Reflections on Utah and Colorado

Sitting in dreary Binghamton these days, I find my mind revisiting sunny Utah and Colorado. Maybe it’s time to reflect on them. What I saw in both states can be described as stunning, big (maybe even imposing) and alluring. Colorado seemed vaguely familiar to me, maybe because there were more trees and it was wetter than Utah. Utah is best described as other worldly.

So let’s go back to Utah first. The landscape is stark in many ways, but with all its bizarre rock formations and rugged terrain it is very picturesque too. Being almost bug-free is a big plus. It of course has mountains like Colorado, we got into them often. The higher you get, the greener they are, with large trees growing above 10,000 feet. Bryce Canyon was near parts of the Dixie National Forest, and Fishlake National Forest wasn’t too far away. Both forests, as well as Bryce Canyon, offered an abundance of spruce and fir higher up and Ponderosa Pine in the lower reaches. But it was still noticeable how dry they were. It was rare to see mud, unlike back east. It was rare to see many people in the forests, so we liked the seclusion they offered. You can camp pretty much anywhere in the forests too, and we had our pick of great camp sites, though primitive they gave us certain luxuries like peace and quiet and plenty of firewood.

The Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument is a remarkably vast no-mans land of treacherous terrain which contains numerous slot canyons, imposing mesas and steep cliffs. Navigating it by vehicle or foot can be tricky. When we first went to Utah in 2005 we didn’t even get into the G.S.E. because we weren’t supposed to travel on dirt/gravel roads in our rental car. Those are the only kinds of roads that will get you into the area, for the most part, and they often get washed out by sudden rainstorms that are frequent during the summer. But the area remains very parched as the rain water runs off very quickly over the hard crusty ground. It was the last major land area to be mapped in the continental U.S. because it was a very harsh environment and for a long time held very little appeal to settlers or ranchers. One has to be prepared with plenty of water and supplies, extra tires and gas, to venture into the G.S.E. We got to a few places in it, but never very far because the roads were rough and many times impassable. The monument is maintained by the BLM and they require a permit to camp there, unlike the national forests. Since there are higher risks when going in there, the BLM wants to keep better tabs on people.

One interesting place which we would like to visit some day is the Hole in the Rock. A 50+ mile road through the G.S.E. will take you there or a quicker approach is from Lake Powell. The Hole in the Rock is now remembered for a remarkable feat of early Mormon pioneers. It is basically a crease on a very steep side of Glen Canyon, which when the pioneers went down it in 1879 led to the Colorado River which they needed to cross. The walls around what is now Glen Canyon are about 1200 feet high, and the pioneers initially intended to establish a wagon route there. They did succeed in getting 83 wagons, 250 people and over 1000 head of livestock through the route which was a remarkable achievement. Today it is a hiker’s mecca, with some sections close to 45 degrees, it is a very tough hike.

Utah also has a remarkable culture, highly influenced by the Mormon church. Writers Jon Krakauer and Wallace Stegner, whom I’ve read, don’t paint the most favorable view of the Mormons, but we found Utahns in general pretty easy to be around. We were never proselytized by anyone and we were shown friendliness on a regular basis. It is a pretty safe place and if we ever needed help we could probably get it easily. There was no way to always know if a fellow traveler or hiker was a Mormon or not, but we figured we met up with them many times. Sometimes it seemed obvious that others were Mormons, especially young families with 4 or more young kids in tow, all fresh faced and happy. The fundamentalist Mormons stood out more, the women wore “prairie dresses” and bonnets, similar to the Amish or Mennonite women. They were often escorted by one man, and since they still practice polygamy we figured this must have been the husband of all these women. They didn’t look as fresh faced or happy though. I think most of them would prefer a different lifestyle but probably didn’t have the choice. The Mormons as a whole made a remarkable existence in Utah, turning a harsh land into a habitable place. They quickly established towns and farms throughout the region, through irrigation making lush areas of green surrounded by desert. They took care of each other and prospered. The Mormons of today come from tough ancestors and have a life and culture unlike anywhere else. One doesn’t have to agree with their beliefs to see how they manage to hold together as a group and benefit from it.

A return trip to Utah would definitely be worth it to me. It would be more familiar this time around and give me a chance to get to some of the areas I missed. We considered going back there this year after we were done in Rocky, but Wyoming and Montana called.

Central Colorado was very different than southern Utah. Being in the Rocky Mountains, it had a different feel. It seemed similar to being in the Adirondacks in some ways, but the terrain and weather were even more pronounced and severe. T-storms are common in the summer afternoon and some evenings, and we had our fair share of them. Bugs were noticeable, especially mosquitoes, we had a few bad moments with them but very seldom resorted to repellant. The summer season is shorter there than in Utah, it was turning noticeably colder towards the end of August, especially at night. So back to the ‘feel’ of the place, I got both a sense of it being civilized and uncivilized, depending on where you were to some extent. Like Utah, you could get far away from towns or roads, there was lots of wilderness if you wanted it. The Arapahoe and Roosevelt National Forests were both just outside the boundaries of Rocky. Much of them as well as 95% of Rocky were designated wilderness. It was rugged too, especially the aptly-named Neversummer Mountains, which were largely untrammeled by man. Ask our friend Jason about the desolateness there after he spent some intense time there in total solitude.

Some of my feelings for the Rockies comes from reading Enos Mills or Isabella Bird. They were both there in the 1800’s before the Rockies got settled to much of a degree. They paint a picture in their writings of a rough and challenging place, not a place for sissies. I could get a sense of that by being in the Rockies, I saw the same things they saw and felt the same lure to explore. They were always prepared to spend the night out in the elements and often did. I made sure that I always got back before dark to where I had a safe dry bed, one big difference I had from them. Isabella Bird was mainly just passing through on horseback in a lot of the Colorado Rockies. It was remarkable for a woman of that day to travel alone in rough country like that. Enos Mills lived most of his life in Estes Park, which was not the overrun mountain town it is today. He became very familiar with what is now Rocky Mountain N.P. as that was his back yard. I tried to achieve some familiarity with it too, and did to a fair degree on the western side of the park. I began to recognize the different mountains by name and even though I respected the immensity of the western side of the park, I began to get a sense of the size of the place. Enos Mills had a size-sense, and some of the rangers who have spent more than twenty years there have it. That’s when it becomes second nature to be in a place, you never feel totally lost or uncertain how far you have to go to your destination. It’s a cool feeling, and gives a certain level of security.

The Rocky area has more of a typical western cowboy flavor than Utah I think. Utah is a bit of an anomaly with its Mormon influence, but the rest of the west has a more independent make-it-for-yourself flavor. Not that people don’t pull together when they need to there, but you know you’re in the real west when you’re in some of the little backwater towns or the middle of nowhere. Then there are the upscale towns like Breckenridge, Aspen, Telluride and Steamboat Springs which are a different west that caters to the tourists and BMW set. They are just little islands of opulence in a vast area of imposing terrain and sparse population where it has to be tough to make a living. Where there’s not forests, there’s lots of ranching and many of the residents do seasonal work to get by. They came from tough stock too I’m sure. I would meet people in the park occasionally who had a long family history in Colorado. They related in many ways to the story we told at the Holzwarth Historic Site about ranching in the old days. Wasn’t easy.

Colorado has more winter than southern Utah, although they had a pretty severe winter at Bryce last year and have already hit minus temps this year. Both states offer a lot of skiing, that would be great to be out there for that. We may just have to find our way there during the ski season, which extends well into May in many areas. The snow in the higher mountains doesn’t melt until mid-July. We were in some snow on our trips in both Utah and Colorado, but there was never enough for skiing. Back when we were entertaining the idea of living in our trailer full-time, my hope was to park it somewhere warm and sunny during the winter but with access to some higher ground where we could get into the snow. If we get good snow in New York soon, I will be satisfied with that too.

So here it is almost winter in Binghamton. We have made several applications for assignments in parks and wilderness areas for next year and are now waiting to hear back on some of them we hope. Winter has certainly hit many of the mountains already. I was in the White Mountains of New Hampshire in early November, where there was plenty of snow. But unseasonably mild weather allowed us to get high in the mountains, I was able to summit six of them including Mt. Washington on a sunny, warm, calm day. It was surreal, better conditions than most days in the summer. Today is heavy rain with flood warnings, not the kind of weather anyone but ducks want. I look out the window and imagine I see the white tops of mountains. They could be eastern mountains or western mountains, I don’t care. But the west is calling and I may not be able to wait until next June to get there this time.

P.S. I have started another blog with a completely different tone.
http://notafraidofliving.blogspot.com/
I'm not sure where I'm going with this blog yet, to be honest. I may cheat and just throw out sound bites, or I may turn it into a world class literary masterpiece. hah. At least i will try to use humor to make a few points, but it may be up to the reader to truly appreciate the meaning.

Made it Home

As we were getting closer to the lake, we heard loud booms. Oh no, it sounded like thunder. We were hiking in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, near the shore of Lake Superior. When we got to the lakeshore, moving with some trepidation, we could see enormous waves on the lake, maybe up to six feet. Periodically, a wave would crash against the rocky cliffs of the shore; that was the booming sound. Better than a tstorm. We were glad we weren’t on a cruise boat, and they probably weren’t running today, as we never saw any. It is supposed be seen best by boat, but we got several stunning views walking along the Chapel trail along the lake. The North Country Trail also coincides with parts of this trail. I decided not to take the boat tour the evening before when the waves were two to three feet. I would never have made a good sailor. In any case, it was an exhilarating day and we had better weather than the forecast called for, but maybe the November gales came early on the lake that they call Gitche Gumee.

We had spent the two previous nights in the western part of the Upper Peninsula. The fall colors were gorgeous, it was at its peak. We found a very nice inn and restaurant called the Root Cellar on Lake Gogebic, the room was only $25 for the night. They raise the prices when the snowmobile season kicks into gear. The next night we stayed in a yurt at the Porcupine Mountain Wilderness State Park near the shore of Lake Superior. The park is rated one of the top ten state parks in the country and is very nice but the yurt was riddled with cluster flies. Yuck, we should have just tented.

We spent the last night in the U.P. in St Ignace, right near Mackinaw Island. The weather had turned cold, or at least it seemed cold to us with the breeze although it was in the high forties when we rolled in. We didn’t feel like trekking around the town that evening though, and waited until morning to see it and check out the Mackinaw Bridge. It was not completed until 1957, keeping the U.P. separated from the ‘mit’ or main part of Michigan. It spans about five miles and is the longest suspension bridge in the western hemisphere, third longest in the world. Before the bridge was built, there was a long and rich history of ferries that crossed the rough waters of the Mackinaw Strait.

Later that day we stopped and visited with my cousin Todd and his wife Sue near Detroit. They treated us to dinner and we caught up on our lives some. It had been twenty plus years since I had seen them, the best I could remember. Todd has been cranking away on family history, and has been keeping in touch with me and my siblings on this issue. He showed me some info and pictures I had never seen before, including a photograph of my Great Grandfather Benjamin O. Keefer. I thought it looked like Ben could have some Native American blood, based on his eyes. My mother had thought there was some Native American in her line, but Todd has not uncovered anything to show that yet. Keep digging, Todd, maybe I can find more on the Keefer line too.

We rolled into Binghamton, home, this past Monday night. We were greeted by rainy weather, which is alright because I was whipped from the trip and didn’t need to be lured outside by good weather. It felt good to be home and off the road.

Some rambling thoughts about our return trip:
- We saw a lot after finishing at RMNP in early September, but were constantly on the move. I can only do that for a limited time, and next time may decide to drive straight to our destination with as few stops as possible.
- Every part of this country has something to offer. The west is a phenomenal place of course, it keeps calling us. We saw some of the Midwest the last week of our travels and have to say the home of the Great Lakes has a lot to offer. The east is home, and that means a lot to us. We live in a great country.
- We got lulled into staying in motels, and both my maps app on my new Droid and using the web site tripadvisor proved to be big help in finding ok places. We could have camped more than we did, but pitching a tent and setting up bedding and then taking it all down the next morning gets old real fast.
- There were a lot of construction signs that were flat out wrong. They got better the further east we got. But I don’t believe too many construction signs anymore, I don’t think that construction crews care about (or pay attention to?) keeping their signs meaningful or current. Sorry for the grumbling.
- You meet many friendly people when traveling. When others are traveling too, it’s easy to relate to what they are going through. When you meet people who live in an area that you are passing through, they generally want to put on their best face and can be very helpful.
- We are big advocates for satellite radio. You can stay tuned to a station almost anywhere, except in canyons, areas of tall trees, some cloudy days and anywhere where the line to the satellite is blocked. Our GPS came in handy often too, although we can’t say it’s 100% foolproof. And how it got set to ‘shortest distance’ instead of ‘faster time’ and how long it was that way (the whole return trip maybe?) I can’t say.
- There are always risks when driving across country. The worst event this time occurred on I-90 near Cleveland when the truck in front of us suddenly swerved and I had to swerve also to avoid a mattress and box spring that had just fallen off a van. Phew, that was close. The VW bug that was just behind us went right over the mattress though but kept on going.

Traveling is not the healthiest lifestyle. We tried to stop and stretch our legs as much as we could but our bodies are not meant to be strapped in by a seat belt for hours at a time. We didn’t eat as well as we would at home, and didn’t always sleep as well, and failed in other areas of wellness but just pushed through it.

We blew it as far as getting to Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior. The last ferry to the island from Michigan was September 27, which means you had to be OFF the island by then. We had thought that we had until the END of September, but not so this year. So we’ll have to fit in another time. We also should have stayed at Glacier longer, the weather was improving the day we left and we saw only a little part of this world class park. Maybe a return trip or an assignment there will get us back.

- We will be giving a presentation to our Sierra Club group on October 19 about our time with the NPS, here is a description of it:
Scott Lauffer and Kathy Cronin have spent the last two summers volunteering for the National Park Service. In 2009 they were at Bryce Canyon in Utah and in 2010 they were at Rocky Mountain in Colorado. You will see and hear about what makes these parks special, their work with the interpretive ranger staff, the fun they had with visitors, the value of national parks and some of the exploring they did. "Useful places preserve themselves, beautiful places need preserving." In a turbulent world, the national parks offer a place of refreshment and a chance to get away from it all, the intent of the presentation is to provide the same.

This will be the last blog update for a while. I hope to resume it after we get another assignment. Although things are happening in Binghamton, and that looks exciting, I’m not sure that fits in this blog. The fall will be a nice time to be here. We have to figure out where we go next and when, maybe somewhere over the winter. For now, it will be nice to reconnect with friends and family and get a sense of home again. Thanks for taking the time to check this blog out and hopefully it was not a total waste of your time. Be well and follow your dreams.

Glacier, Yellowstone (Again) and Heading East

We had a reservation at a cabin near Glacier, but were unsure if we would go up because the weather forecasts were dire. Big mistake to get a reservation, paid extra for it too, live and learn. But being only 4 ½ hours away and looking at it as an adventure, we decided we had to go to this unique park. When we got to East Glacier, it was snowing and gray, but the snow brightened up the place. Our cabin was just outside the park on the south end, so we took U.S. Rte 2 and got settled in there and then went over to check out West Glacier. It was then that we learned that the Going to the Sun Road had just closed for the season. Argh!! We were able to drive up part of it from the west side, along Lake MacDonald and beyond a little ways. We couldn’t see much as it was rainy. Things were pretty much closing down for the season but we found a good diner by West Glacier that served up a very good piece of huckleberry pie, it tasted might fine and took off some of the sting of the harsh weather.

The next day we drove up to the east end of the Going to the Sun Road at St Marys. We were able to drive up the road as far as the Jackson Glacier Overlook, but there was no view of Jackson Glacier as we were in the clouds. We took a trail near there down to Deadwood Falls, it was very sloppy and slushy as it had just snowed the day before. We really wanted to see a glacier though so we drove up to the Many Glacier area and talked to a ranger. We found out that the weather would be improving and decided to stay one more night. So we were glad to find a reasonable motel, as rooms around there tended to be pricey.

The next morning looked promising, with clear skies and no rain. We drove up to Many Glacier, but ended up in the fog again. We started up the trail near Many Glacier Hotel (closed for the season) to Grinnell Glacier, with hopes that the sun would eventually show itself. Which it did, we eventually got above the fog and had splendid views of craggy mountains and glaciers. The park says that using current climate models, that all the glaciers will be gone by 2020. They have been decreasing since 1850, and at a more accelerated rate recently. Our main hope was to get there before the glaciers were all gone, so we knew if we didn’t do it this year, it would have to be within the next few years. So we made our objective. Seeing a golden eagle soaring above during the hike was a bonus. Fortunately we encountered no bears, although signs warned of bears frequenting the area. We had not purchased bear spray, but made noise to warn any bears of our presence. For all we know, some bears wandered away after hearing us. They don’t like bear-human encounters any more than we do. We were the first ones up the trail, but met many others as we came down. The large number of hikers may have kept the bears away the rest of our descent.

Chico Hot Springs -
What a wonderful place! This is an historic inn and spa, with very reasonable rates. We got a comfortable room (without bath) for $49, included use of the pool with deliciously warm water. The atmosphere was quaint and relaxing. The food was very good too. It is about 25 miles north of Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone. We fit in a hike part way up Livingston Mtn before we arrived at the hot springs. We also had our eye on Emigrant Peak, which towers over Chico but found out it involves a 5000 foot climb over 25 miles, very steep. Maybe another time.

Yellowstone seemed to beckon again. We could have stayed up in Glacier longer and skipped Chico and Yellowstone but opted to come back for one last look. We’re glad we did, because we got to see the most incredible drama of an elk rut right in downtown Mammoth Hot Springs, at the northern edge of the park. There were about forty cows and two bulls, one older and bigger and one young with only two spikes on his antlers. At least one more bull showed up later, maybe two, it was hard to keep track. The cows seemed to be divided into two harems, on each side of the road, but we weren’t sure whether there was one or two harems. The young bull kept trying to push his way in when the old bull wasn’t around, and the old bull kept going back and forth between the groups, bugling at various times. Some cows also jumped from one group to the other and the bulls would go behind buildings and it was difficult to follow the comings and goings. Rangers were busy keeping onlookers back and setting up cones to close areas where the elks were from humans, then moving them as the elk moved. We asked one ranger if it was a hard day at the office and he said it was a typical day at the office. Phew, they have their work cut out for them during the rut.

We picked two nice hikes in the northern part of Yellowstone; we thought they were representative of the park. The first was a 2 mile hike up Bunsen Peak, great views from all directions on top. The second was another 2 mile hike down to Hellroaring Creek. Not realizing until later that we crossed the Yellowstone River on a high suspension bridge, but it was roaring like Hell too. We only saw a few people on both hikes. The park was not as busy as the previous week when we drove through it, even though September 25 was Public Lands Day and people got into the park free. Besides the elk, we also saw plenty of bison, mule deer and a few pronghorn, but no bears.

Beartooth Scenic Highway – what a gem of a road this was! It went through the Beartooth, Absaroka and Shoshone forests just east of Yellowstone, reaching a height of almost 11,000 feet. We knew it was going to be scenic, but had no idea of how breathtaking it was at almost every turn. There are over twenty peaks of more than 12,000 feet that the highway takes you by. You can see Granite Peak, the tallest peak in Wyoming as well as the relatively miniscule Beartooth point, of which the Beartooth Mountains gets its name from. There is a large amount of tundra on top of the plateau that the highway ascends to and some women we met at one of the turnoffs said that drilling for gas was threatened but kept off the area. Good. This is a fragile and unique area that deserves protection. The road eventually dropped us down to the town of Red Lodge where we planted ourselves for the night.

We made two more short stops along the interstate as we headed east. The first was Pompey’s Pillar where William Clark stopped and carved his name in the sandstone of the pillar during his exploration of the Yellowstone in 1806. There is a BLM National Monument there and the Visitor Center tells some of the story of the Lewis and Clark expedition in that area. Pompey was the name Clark gave to Sacajawea’s son and Clark initially named the rock Pompey’s Tower after him. The second stop was at the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. Roosevelt had established a ranch there as he was lured by the wild and desolateness of the west. It is located in North Dakota’s badlands. There is a 36 mile loop that takes you through the southern section of the park, closest to I-94. We rode our bikes on the loop after spending a little time in the Visitor Center. We saw some gorgeous views and sunset, getting back a little after dark. A great way to see the countryside is by bike.

As I write this, we are in St Paul, MN staying with our friends Kristin and Anthony. They just gave us a nice evening tour of the downtown and we plan to see more of the city tomorrow. Anthony describes St Paul and Minneapolis as two small cities rather than one large one. But he’s from New York City so what’s seems small to him is a different perspective than mine. I do have to say the traffic wasn’t bad here, even though we came in at the tail end of rush hour and there were few people in the downtown area or at the restaurant we went to, but then it was a Monday night. They just got a lot of rain here a few days ago and some areas of southern Minnesota had flooding, but St Paul is well protected and there was no flooding here. Kristin just moved here in June, joining Anthony who got here last November. We wish them well in settling in here and becoming true St Paulians, or whatever residents of this fair city are called.

Leaving Colorado, on to WY & MT

We spent a week near RMNP after saying goodbye to some of our favorite spots. We met up with our friend Judy in Boulder and then she took off with her hiking group and let us stay at her place. We biked around Boulder one day, it’s a very bike friendly city. We then hiked in the Flatirons, an impressive (and popular) mountainous area that overlooks the University of Colorado. It also borders Colorado Chautauqua, one of the three Chautuaquas left. An easy drive down to Denver on Sunday (when the Broncos were not playing) allowed us a visit with my old school chum from Webster, Len Ewald. Len and his fiancé Caroline just bought a house in south Denver and both have been enjoying Colorado living for over thirty years. They enjoy kayaking and camping like we do and were thrilled to hear about our experiences volunteering with the NPS.

We met up with our friends HarunMuf the next day in Estes Park and hung out with them at the Keno Llama Ranch for a couple days. They took the train from NY and arrived in a sleep deprived state. But that matched our condition pretty well, I don’t know why we felt sleep deprived but we did. We all revived well enough after a nap to drive into town and observe a huge elk browsing on the sparse vegetation in the Safeway parking lot. A hike into Wild Basin in RMNP the next day allowed us to see more of the east side of the park. We got great views of Mt. Meeker, the twin to Long’s Peak, with Long’s peeking out behind it. A futile attempt to see some of the elk rut that night only yielded a dim view of a dejected bull elk sulking off after being run off by a larger more experienced bull, who got to keep his harem. That’s the way it goes during the highly competitive rut. We hope HarunMuf got to see more of the rut as they were staying around RMNP for another five days after we left.

We left for Wyoming on Sept. 15, stopping in Laramie for a bike ride tour of the city just to break up the drive. I found it strange though to be standing in line at an Econolodge in Rock Springs later that day to get a room. A drive up the road further to Pinedale might have offered us a better location, if only we had known. A brief stop in Jackson the next day made us glad not to be staying there, it was overrun with you-know-whos. No vacancy signs were on display everywhere and a RV park in town next to the public parking lot where we had lunch was totally packed. Poor Jackson.

We headed towards the west side of the Tetons, into Idaho, also known as Teton Valley. It is the quieter, wilder side of the Tetons. Driggs is the major town there. We were glad to hear at the Targhee USFS ranger station that the Teton Canyon campground was still open, and we stayed there two nights. It was right by a couple of trailheads into the Jedediah Smith Wilderness, and we took one of the trails up to Table Mountain the next day. It was 4,000 feet up to Table, at just over 11,000 feet, a round trip of about twelve miles. Table Mountain looked more like a mushroom to us, but it was a nice scramble up to the top. The neatest part about it was that it was right next to the Grand Teton. We had great views of it, it was about a mile away. This turned out to be a fairly popular hike also, we must have seen about thirty other hikers total, including a toddler and a group of college students from BYU Idaho who were planning to spend the night camping on top of Table. There wasn’t a lot of room on top, so they were going to be packed in tightly.

We drove up to West Yellowstone and only briefly saw Yellowstone. We couldn’t find any lodging in the park or in Gardiner, just outside the northern entrance. Even the USFS campgrounds to the north were either full or had no water, so we kept driving to Livingston, 52 miles north. We could have stayed at a motel 29 miles north of Gardiner, but we didn’t like the price. So we didn’t get to do much at Yellowstone this time, that’s the way it will have to be. We also would have liked staying at Chico Hot Springs, about half way between Yellowstone and Livingston, but they were booked up. After staying the night at an ok motel in Livingston, we headed up to Hot Sulphur Springs under fog that eventually lifted and stayed in the spa motel there. We also went up into the Lewis and Clark Forest just outside of town and found a nice hike up to a high point that gave us great vistas of the Smith River Valley and views in other directions. We never saw anyone else other than a couple and their dog as we came back close to where we left our car. I thoroughly enjoy places like Yellowstone but popular national parks can be overrun with you-know-whos, even in September. Especially in September I guess. Next stop for us will be Glacier, we have only a reservation for one night up there and not-so-great weather will greet us, so we will see how things go there.

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.

Long's Peak

We climbed Long’s Peak, the most challenging hike we have done. For those like our friend Jason, who are afraid of heights, it was an extreme challenge. Jason says he will do it again, though. I am not sure for myself. The weather forecast looked favorable for the day we picked to climb, so we went over the day before and backpacked up 6 miles to the Boulderfield where we camped. The Boulderfield sits at 12,760 feet, just below Long’s Peak. The hike from the Boulderfield to the peak is only 1.5 miles and 1500 feet gain, but those statistics don’t indicate the true nature of the hike. Many choose to hike to the peak as a day trip, but their day can begin about 2 AM with the idea of getting on top of the peak before noon and down before bad weather can hit in the afternoon. We figured that whether camping the night before or starting in the wee hours of the morning, you wouldn’t get much sleep and would use up two days for the trip. We settled in for a good night’s sleep after a red sky sunset and calm weather, but strong winds arrived which battered our tents the rest of the night and greeted us in the morning.

Several groups of people were already passing through when we emerged from our tent close to 6:30, after only getting a few hours sleep. We weren’t on the trail until 7:30, but we figured we would wait and see what the wind situation developed into. The route we took was the popular Keyhole route, which started just above the Boulderfield. The Agnes Vaille Shelter sits at the leeward side of the Keyhole, it was built in memory of Agnes Vaille, a woman mountaineer who died on Long’s Peak in 1925. We were told that the wind would be fierce right in the Keyhole but would subside soon after passing through it. Many people turn back at the Keyhole, not realizing that the wind there is not indicative of what it will be during the rest of the trip. There were two more really windy spots that we heard about though, and the last one was of such force that it just about sucked the breath out of us. The windy spots would prove to be an issue with Kathy, the constant wind which can drive a person crazy was an issue with me, and the heights were the issue with Jason. We learned that wind this day was overall more mild than normal, so the hike would be a no-go on a “normally windy” day.

We went along the Keyhole route, which had some tricky sections of climbing over and around obstacles. We were able to find hand holds in the places we needed them, otherwise the hike would not have been possible for us. We got to the bottom of the Trough, which was a fairly steep area of loose rock, going up 600 feet. We eventually got near the top, but the wind was fairly strong up there again so we hunkered down waiting to see if it subsided some. After getting cold, we looked up and saw that the sun was now hitting the upper part of the Trough, so we decided to go up with hopes that it would be warmer. But it wasn’t because this was the second spot with high winds, so we had to get through that quickly to the next section called the Narrows. The Narrows is the section that has the reputation for being the scariest, as it’s a narrow ledge with steep dropoffs, as much as 800 feet. We always had some kind of hand holds here though, and I didn’t think the section was as scary, although Jason thought otherwise. I did however lose my Camelback mouthpiece somewhere along the way on one of the mad scrambles, losing a good bit of my water. Kathy had enough in her camelback though so that didn’t stop me. At the end of the Narrows is a transition to the Home Stretch, we were greeted by the fiercest winds here, but we had been warned, so we got through that alright although we could barely breathe in there. I was glad to be on the Home Stretch, the top was visible as we climbed up the steep section. It was a slow slog up, but we summitted the 4 acre top at 11:15 and spent the next hour enjoying the views and relative mild conditions. From the west and the north, Longs Peak looks like a big block, from the east it looks vastly different, but it is a flat area that could fit several thousand hikers. There were three other guys wearing jeans who were up there when we got there. After they left, a solo hiker wearing a helmet, David from Manhattan arrived. Then a climber suddenly appeared from the east side, then his companion. They had just climbed the Diamond, a sheer vertical face about one thousand feet, the first of many they said were following. No thanks, I would rather get to the summit on my feet (or knees in some spots).

Hoping that the winds were lessening, we started down the Home Stretch, mostly on our butts. I saw David up higher as we approached the transition to the Narrows. In the middle of the Narrows, we met five family members coming the other way, two adults and three kids. Like us, they had never done Long’s before and were unsure of what to expect ahead. They had also dropped their packs down below the Keyhole and were going up without water or anything. I told them how tough the wind was ahead, but they wanted to push on, except for one of the kids, Bruce, who wanted to turn back. We said we would let him come with us, and one of the adults said he could wait for them somewhere back on the trail. We got to the top of the Trough, and Bruce said he would hunker down there. Jason offered him some food or water but he declined. The next obstacle was a steep drop of about 15 or 20 feet that we had to negotiate. I tried at first to go down the way we had come up, but couldn’t see the footholds below so gave up on that route. I didn’t like the looks of the straight way down, so managed to slide down on my butt on a diagonal, barely keeping from sliding. Jason liked the straight way down, and came that way, with a little assistance from me with finding a few foot holds. Next, we got Kathy down by forming a human chain with Jason on the bottom and me on top lowering her gradually. Once we were all down, Jason thought better and yelled up to Bruce that he should come too. Bruce changed his mind and yelled back that he would come. So we started forming our human chain again but instead of Bruce appearing above, it was David. He was eager to receive our assistance and immediately started descending, with me holding his feet. Jason, not able to see who it was, and me not knowing that Jason couldn’t see that, struggled under David’s weight. David was a big guy and I thought my shoulder was going to give out but somehow we got him down. Jason was wondering what the problem with Bruce was, he was supposed to be just a little guy! What a laugh. Then we got Bruce down, with Jason holding him by the chest, and then Bruce even accepted food and agreed to come along. Jason’s careful reconsideration made him realize this was not the best place to leave Bruce, good for him. It was also right at this point that Jason stopped acting like a baby and became his manly self again, haha. We would take Bruce down to the shelter where he would later meet up with his family. We enjoyed a reunion with them back at the Boulderfield and also met up with David later who thanked us profusely for helping him and took a short video of us to share with friends back in NYC.

After we packed up at the Boulderfield and started hiking out we ran across a group of guys all wearing red packs and camouflage fatigues. Kathy remarked on their identical packs and I asked them if they were a club or something. They said they were military (Army) and were her for some training. Jason identified them as special forces of some kind. We figured if they could conquer Long’s Peak, they could do well in a place like Afghanistan.

Facts about Long’s Peak:

1. Thousands of climbers and hikers go up Long’s peak a year, mostly during the summer. On a good day, over 200 people could attempt it.
2. Highest Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park and the only peak in the park exceeding 14,000 ft at 14,255 ft. (4,345 meters)
3. An average of one death occurs there a year, there have been two this year.
4. The park patrols the mountain regularly, we met two SAR rangers on our way up on Tuesday and one on our way down on Wednesday. These guys are fit and top notch climbers.
5. There are about 60 rescues a year on the mountain.
6. Denver-based nonprofit Veterans Green Jobs and Boston-based Force Factor announce that the Veterans Expeditions Rocky Mountain National Park Team (www.vetexpeditions.com) will lead a group of eight disabled and able-bodied military veterans to the top of Longs Peak in Colorado on September 11, 2010. The climb is designed to primarily engage physically and mentally disabled military veterans who recently served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
7. First recorded climb was in 1868 by John Wesley Powell and party, but certainly climbed earlier by natives. Recent research shows that natives caught eagles on the peak.
8. Best climbing months are June - September.
9. The first climb on the East Face of Longs Peak was by Reverend Elkanah J. Lamb in 1871. After climbing the Keyhole Route, Lamb descended the face via the Notch Couloir and then down a snow gully that was aptly called Lamb's Slide.
10. In 1873 the first three women climbed Longs Peak. Addie Alexander in August; Anna Dickinson in September; and in late September, Isabella Bird, an English woman who wrote a detailed account of her ascent in A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains.
11. Enos Mills, a naturalist, climber, and father of Rocky Mountain National Park, led many groups to the summit of Longs from his Longs Peak Inn. He climbed the mountain 297 times, including 32 ascents in August 1906. "Climbing a high peak occasionally," wrote Mills, "will not only postpone death but will give continuous intensity to the joy of living."

Our First 14er

We climbed our first 14er this past Wednesday, Quandary. We were in a quandary over which peak to climb, so this seemed a good choice. We stayed with our friend Shirley in Dillon, and she said that this was the first peak she climbed with her dog Willie after moving here. The day was perfect, we started a little later than we meant to but after hitting the trail at 9:45 we were on top by 11:15. The pic is of Kathy at the peak, who was taking a pic of me as I came up after her. We enjoyed a good hour up there, seeing many of the other 14ers including distant Pike’s Peak to the southeast and Massive and Elbert to the west. The wooden cross that used to be up there when Shirley last did it was gone. There was no sign of any bad weather and several people and dogs were coming up in the afternoon under clear skies as we descended. We saw three mountain goats, two adults and a juvenile, who weren’t afraid of people. Quandary is a very popular peak as it is easy to get to the trailhead and can be done in half a day. There are several other 14ers in this category, and then there are some difficult peaks. We plan on attempting Long’s Peak next week, a very difficult 14er, with our friends Jason and Evan Blumberg, stay tuned.

The day before was a futile exercise where we wandered in the wilderness due to a missed turn. We were intending to hike up Bowen Peak which is just outside the park not too far from the Holzwarth ranch. For some reason I didn’t read the guide book correctly and applied the “take the right fork” line to a different fork. We found trails that looked like they were maintained to some degree so mistakenly thought we were ok until the last trail totally disappeared. We then found a good forest road that took us much further south, but at this point we had given up on reaching the peak. We eventually got back to the beginning and pieced together what we did wrong. I ate a piece of humble pie. So Bowen Peak will have to wait for another day.

Thursday we hiked up to Timber Lake, one of the two trails on the west side of the park that we hadn’t done yet. It was a very nice trail and the lake itself is a picturesque alpine lake nestled in by the western slopes leading up to Mount Ida. If we had more time, we could have explored an approach up to the mountain, but that will have to be left for another day.

News and Notes:
1. One of the campground hosts hit a Mama elk on the road and killed it. A short time later a young elk was found nearby with a broken leg. One of our co-volunteers stayed with it for two hours until a natural resource person arrived; at this writing I’m not sure what the fate of the poor thing was.
2. The three baby ground squirrels who had a nest right by our cabin appear to be gone. We saw that one of them was missing a tail but it no longer is around. That’s nature, but we are sad about them. RIP Thumper, Hoppy and Snuggles.
3. We saw and touched a 1940’s ranger hat that was marked with “US NPS”. It had been worn by our friend Vic’s father who had been a park ranger. It was in excellent shape and is hanging proudly on the wall in Vic’s cabin. Real rangers still wear “Stiff brimmed” or “ flat hats” as opposed to the floppy ones or ball caps that volunteers wear.
4. Kathy has received rave reviews for the tour she gives of the Mama cabin at the Holzwarth ranch. She does all that touchy feely stuff real good. Our ranger KBow has expressed interest in videoing it, Kathy hasn’t agreed to that yet though.
5. A couple staying in the campground told me that they heard some loud purring outside their tent during the night. They opened up the tent and the sound of the zipper caused the feline to run off. Later they heard the noise again and chased the cat off a second time, although they wanted to see it. It left a large imprint in the ground, much larger than a house cat. We’re not sure if it was a lynx or mountain lion. They were planning to sleep inside the next night.
6. Another death occurred on Long’s Peak this past week, the second of the summer there. A climber fell to his death during a technical climb, it was witnessed by two park rangers. We hate to hear about these events, but they will continue as long as people are climbing the peak.