Eleven Days in Colorado

We are back from 11 days in Colorado, including an 8 day hike around Maroon Bells and 3 days of play. We are now struggling to get through 4 days of work to get to the weekend and recover. This is one of the perils of returning on a Monday holiday, the Tuesday workday comes around too fast. For me, it was 17 hours at home then off to Mt. A for the week.

The trip went well, just not exactly as planned. We started out on the right “foot” so to speak, arriving in Denver on August 24th and spending the night in Glenwood Springs. Our hike began on Saturday (25th) at West Maroon Trailhead (near Aspen) and ended at Snowmass Trailhead on September 1. Luck was not with us on this trip, at least some of us. I had been sniffling for a few days before the trip and after the 1st night, I developed congestion, mostly in my chest. About the same time, Bill developed nausea due to over exertion and dehydration.

So on Day 2 of the backpack, while 5 in our group (Will, Kim, Barbara, John F and Ron) donned backpacks and headed down the trail, John and I grabbed only daypacks and followed our group as far as Maroon Pass (12,500′). Meanwhile, back at the ranch (camp), Bill was feeling pretty bad. He spent the day sleeping while Silke read and relaxed. The 4 of us spent night 2 at the same campsite.

Day 3 arrived and we headed back the way we came in, stopping at Crater Lake to dayhike Buckskin Pass (12,000′) and spend the night. The beautiful views we were looking for from Buckskin were invisible to us because it was raining. As a matter of fact, it rained all day and that night we crawled in our tents to eat dinner.

On Day 4, we hiked to the cars. Our initial destination was a hotel in Carbondale but we took a right turn at a small sign announcing the town of Bsalt and never looked back. A couple of days later, when we met up with our friends, we worked hard to keep our heads down and look sad as they spun their stories of survival, storms and incredible adventure. Quite honestly, we had a darn good time in Bsalt including one of the finest meals John and I can remember eating. The restaurant, Tempranillo, was a Spanish-Italian affair with white table cloth dining on the inside and fabulous, relaxed dining outside. We sat on the veranda enjoying great company (Bill and Silke) and fresh salad, hot and cold tapas, gnocci con prosciutto, asparagus, chicken and truffle oil and a bowl of penne genovese, while listening to live music provided by a Spanish guitarist. We watched the sun go down and enjoyed the early fall weather. It was a very good evening.

Next day we grabbed our backpacks and went back into the wilderness. We spent one day scouting trails and campsites for the final layover hike to Pierre Lakes. The next day we hiked down the trail to meet our group coming from Snowmass Lake. I won’t bore you with the details of our final high altitude off trail hike to Pierre Lakes. It should suffice to say we were hanging by rocks, trees and bushes to get up and down parts of the trail, navigating some long boulder fields and a hail storm with lightening, thunder and rain. We had a priceless moment on this off trail hike, an incredible double rainbow. It was hanging over the canyon with colors so vivid that everyone just stopped for a few moments to soak it in. We felt sure the origin of the rainbow, the proverbial pot of gold, was our campsite.

We spent John’s birthday in the wilderness with the group. Seems like John is always spending his birthday in the wilderness or some other far flung place. This year Barbara, ever the thoughtful one, remembered his big day and pulled out a mini candy bar with a flaming match inserted in the top! We sang “Happy Birthday” acappella, otherwise known as off key and wished him a happy day. I think John had his best wilderness birthday yet!

We were sad and happy to leave the wilderness on September 1. The group immediately drove back to Bsalt to eat at Tempranillo, this time as a group of 9. We arrived unbathed, unshaven, hair uncombed, dirty hiking clothes and muddy bodies but the staff smiled and treated us like royalty (and we returned the favor by tipping accordingly).

An overnight in Leadville, a stop in Georgetown-a mining town, a final overnight in Denver and we returned to Knoxville on Monday, September 3rd. In 11 days, we had our 10th hiker return home (from Glenwood Springs) to work a hurricane, 2 cases of exertion induced nausea (Bill and Ron), an altitude induced headache (Kim), a broken camera (mine-on Day 1 of the hike), congestion (me), sore muscles, exhaustion, numerous cuts and bruises (all) and a lot of grand stories to tell. I wouldn’t have missed this trip for anything.

As mentioned above, my camera broke. I did buy a couple of disposable cameras in Bsalt but the photos are not great. Below are a few from the trip: