So on Wednesdays (every now and then) , I’m going to try and give a little story about a past adventure. For the first installment, I thought I’d talked about one of my first climbs on a 14er (14,000ft mt.) in Colorado.
Now my memories is a bit fuzzy on the detail of the trip, as it occurred back in the summer of 2007, during my initial internship out in Colorado. I met up with my friend Ben from, Boulder, Co, and couple of his buddies. We head to southern Colorado, to a mountain called “Mt. Blanca”. Mt Blanca is located just south of the Sand-Dunes in Colorado and is surrounded by several other 14er neighbors, “Little Bear”, “Ellingwood Point” and “Mt. Lindsey”.
At the start of the trip, we slept at the foot of the trail and mountain. Early in morning(around 4-5AM) we took off to trek a extreme 4×4 trail to the next base camp. The trail was very rugged and tretrous at parts. Narrow drop offs, epic views, and abandon cabins littered the trail as you continue to climb higher and higher into the air.
We setup base camp at around 11,800 feet, after starting out at 8,000ft and traveling about 7 miles. Base camp was great. It had such majestic views and tranquil surroundings. The part that I enjoyed the most, was wandering around and exploring old cabins and abandon gold mines. After camp was setup, we decided to continue along and try to ascend the rest of Mt. Blanca in one day (tough feat, about 10 miles one way).
The second leg was extremely beautiful. Alpine lakes, craggy rocks, and the tease of fog hiding our final destination. We had about 2,500ft left to go. Some of the views are just speechless….(see below)
less the trip was cut short when we were 100ft from the top. An extreme lightning storm swept and destroyed any hope of making it to the top that day. We decided that not being lit up was a better choice than claiming the ascent. So we went back the 3 miles to base camp and made some dinner and slept. I was hit with a bit altitude sickness, so I didn’t get to climb it again the next morning. But the others in my group got the chance.
I hope to make it back there some day and conquer Little Bear. It is said to be the hardest 14er there is.
The Roof was quite comfy to sleep onAlpine WaterfallAbandon CabinAlittle Alpine Champange CelebrationYou needed a real 4×4 to get up this road. (no honda accords allowed)View from Base CampThe start of the journeyThe edge of the stormBack towards base campLooking back at the valley we traveled upView from the knife’s edge
“Let jump right into this”, these words are not only referring to my first real blogging experience, but to events that will occur later on in this post. Not many photo’s were taken to highlight the different aspects of the trip, but they do give a good sense of the wacky experience.
The day started out calmly enough in a typical erratic fashion. A 6AM wake, which turned into a 8AM rush to get to Fort Carson. We were making sure to use our buddy Derek’s connections to the Army. Fort Carson supplies discount adventure outings to military employees, but rarely get used. So we decided to exploit help employee these services, will continue to do so in the future.
So a bus full of hungover and rambunctious young-en’s headed to Canyon City. Canon City is known as the commercial white water capital of Colorado. By far it is the most rafted river in Colorado. Another factoid of Canyon City is that it is the Incarceration Capital of Colorado ( maybe the west?) including, several federal penitentiaries, country jails, and a super max prison. However, I’ll save this for another day.
The part of the river we were rafting was Big Horn Sheep Canyon, known for the incredible amount of promiscuous sheep that frequent the canyon. We put-in alongside a couple other groups of rafting hippies (otherwise know as river rats). We dawned our rafting apparel, played a game of Frisbee, and stood for the initial badass pose. The water being a balmy 50* degrees (fresh snow melt, yum) we decided to keep our wet suits on (except Sean, who want to show off his Hawaiian surfing calves).
Our rafting guide, Dave turned out to be a super cool dude, and by far we were the awesomest boat crew of the trip. Dave proceeded to tell us all sort of jokes, which became more racier and naughtier the further we drifted downstream. Blonde jokes , Irish jokes, and some “I dare not menton” jokes were had and maybe enjoyed.
So down the river we went, destroying class III rapids, nomming class IV. The river was no match for the prowess of the seasoned 8-man crew. Past dead dog tree (named because it had no “bark” , haha?), over the Sharks Tooth, and pounded by Fluffy Muffin (funny story there), the river was not ready for us. Then came the swimming portion. At this point, Dave said ,half-jokingly, that we could get out and enjoy some of the refreshing Rock Mtn water and rapids. Never before had he seen his entire crew completely desert the raft and launch into water of their own free will. Pushing, tackling, and diving ensued; leaving Dave to float downstream without a crew. After floating through some rapids and swimming with the fishes, everyone climbed back in and we said jokingly that it was practice, and that practice made perfect.
We took a break at a rock cliff and did some free form diving/cactus jumping. The jump was approximately 15-20 at its highest point, and about 10 at the lowest, we would not let anyone jump from the lowest spot, which would have resorted to some severe name calling. As is true with any extreme sport, style was key.
Numerous jumps and chilled bones later, we proceed downstream. Sean wanted to ride the bull ( sit on the front, of the boat through rapids) so he hopped up front and sat down. He took some pictures and readied for the ride. While he was waiting, everyone else silent agreed and nodded that he wasn’t going to be in the boat much longer. I then continued to body-check Sean out of the raft, and everyone watched/waved to him as he floated downstream. Looking for help and feeling betrayed he asked another boat for help. Their reply was “forward 2…” and proceed to paddle away leaving Sean a drift and cold. The one other causality on the trip was Paul, who fell out of the boat of his own free will, while we were spinning on a flat section of water, very very odd. After numerous punishment oars to the face we decided to pull him back in.
We landed at a beach and disrobed our wet gear, excited that we would be eating soon. However one thing remained, the manly picture of the day. The studliest group of rafters that that river has ever seen and probably ever will see posed in triumphant success.
The half day trip was over and we packed up the van. Satisfied that we had a new friend, Dave the Raft Master, we headed back to COS. We decided to saved the royal gorge for another day, which is were real extreme rafting beings. Next time…….
Left to right: Dave C, Michelle, Raftin Dave, Alison, Sean, Paul (me up front and Derek snapping the pic)
Hi all, Since everyone else is blogging now, I figured that I should give it a shot and jump on the scene train (yea, I know I’m always the last to board. The main focus of this WEB-LOG is to highlight my travels and experiences around Colorado, but that could definitely change as time goes on. Stay-tuned!
Check-out some other “Quality Blogs” in the mean-time:
