Day 6

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States: Colorado
Miles driven: 0
Miles hiked: 8.2
Slept: In M’elaine’s condo rental in Estes Park.
10 words or less: Duckling rescue mission. Long’s Peak, hail, rain, lightening. 12,080′ elevation.

Adventures in Mountaineering

It was a lovely looking Monday and we were up and out the door on our way to climb Long’s Peak. We picked up some gear and our bear canister. On the way back, we encountered a family of duckies trying to cross 4 lanes of busy traffic. And this right here is why I feel I am a part of the Howlett family: as if on cue, M’elaine stopped the car, her dad got out and stopped the oncoming traffic and I hearded them safely across the road. It really felt so special we got to save the little ducks together. Passersby honked and cheered for our rescue efforts. I felt certain this was a good omen. Remember all that karma stuff, right?

We arrived at the trailhead and nailed a parking spot right in front of the actual trail for Long’s Peak, skipping the need to walk an additional ½ mile uphill from the long line up of parked cars who weren’t so lucky. Another good omen! We snapped a couple of trailhead shots and started the laborious climb up.

And up. And up. And up. We’d be hiking to the boulder field just beyond the 12,000’ elevation point where we planned to set up camp for the night and summit Long’s at first light. With each arduous, painful step my excitement waned. I’d find out a couple weeks later that the searing pain I was feeling in my right pinky toe wasn’t caused by some malformation in my toe or even an irritating seam in my sock, but was actually a manufacturing defect inside my boot. Sonofabitch! As painful as it was and as exhausting as it was, every time I’d look up, the scenery was so spectacular – the peak so grand – I dug deep and found a renewed energy to continue.

Finally we reached the world’s most scenic toilet, took off our packs, and took a much needed break. Folks are so polite when it comes to pooping on top of a mountain. When you sit down, your head sticks out above the walls. Our fellow hikers kept far enough back and averted there eyes. So nice of them.

Up until this point there had been lots of small mentions of the gathering clouds that swept passed the mountains, but were moving away. Now we were getting worried seeing the clouds start to really stack up on either side of us and our intended destination. There’s three places you don’t want to be in a mountain lightening storm; above the tree line, out in the open or on a giant hunk of granite. Woohoo! Three out of three! Time to hoist up the packs and get our asses up to the boulder field before the maelstrom.

Epic fail! The rain started washing down and showed no signs of stopping. Then the hail came, first pea sized, then marble sized. It was like playing the most violent game of dodge ball with the biggest bully in school throwing marbles at you. We quickly sought shelter, nestling into a crevice between a couple boulders, though we had no overhead protection. I dug out my rain fly and we sat on our packs like they were bar stools, holding the fly over our heads. We held it at just the perfect angle to let all the rain and hail drain directly into my boot. Looking at the positive side, who else gets to get a foot bath at 12,000’? Huddled there for several minutes, we counted the seconds between the flashes of lightening and the thunder claps. “One one-thousand, two-“ CRACK! After a little clarification on exactly how far away that meant the strike was, I proceeded to (figuratively) crap myself.

I can’t speak for M’elaine or Jim, but the wetter I got, the colder I got. My body was trembling uncontrollably and I was very glad we were forced to hug each other to stay under the rain fly. It could have been so much worse without our shared body heat. After maybe 10 or 15 minutes trapped there, M’elaine was brave enough to seek out a better rock for shelter. While she was gone, Jim and I banded together and decided, yes, it was time to abandon our summit dream and get the hell off this mountain. She returned proclaiming there was a perfect shelter just around the corner and come on, let’s give it a little more time, it’s going to let up any second now. We scurried over to the spot, me dragging my pack behind me, only to find a giant pile of shit. I’m not saying her choice of location was shitty. I’m saying there was an actual pile of human shit under the boulder we intended to hide under. But yes, it was also a shitty choice based on the shit. In her defense though, from a distance the poop probably just looked like a pile of small brown rocks. That tore it. Jim and I looked at each other, then at M’elaine and said “we need to get off this mountain.”
Turns out to be a brilliant choice. Nearly all the hikers we’d seen earlier were making the same exit. M’elaine crossed paths with a Ranger who said he was going to get everyone further up the trail to follow suit as well. I believe the exact term was “evacuate”.

Later we’d look back at the peak from the safety of the town below, where the weather was lovely, of course. We were horrified at what we saw. The peak was completely whited out. Clouds, snow, all very ominous. It was very grounding to spend the rest of the day doing laundry and packing up to head for Wyoming the next day. We were all disappointed at our summit failure, but were relieved of our wise decision to do the right thing, the safe thing.

Heading for the boulder field of Long’s Peak

Hazard, indeed.

Mountain top toilet.

This was the weather that was going away from us. We thought we could make it to our campsite.

This was the weather that was coming toward us. Looks harmless, right?

Look close. Can you spot the chipmunk?

Making our very wet and hasty retreat.

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