks, he had a difficult time keeping on the trail in the dark. He did get off the mountains before darkness fell, but he figures he lost about three hours when he kept getting off the trail.

The second time he went out, he got back earlier. But he also told us to pick him up at a trailhead two miles up the road from the Holzwarth site at 9:00-9:30. After waiting until 10:15, we decided that he could walk back from there no matter what time he arrived at the trailhead. He got to the trailhead at 11:30 and it took him about an hour to walk the rest of the way. When he arrived at our cabin at 12:30, he declared “I climbed Richtofen!” That was not in the plan, thus the lateness in getting back,

Nevertheless, we enjoyed Jason’s visit and present the following utterances that he made (somewhat paraphrased):
They don’t maintain those trails very good!
There weren’t any cars on the road at that hour!
I want to get my hands on the person who wrote that guide book!
Those Neversummers are beasts!
No one else could have gone up them that way! (the way he did)
I never saw any other hikers!
It was cold, I was cold!
I ran out of food! (ate all his food the first day of his day and a half trip, no dinner the second night)
I saw only one elk!

But the master of understatement, he also said:
I was fine.
I could have kept hiking longer.
I didn’t need much food.
Hiking in the darkness didn’t bother me.
I was never afraid.
My blister doesn’t bother me much.
I just ran out of time (could have grabbed more peaks).
The way was all on loose rock, but it was alright.
It was interesting.

We climbed up Richtofen after Jason left, but an easier and shorter route than the way he did it. Richtofen is the tallest of the Neversummers at just under 13,000 feet. We left the park after finishing our assignment and packing up and saying our goodbyes. Both were hard to do. So we drove around the long way, first south and then headed up on the western end of the park until we got near Lake Agnes. We found a cabin with the Redfeather Outfitters for the night as it had been raining and we didn’t feel like pitching a tent on wet ground. The next morning we got up to the trailhead to Lake Agnes, inside the state park, and proceeded up to the lake where we wound our way around the western end as the guide book advised (the same guide book that Jason detested, and we do too mostly). We got up the saddle by going over a huge boulder field with much scree (loose rock) up higher, then made a difficult ascent where there were few hand holds and the lack of sound footing for a while. Another woman who we met at the trailhead had gone ahead of us, she took the other way around the lake (contrary to the guide book) and got up much sooner. We saw glimpses of her at times. So at least we knew the route was doable, and we kept going. It got steeper as we got higher, and Kathy determined that a ridge we found ourselves at the base of had some solid rock, so I followed her up. We met the woman coming down, she had summitted about 15 – 20 minutes ahead of us, she estimated. She said the rest of the way was pretty easy to follow, which proved true for going up. She also said she was glad there were others like us up here, as she wouldn’t want to be up here alone. Right, this was not the kind of mountain to hike alone, but I didn’t chastise her about it.

The final ascent was thrilling and we reached the top under clear skies, although there had been dense cloud cover going up. Timing is everything. From the summit, we examined the other possible routes, but were in awe of how Jason could have done what he did as every other way looked treacherous and way too steep for our tastes. We enjoyed our summit time nevertheless, recognizing many of the points below us where we once had wandered and were now saying goodbye to, for who knows how long. There was Lead Mountain and Consolation Peak, the distinct mark of the Grand Ditch, Skeleton Gulch (which Jason managed to get down to on his way off Richtofen), Thunder Pass, La Poudre Pass with Long Draw Reservoir and the headwaters of the Colorado River. To the north lay the Medicine Bow Mountains, stretching into Wyoming, which we had not gotten into but offered a mystique of their own.

We found a better way down, by accident. I had some trouble finding an initial descent that wouldn’t kill me as things didn’t look the same as they did when we ascended. But Kathy followed a crease down, carefully avoiding loose rock, and we wound our way down, but we dropped down sooner than we intended. No problem though, as we soon found some grassy areas that gave us firm footing. We continued down on that, getting much lower than the saddle. Then we cliffed out. No problem though as we were able to traverse our way over to a break in the cliffs that got us down to more grassy area. We avoided much of the boulder field and scree, and never got to the saddle, which would normally be the logical route. Give me grass to walk on, anytime, even if it is a little steeper. We ended up getting back about an hour faster than it took us to get up. Looking back up from below, the route was not obvious as the view of it was blocked by some rock formations, but if we had to go up that beast again we would reverse our descent. There were a few cairns along this route so others had discovered it too.

Some final (or not) thoughts on Rocky Mtn N.P.
- As with any national park, it had its strengths and weaknesses with the way it was run, but the west was best.
- The place and the people, that’s what made it for us.
- We were sad to leave, we will definitely miss the place.
- We left a number of things undone, reason to return.
- We learned a lot, being in mountains was an eye opener and challenge.
- We never did run into the ghost of Johnny Holzwarth, although like the wildlife he may have had eyes on us.