the sacrifice & reward

it doesn’t take long to get the itch again to be back on the trail. envisioned in my mind early this week was to be a marathon of 6 boulder peaks. i didn’t anticipate how tired i’d be after bagging the first two on saturday. there was no pre-dawn rise today. “slept in” until 8:30 and decided in about 5 minutes that i wanted to strap into my boots and see what the natural world had to offer me on this cold (teens), party sunny day. the snow had accumulated some and it looked like it would be a day for snowshoes. it was so late in the morning and i didn’t even have a mountain yet to climb. i settled on a single peak on the eastern edge of the foothills, along 36 near lyons. not a lot of planning into this one. map and go is what i like to call it. and that's what i did. a stop off at el mirador for a $2 bfast burrito, and i was back on the same roads as yesterday headed to my sanctuary.

layers

i arrived at what appeared to be, according to maps and loj, the easiest way up 6,446'. it was "elk mountain" ranch. 1. there is no mountain around called elk mountain. 2. there were no elk in sight, only horses and fences. lots of fences. the busy highway put the quash on any ninja-hiker activity, so i'd have to find another way up this badboy. i flipped a couple u-ies and headed to heil valley ranch. i was here a couple of weeks ago to climb half nick and some unnamed peak. i quickly made use of the snowshoes and set off. the snow already has a broken trail from trail runners, hikers, snowshoers, snowshoe runners, coyotes, deer, elks, squirrels and possibly mountain lion. of course i never saw a single animal except for maybe a squirrel, although i'm pretty sure it was just a pinecone falling. there were a significant amount of tracks however, but those guys probably heard me a mile away tromping through the forest. my loud snowshoes screeching and clanking against the burnt orange rocks poking through the thin snowy trail. then there's the touristy camera around the neck bouncing against my pack strap and cell phone in my chest pocket. i'm a loud mess. i'm very thankful to the folks that happily cleared the trail before me. that can really sock the life out of you. i swapped out my snowshoes for microspikes over a segment of rocky path, then donned the shoes on once i made it to the old stone cabin. it just needs a little work and it could be our mountain retreat. i didn't see a for sale sign though. this is where the worn trail ended. at this point i took a compass bearing, since my gps is mia, and headed down toward a gully, then i'd have to climb to the saddle of red hill and 6,446', then north onto my summit. but it was nearly 1:00. it would take a couple more hours to climb and many hours to get back. you know i do have other things to do today (like write this). so i made the decision to turn back and try to meet up with the wapiti trail that i'd been on earlier. i plowed my way uphill through the trees and eventually started following a game trail that lead me back to the main trail. i wasn't on a huge time crunch, so i decided i could make my way around the entire loop, see if the overlook had anything to offer, and make it back in time to get my haircut.

wapiti means elk

prime real estate



this has a real fireplace, not one of those fake tv ones

i am, where, exactly?





6,446' - saving for another day

  

made it to an intersection just as i started to hear a strange huffing and puffing. it scared me because this is mountain lion country and i guess i don't know what sound a lion makes before it strikes. but it was just a lady trail runner. we stopped for a couple minutes to chat about the trail. we decided she'd go left and i right, and we'd meet in the middle. i pushed hard as views began to open to the eastern plains, blanketed in white gold. there were short segments where the snow was deep enough to warrant snowshoes, and sections of bare rock that you could almost mountain bike over. i thought about the give and take between us. she would have to suffer through small bouts of post holing while i'd have to scrape my crampons against some rocks here and there. but how cool was it when we met up finally, right in the middle of the loop, and thanked each other for breaking the other's trail. it made the few knicks and scrapes on the snowshoes a willing sacifice.

overlook view. longs and meeker are covered in clouds.

the view wasn't that great. normally from the overlook you can see mt. meeker, longs peak, and the rest of their buddies. it wasn't meant to be today. clouds socked anything above about 10'000'. i made my way around the loop feeling good. accomplished. i didn't climb my mountain but i got out there and enjoyed the gift that God has given us. colorado is such a wonder. my leg held up. it usually only hurts when i take a step on a bent leg. when it is fully extended and i follow through with it straight, then it is fine. for me this is not the natural way i hike on slopes or snowshoe. my go-go-gadget finger's auto-heater stopped working and it got very cold. i was thinking frostbite, but the other fingers felt fine. i made it back to the bench i'd sat in many a time. and i'm thinking, you'll have a bench someday. the inscription read:

the stillness in the air bade me notice

the distant hills that seemed to move,

as if to gently embrace her spirit,
now that her earthly form is gone. 

 

a bench, someday

there are so many spirits in these mountains. i would be only so lucky to join them someday. i plan to take katie on the wapiti/lichen trail this summer. she will love it. and 6,446' will be there for another day.

they make a liquior and it's called godiva. that's gotta be heaven. the server just came to ask me if i had a nissan because my alarm was going off. what is bb's problem? why does she gotta hate so?

i'm thrilled to be back in the game. there is so much i want to hike and climb. i have a lot of making up to do. who's with me?? churp..churp. oh well, i'm excited.

the first step

feels like i never missed a beat. today’s boulder county hike was extraordinary! i had set my sights on summiting 5 peaks however i had to settle for 2. how delighted i am to have stood on top of both of those peaks! golden age hill (8,378’) and porphyry mountain (8,336’) both put up quite a fight. and as usual, before i could take a single step i had to park, which is almost always as challenging as the hike itself. a 4:20 a.m. wakeup call and the snow wipe down on bb got me on the road at about 5:30. the roads were awful, however i was comforted in knowing how experienced i am in winter driving, especially as of late, having to driving many a morning up to the eisenhower and down, down, down into gtown. a path of truckers, snow, plows, subarus, and bb. what could be better? purchased fuel for bb and her driver, and headed into boulder. couple of coppas but who would speed in this kind of weather? i ditched the early morning commuters (on a saturday, in this weather?) and headed onto lee hill dr., then old stage rd., and finally james canyon dr. i’d been in the area before when i climbed walker mountain, fairview peak, and hiked the wapiti loop, so i sort of knew where i was headed. having studied the map once at dinner and once before lights-out, i felt somewhat confident where i was headed. but with the white stuff all around, it gets hard to determine where a pull off is or what will trap you in the forest. so as i searched for the entry from the highway and eyed for a parking spot that wouldn’t send me down the canyon, i passed my entry point and only optimal parking, with the only place to flip a B being 2 miles up in jamestown. flipped a B and headed back, but wasn’t certain that the point of ingress i’d spied was where i needed to start. so i passed the parking spot to check the 4wd road that i’d spied which would take me to my mountains, but this meant that once confirmed, i’d have to turn around again to park. turned around but somehow missed the 4wd road and parking spot! flipped a B in jamestown again and finally found a spot for bb. i’ve often said that the hardest part is getting to the point when you can take that first step. the planning, waiting, driving, saving, buying, exercising, is all so much just to be able to walk on a trail. but oh so worth it. all of that was behind me now. the hard work and time had paid off. it was time to take the first, literal step. off i went.

the desolate and frozen canyon road was a short and nerve-racking speed walk. it’s narrow and there are twists and turns, speeding suvs/tanks, and ice. no room for a lowly hiker. i zigzagged the road as the turns came and went, and finally, without any run-ins with an suv/tank, found the trail. the trail is actually lefthand canyon’s network of 4wd roads. it’s cool if you like going off road, shooting guns, and forest fires. i saw a wood sign that said “private road”. does that mean i just can’t use the road to drive on? can i hike next to the road? the sign blended in with the tree it was posted to, so i was prepared to play dum. the road, however, dead-ends at a house, yurt and a hoola-hooping deer. i went “off-road” around the house, up, up and up. the snow was always around my calves and sometimes up to my knees. occasionally on wind-blown segments my microspikes would make contact with the earth, but more times than not i was breaking trail on steep, snowy, rocky terrain. i made it up and around the house, and before i knew it i was meeting up with the 4wd road i was trying to get to! that was about as lucky as i’d get today. after passing the notorious “private property” gate, i made it to an intersection. left was an old mine and gate saying “road closed” (so does that mean i can just walk along the side?) and to the right was some little trail through the woods that appeared to lead away from my ultimate destination. i went up the hill to the gate, hesitated, and then went back down to the intersection. brushing away the snow on the trail sign revealed “288”, but of course my map had no 288. i see 287 and 286. no 288. i’m trying to figure out which little line might be 288, and i’m looking around through the falling snow at the various peaks and ridges and valley, trying to get orientated. i make the decision to go back up to the gate because i recalled a gate similar, during my last time up here (albeit, 3 years ago). up, up, up i go, to a few small radioactive ponds spewging forth nasty minerals and ooze from the earth. i didn’t take a picture of the toxic green ooze exiting the mine’s entrance. guess it could have been moss. rrright. above the ponds was a wall. up, up, up i go. i should have had my ice ax. easily over 50 degrees. i need one of those degree-figure-outer devices. i guess that would be called a protractor. it was very steep and any misstep would result in a tumble and likely more injury to my leg. i knew what i was doing though. careful and calculated steps. it doesn’t help that under the 8 inches of fresh power were loose rocks and boulders. the boulders are easy to identify by the various pods of snows sticking up all about. the smaller rocks under the snow, or anything that wasn’t a snow globe, had to be tested over and over again. there were many large slabs that were tough to navigate up without sliding down, down, down. the fallen trees from the forest fires a few years back were always tricky. one of my many class 4 moves involved using large boulders for leverage on the right, and a dead and fallen tree on the left. the tree moved ever so slightly and i wasn’t 100% that the rocks would hold. it took a minute to get through this move and there was no room for error! i adjusted weight over to the rocks and lived to climb another hour. i crested this beast of a canyon (720’ in ¼ mile!) and found civilization again in the manner of empty cabins, antennas and snow blown county roads. down the road and up a slope leads me to golden age hill, although i’m never entirely sure of where i am for most of the day. eventually i determine that it was golden age via the maps and old intuition, but i would have been certain with my gps. it is currently mia; either buried in bb or hiding in summit cove. there were few views from the summit, except that of a house about 100’ below. my first attempt at this mountain last year was a failure as i wasn’t willing to hike so near to the house from the nw side, however this time i came in from the e and the snow all but assured me that i wouldn’t have any trouble with the locals. is that a dog i hear?!? shit. time to bail. two dogs? great.

this was on the map; 288 was not



that sucks. wonder what's on the other side...



cool



the wall; up, up and up

knarly terrain

great view from golden age hill

back on the road and it’s been hours since i started. doesn’t look like i’ll get to climb all the mountains on my agenda today. i ramble along the road and haven’t eaten since my sausage mcmuffin with egg back when it was dark. the snow is starting to take its toll on my eyes. although i have goggles in my pack, i’m not wearing them because i’m just lazy and don’t want to stop to pull them out. in fact, they are just in my pack lid, but i’m too tired to reach under my pack cover, unzip the top, and pull them out. that’s what partners are for i s’pose. i start to see green on my peripheral. small amoebas float by and my eyes try to follow but they drift off out of sight before i get a clear view. there’s no telling where the ground ends and where the sky begins. doesn’t matter. just keep going up, up and up.

making my way around a roped off road, or trail, or something, i plunge knee deep in snow up, up and up to the top of porphyry. she has a north and south summit. the map places the summit on north, however the higher point is south. guess i’ll climb both. by this point, i’m spent. it’ll take hours to get back (if i can get back – no way i can descend down the wall i came up, leaving the other option through private crap) so i decide to save bald mountain and 2 unnamed peaks for another day (tomorrow perhaps?). i race down porphyry back to the road and delight in the fact that “it’s all downhill from here”; well, not quite. there was a fair amount of uphill on the road back around golden age. guess i forgot about that part. once around golden age and the green gate that says “go away ethan allen”, i tip-toe my way past a couple of cabins (with barking dog) and the golden age mine. make my way to the 4wd road and find a certain one they like to call, road 288. perfect. connect up to my tracks (thank the good Lord) and rock out to my mp3 player all the way down. all in all, 9 hours, ~8 miles rt, and 2,858’ elevation gain. i’ve now climbed 35% of all ranked peaks, hills and mountains in the county of boulder, colorado. what a treat! speaking of, my reward for such an awesome hike is more carbs than one person should be able to legally eat in one sitting. gracias el mirador. made it just in time for happy hour.

another great view...porphyry moutain

porphyry mountain

golden age hill

headin' out

as far as the rest of life, it chugs along. maybe i’ll devote each post to a certain boardroom member. today’s featured board room member: outdoor living (i.e. hiking). nothing else really going on. work is busy. katie did incredible in the emperor’s new clothes. i fit in my skin-tight new winter base layer apparel.  i’m close to mastering the art of the spliff. my sister and her hubby are trying to come out for the 4th, in which case he and i would of course climb a 14er! fidg is back on monday. it feels it’s been a long time since i saw her, or talked for that matter. weeks, years, what difference does it make?

until that first step comes, one day at a time.