Trudging to the Top

I climbed another of Colorado's 14ers yesterday. My 15th. Only 39 left! Actually "climbed" sounds too athletic. Hiked and walked don't quite fit either. Cantered or pranced? Too ambitious. Ambled, strolled, or meandered? Too casual. Lumbered or marched? Too confident. Wandered and roamed are too aimless. Plodded or slogged? Close. Trudged? Trudged...that's it.

Yesterday I trudged up another mountain. Missouri Mountain this time. Since Missouri doesn't have it's own mountains I don't mind naming one of ours in their honor.

I drove to the trail head Friday night and slept in the van for an early start. I was up by 4:30 and on the trail by 5:15 and was gasping for air with my hands on my knees at 5:20. But aside from my physical conditioning, it was a beautiful day and watching the sun hit the peaks was truly spectacular. If I just took it easy, I might be on top by 9:00. That was if I stayed on the trail. I didn't stay on the trail.

A scree field is a field of loose rock that you have to pick your way through very carefully and it's easy to lose the trail.
Really. Anybody can lose the trail. Really. The smart thing to do when you lose the trail is to back track until you pick it up again. The dumb thing is to keep going forward confident that the trail will have learned its lesson and come back to you. I saw the mountain peak ahead of me and chose to do the dumb thing.

And I climbed the wrong peak. (but I made really good time!)

I sat down on Wrong Peak and took a picture of Missouri Mountain...across the valley and an hour away.
So now I had a dilemma. To get to Missouri I would have to descend 500 feet, traverse a ridge for about half a mile and climb back up a thousand feet to the top. I seriously considered returning home and just crossing Missouri off my list anyway. No one would know and I could tell myself that I was close enough. I started down and didn't completely decide until I reached the point where I could continue down or turn back up.

An hour later I was on top of the right mountain.

14er's

There are 54 peaks in Colorado that are over 14,000 feet in elevation. I can't remember why I decided I was going to "collect" all of them. It's a very difficult hobby and every year they seem to get steeper. Geologists really need to look into why this is happening.

So far I've done 14 of them. Longs, Evans, Bierstadt, Grays, Torreys, Democrat, Linclon, Quandary, Sherman, Cameron, Bross, Elbert, Belford, and Oxford. I did the last two yesterday.

hiking boots, retractable hiking pole, long underwear, sunglasses, emergency poncho, knife, protein bars, jerky, camel pack, cell phone, camera, hiking socks, t-shirt, thermal cap, ball cap, hoody, water resistant jacket, gatorade, head lamp, running pants, water bottle, tissues, aspirin, bananas, gps, gum, energy gels, fruit leather, ipod, gloves, chap stick, sun block, whistle, air mattress, map, sleeping bag, matches, pillow, first aid kit.

That's not the stuff I brought. It's the stuff I was supposed to bring. I didn't plan on going until a few hours before I went so I was grateful I ended up with two thirds of it. Today I'm kinda wishing chapstick had been included in the inventory.

I slept at the trailhead in the mini van so I could get an early start and was on the trail by 6:00am. 11 miles, 6000 feet total elevation gain, 9 hours. This wasn't the hardest 14er I've done. That honor still goes to the 14 hours for Longs Peak. But this one was a psychological poke in the eye. Picture a capital M. You climb 4000 feet up to Belford, then descend 1000 feet and climb up another 1000 to Oxford. Mission accomplished, right? It should all be down hill from there. But there is only one way off these mountains and that is the exact same way you got there. I had to retrace my steps and go back to the top of Belford and down the original side. I will admit though, that I sat in the valley of the M for about 10 minutes and considered "bushwacking" my own trail straight down. I even headed down for a couple hundred feet (past 2 beautiful mountain goats!) before common sense over ruled my exhaustion. I could imagine myself trapped on a cliff face with no one knowing which way I'd gone.

So I went back up Belford slower than I'd ever climbed before. 30 steps, rest...20 steps, rest, curse...10 steps, rest, sit, curse...10 steps, rest, sit, curse, throw rock at stupid goats...8 steps, hug boulder during 40mph gust, curse...and so on.

I'm painting a grim picture of what was actually a beautiful day. Aside from the worst wind I've ever hiked in, the skies were clear and the the views spectacular. There is usually plenty of company on the 14er's on a weekend, but on Oxford I had the whole mountain to myself. I didn't plant a flag or anything, but for 20 minutes I laid on my back and considered it to be my mountain.

I posted the one picture of my old exhausted face on Oxford but if you really want to see what the views were, go to www.14ers.com and you will learn everything you never wanted to know about these stoney bad boys.

Forty more to go.