Transitions

Part 8: Tragedy and Recovery

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Table of Contents:

Intro

By the time my second hitch began with SWCC (Southwest Conservation Corp), I was ready to crush some trail work. Our destination this time would be the slopes of El Diente in the Kilpacker basin. El Diente is the farthest west 14er in Colorado, and the area around it is very wild. There was an old trail through Kilpacker Basin that suffered from erosion and human pollution, so our job was to close up the old trail and finish building a new one above it. For this project, which would take the next five hitches, we were going to partner with Colorado Fourteeners Initiative. Like SWCC, the Fourteeners Initiative built trail. Unlike SWCC, they did it exclusively on the state’s highest peaks, often involving complex rock projects in the alpine. They were a professional trail crew, as opposed to our Americorp distinction, which fell under service learning. In laymen’s terms: when it came to alpine construction, they were varsity, and we were JV. That isn’t to say SWCC was unprofessional, but we were essentially manual labor for hire. Other companies could rent our services if they needed help, meaning we were often used to complete projects already underway instead of creating and completing our own projects.

The Group:

Codenames: Indiana, Dusty, Gator Gal, Bull, Wisco, Poetry, and Pennsylvania. Why codenames? Because codenames rock, and to protect the identity of my crewmates.

Tragedy 1:

They always say tragedy strikes in threes, unfortunately for us, that wisdom held. Our first tragedy occurred during our off hitch, and I didn’t even know about it until an hour before we left for our new project. As we gathered in the morning to load up the van and the trailer, I noticed Dusty wasn’t around. I soon found out he wouldn’t be joining us anymore.

As it turned out, Dusty had some personal issues that weren’t apparent during our first hitch. He was a kind and considerate person, but a lot was going on behind the scenes that none of us knew about. Long in a short, he ended up flipping his car while driving down a long dirt road to some campsites he had been staying at. Between the fractures, breaks, and murky circumstances surrounding his state of mind during the incident, he and SWCC leadership came to an agreement to part ways. While I’m happy to say he recovered fully, we still felt the loss. Before we’d even begun our big project for the summer, we’d already lost a team member. So, despite my best efforts, a cloud of uncertainty hung over our heads as we loaded up the van and headed out.

Once we finally got to the trailhead, we’d done a little group management and felt better about salvaging the day. Despite the loss of Dusty, we knew SWCC would be sending us a new member at some point. We just had to rely on each other in the meantime. Okie Dokie.

The CFI leaders had already set up their camp a few miles into the Lizard Head Wilderness, so we grabbed our gear and tore after them. We hoped to set up the remainder of our camp, stow our personal stuff, and get some work in before nightfall. Back to Table of Contents.

Tragedy 2

Roughly halfway into our hike, we encountered another scary situation. Throughout the first part of the hike, I’d been keeping an eye on my friend Indiana. He had packed an extremely full backpack and appeared to be getting winded far faster than any other member of the group. We slowed down the pace to compensate, but it didn’t seem to be correcting the problem. Finally, after some discussion, we took a break to assess what was wrong.

Not more than fifteen seconds after we stopped hiking, Indiana collapsed. His breath was barely coming in, and we could hear gurgling in the back of his throat. Within a minute, his eyes rolled up and he’d lost consciousness. Gator gal and I jumped into action immediately, remembering our WFR training.

Hearing the liquid in the back of his throat, I rotated him from belly up to his right side. Then, I bent his left leg as a kind of kickstand and used his left elbow the same way. Once they were in place, I continued rotating him from 90 degrees to roughly 135, angled down, until yellow liquid dribbled out of his mouth. With his leg and elbow bent and acting like braces, I was able to turn him over until gravity could assist with liquid removal. Being unconscious, there was a very real chance he could’ve choked on his own fluids had he remained belly up. You can’t breathe if your airway is blocked.

With that crisis averted, Gator gal scrambled towards his pack, remembering that Indiana had an asthma inhaler. While she looked, I made sure all the liquid that needed to get out, got out, and then slowly rolled Indiana back into as comfortable a position as I could because he had begun seizing.

…I think one of the worst things to experience is watching someone else have a seizure, especially if you’ve never seen one before. There isn’t a whole lot you can do. You create a contained space where the thrashing has less of a chance of hurting them…and wait.

Even though I remembered the WFR training, it went against every emotional impulse I had. I wanted to be helpful, I wanted to fix the problem, I wanted to do MORE…but had to settle for loosely cradling Indianas head so he didn’t hurt himself. In hindsight, I helped prevent further injury, but in the moment, all I could think about was that I wasn’t doing enough. It’s a terrible feeling, out in the wilderness and out of control…but it’s not like you can talk someone out of having a seizure: when it happens, it happens.

The best thing to do when someone is having a seizure is to make them as comfortable as possible and make sure their head, neck, and spine are protected. Without muscle control, the movements in a seizure are incredibly strong and erratic; people can do real damage to themselves. Had we been in cell reception, calling 911 would’ve been a priority, but in the woods, we had to make do. In any situation, DO NOT stick something in their mouth. This was common knowledge a few decades ago, the thought being it would help victims avoid snapping their own jaw or biting their tongues off, but the risk for choking is too great. Protect the head, neck, spine, and the individual’s integrity. When a victim experiences a seizure they are unconscious, so it’s not some muscle control that’s lost, its ALL muscle control, including, on occasion, bladder control. If you hear any gurgling or anything that sounds like liquid in the throat, make sure to turn the body over so gravity can help drain fluids from them; airways have to stay open, they cannot do this for themselves.

It took a few, exceedingly long minutes, but eventually, the worst of the seizure seemed to pass. Gator gal returned with the asthma inhaler, and we swapped positions. Wisco moved in to cradle Indianas head while Gator gal tried timing the inhaler squeeze with the few short breaths Indiana was still taking. It took a couple of tries, but she managed to synch two breaths with two inhaler puffs, and Indiana’s heart rate started slowing. It took another excruciatingly long minute for him to regain consciousness, but he did.

The next moments were very quiet, and very awkward.

During the tumult, I didn’t notice that one of our crew leaders had sprinted ahead to get help from the two CFI workers. They arrived within half an hour and continued assessing Indiana while the rest of our team tried collecting what remained of our sanity. Once they cleared Indiana to keep going, we all took turns moving weight from his pack to ours and completed the rest of the hike up to the base camp.

CFI allowed us to use the wall tent they had already set up and asked us to install an electric fence around it. Turns out there was an active bear in the area looking for human food. We spent the next hour installing the fence, setting up our tents, and rearming with our tools for an afternoon of scheduled work. Indiana remained in his tent to try and let his body adjust to the altitude.

Outside the grove of trees where our camp was, there were excellent views up to El Diente, and we enjoyed cutting tread underneath the shadow of the monstrous peak.

El Diente, “The tooth”

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Basic Trail-work Terminology

As the blog continues, I’ll be using a lot of terminologies to describe what trail-workers do. Not all projects require the same skillsets. There are many rock work terms that differ from what we did on El Diente; they will be discussed in future blog posts when applicable to the project parameters. Contrary to popular belief, trail work is not PRIMARILY for ease of travel, although that is an ancillary effect. The biggest threat to trails over time is actually erosion, created from rain, wind, and humans. Many of the structures we built were used to mitigate those effects. Erosion is especially pronounced at higher elevations. Did you know it takes 50 years to create one inch of topsoil in the alpine? That recovery rate is far too slow to handle the constant pressures of wind, water and humans, which is where we come in.

  • Bench Cut: The main cut in a new trail. This cut creates tread and does so in an agreeable angle to an otherwise steeper slope, hence “bench”.
  • Tread: Tread is the walking portion of a trail.
  • Backslope: Obvious when a trail cuts across a slope. The backslope is an angled cut above the tread, used to set the slope back from the trail, thereby preventing the bank from collapsing onto the tread over time.
  • Hinge: The point at which the backslope and tread meet. Synonymous to a hinge between a door and its frame.
  • Pick Mattock: This essential tool is similar to what the ye-olde prospectors used but is not the same tool. One side of the Pick Mattock is tapered to a point (the pick), which allows the user to break up compacted soil easily. The other end of the Mattock is a bit wider (Mattock, or adze end) and can be used to break up larger chunks of soil or to scrape uneven tread down to a better angle. The wider end is also great for smoothing out backslope.
  • Dirtbags: A large, sturdy, canvas bag that is used to haul dirt to a section of eroded trail in need of regrading.
  • Rake: Not the flimsy yard work kind; this bad boy is all metal. Trail building rakes are extremely useful for revegetation efforts and for pulling scree away from trails.
  • Drainage Sheet: The tread, while at less of an angle than existing slopes, is not entirely flat. From the hinge, a good bench cut will angle the tread roughly 5 degrees outward. This is to allow rainwater a chance to drain off the tread in sheets instead of channels, leading into the next point…
  • Inslope/Outslope: The outslope refers to the 5 degree angle on the tread, not enough to twist ankles or feel uncomfortable, but enough to wash the rain off the trail. An Inslope is the opposite, where the edge of the trail is higher than the hinge. In this unfortunate scenario, over time, water pools along the tread, creating channels of erosion that affect the long term usability of the trail.
  • Fall Line: The direction of least gravitational resistance ie. if you dropped a ball on a slope, where would it roll? Determining the fall line is very useful when figuring out how to orient trails. Going directly up the fall line is inviting massive erosion over time as it would be the easiest way for material to move downhill. Sustainable tread almost never goes up or down the fall line if it can be helped.
  • Cross slope: This refers to the existing slope before we planted a trail on it. It’s important to understand the effects of cross slopes on erosion when constructing trail or the quality of the trail will degrade over time.
In the above photo, from left to right you have backslope, hinge and tread. Also visible are Pick Mattocks (yellow handle), Steel Rake (wooden handle), and Dirtbags. Even though Gator Gal is standing on the tread, you can tell it has a slight out-slope to allow water runoff (Drainage sheet). The fall line would run diagonal upper right to lower left ie the path that water would flow during a downpour. Because we’re cutting tread across the slope, the “cross slope” is the angle of the existing slope, which is, again, upper left to lower right. A lot going on isn’t there?
  • Check-step (or Check Dam): When a trail attacks a slope at an unfavorable angle, rain can deposit soil all along its expanse, washing away tread and accelerating erosion. A check-step is a thick section of log, or, in some cases rock, set into the slope, perpendicular to the trail, that breaks up the slope rise. This creates a stair-like design, where the tread between check steps isn’t angled enough to accelerate existing erosion.
An example of check steps, and the “stair-like” design.
  • Reveg: Short for revegetation. In many cases, in order to build sustainable trail, old unsustainable trails need to be closed. Revegetation is the process by which we move existing vegetation (roots and all) into the old trail and set them in ways to promote further growth. With a successful reveg, old trails disappear within a few years.
  • Borrow Pit: A pit dug way off-trail, where soil is taken to regrade existing trail. The borrow pit is dug in an area that does not suffer from excessive erosion, is far from traveled areas, and is always filled in with rocks, sticks, and other natural items to mitigate any animals falling into it.
  • Spade: A shovel with a spade shape, great for starting borrow pits as the slightly tapered end allows for easier ground penetration.
  • Rockbar: An 18 pound rock stick, used primarily in scree and talus for leverage when moving rocks that are hundreds of pounds.
  • Drain: An extra water mitigation feature where a side of the trail in even terrain is blown out and angled down to allow for water to evacuate the tread. Not very useful in steep cross slopes or in rock-fields.
  • Waterbar: Usually positioned below a drain, the water bar is an elevated bump (usually a log larger than the average check step), set at an angle, which forces existing water on the tread to follow the drain off the trail.
  • Apron: The shape of the drain is important. It starts narrow and balloons out into an apron shape to help sheet the water. Without an apron, concentrated water flow will create channels that increase erosion.
  • Braid: This occurs when a massive amount of people hike on a given trail. A braid is a thread of compacted soil, not tied to the original trail, but exists because hikers pass around other hikers or prefer to walk on grass instead of dirt. The problem with braids is that they ruin a wilderness quality and increase erosion. Erosion from trail braiding is much more severe in the alpine as the ecosystem isn’t built to handle large amounts of people. Shutting down braids is a popular trail building task.
  • Turnpike: Sometimes trails travel through flat, wet areas where water has trouble leaving. In this case, building a turnpike may be appropriate. A turnpike is outlined by two long wooden runners, set into the slope with wooden wedges and rebar. Between the logs, various sizes of rocks are set from larger to smaller. The top of the turnpike is filled in with soil. You’ve now created an elevated section of trail, where water can drain through the soil and rocks beneath to keep the tread above dry.
  • Flagging: Usually done by the trail designer or project leads, flagging is literally planting small flags along the eventual trail route. They can be moved as the situation on the ground changes but are there to outline where the trail needs to be and where it will ultimately go.

There are many additional terms but that should getcha brain cookin. I’ll revisit specific concepts in future posts as trail issues arise.

We worked for the rest of the afternoon under the shadow of El Diente, while Indiana recovered in his tent. Still unsure of precisely what caused his medical moment, we were in no rush to put him to work. However, when we returned to the camp to set up for dinner, we were all pleasantly surprised to see him back to his normals self, cracking jokes and sporting a devious grin. His attitude flip did a lot to quell some of our nerves; I mean, one day into our most consequential work project, and we’d already lost one member and nearly another. The sighs of relief were audible.

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Tragedy 3

The next day we woke early, stumbled to the wall tent, did our morning routine (including some group team-building exercises), and tried to get ready for the day. With mountain weather as variable as it was, and the threat of afternoon storms always looming, we woke early to take advantage of the most settled part of the day. It involved resetting our body clocks, but after a few days of adjusting, I found that waking up before the sun rose and falling asleep as it set was a nice routine.

Since SWCC was an introduction to the outdoors for a lot of people, the organization had mule packed in a lot of our supplies, including group food stores like an unholy amount of cliff bars, breakfast foods, powdered milk, coffee, and a host of other items. The dinner meals, lunches, and personal snacks we all had to haul in. Carrying less weight was nice, but the bland oatmeal and weak coffee could’ve been better. I think our CFI coworkers saw my expression and knew immediately what I was thinking. As we all tried to will ourselves awake, I chatted with them briefly.

Red-tail was an outdoorsy girl from the start. Originally from Vermont, she had spent some time living in Thailand. Phish was, unsurprisingly, a Phish fan and went to the multi-day show in Colorado every year. They were trail wizards and had been building for a variety of years. The knowledge they dropped was consequential in cementing my desire to live this kind of life for more than just one summer. More immediately, I got the sense that as project leaders, they knew what needed to be done and could give us all some solid direction: which, in light of our recent challenges, seemed like a really good idea.

Once we were loaded up and ready, we journeyed up beyond tree-line to a section of trail they had started building the year prior. While most of our work would consist of closing down an old trail down lower, it was a nice change to be able to journey above the trees. We worked diligently to clear a path through loose scree, using metal rakes and various tools as best we could.

The section of trail we would work on, in the picture above, marked by orange flagging.

I found myself much more energetic than the previous day. How could anyone not be excited about the alpine? Ridiculous. Anyway, then everything went to hell.

We’d set up along different parts of the slope when the cry came, “Indiana’s down!” I turned back down the trail to see our teammate in the same position he was in yesterday, gasping for breath as his eyes rolled back into his head. Cursing, I scrambled down the slope towards him and did as I did the previous day, putting him in as comfortable a position as possible and making sure to tip him over to dump yellow bile like fluid out of his threat. Gator gal jumped towards Indiana’s pack and freed the inhaler again. This time it took a lot longer to control the seizing. I set a jacket over his midsection while the rest of the squad took turns stabilizing his neck, head, and spine. This episode lasted longer and was scarier than the first one because we were farther from help and Indiana kept making harrowing whimpering noises, even though we couldn’t get him to consciously acknowledge us. We were forced to wait out the worst of the seizing before Gator gal could time some inhaler blasts. Eventually, his eyes rolled back to open, and consciousness returned.

I collapsed back against the slope and looked despondently towards Gator Gal, the rest of my squad, and our CFI mates. Everyone’s faces spoke volumes during those silent moments, and we knew that the situation was now untenable. We had to get Indiana out of here. Pennsylvania and Harvard walked Indiana back down to camp and stayed with him as we tried to salvage the day’s project.

To be honest, even though we did the work, it was hard to stay in the moment because all of my thoughts were bent towards Indiana. Conversations were few and far between until it was time to tool up and call it a day.

Looking back up at the area we were working when Indiana had a second attack.

The following morning, a plan was hatched, and our CFI buds, Red-tail and Phish, walked Indiana back to the trailhead with Harvard. Armed with satellite phones, an SWCC leader would be waiting at the trailhead to take Indiana back to Durango, where they’d run some tests in a local doctor’s office to assess the situation. Boom, another member lost.

While we worked the following seven days as we were supposed to, it was hard to remember much from that hitch, aside from a pervasive somber attitude. The work continued, but we were hamstrung, two members gone within a few days. I felt like one of the rats caught in our sump (a pit we dug, where we dumped excess cooking liquids, soap, and toothpaste). By digging the sump down deep enough, we guaranteed the liquids would be reabsorbed into the soil instead of running down into potential water sources. But it wasn’t fancy, just a sometimes liquid-filled hole. Because of the variety of liquids in the sump, it had a…scent, I guess, not enough for us to smell, but the rats sure did.

Towards the end of our hitch, I remember standing near the sump, brushing my teeth in sheets of rain after another day of work and looking down into the sump, seeing not one but three rat bodies, just…floating there. I think over the course of our five hitches on El Diente the sump murdered dozens of them. A weird reality for a weird set of days. After Indiana’s departure, our SWCC leads (Harvard and Pennsylvania) talked to each of us individually, daily, to ask how we were holding up. I didn’t lie, but I wasn’t happy. I just felt useless, floating belly up in the wilderness like a rat in a sump.

By the time the hitch ended, we’d accomplished good work, but morale had taken a serious hit. I resolved to spend the off hitch forcing myself into a better attitude. We all had to step up, and after going through an abbreviated form of the grieving process, I figured it would do more lasting damage to sink. Naturally, my plan involved getting amongst it.

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Ultimate, Rock Climbing, and Mountaineering

The first thing I did after our hitch ended was head straight for the rec center in Durango to push weights. I’m not a body-builder but the repetitive motions, and the resistance encountered, helped me expel some of my bad attitude. The shower afterward washed all of the remaining crap away, and I left feeling 1000% better. I later found out each member of our squad was doing something similar; whether it was calling family, heading to the bar, or trolling around Durango, we all kind of needed a reset. Mental health, you know?

I met up with the rest of the squad (minus Harvard and Pennsylvania) at Durango Brewing (RIP), and we resolved to tackle each new challenge together. Strength through tragedy. We’d been tested, and the ones remaining would finish the damn season together. It was a good moment, punctuated by mediocre beer and rolled cigarettes, but a turning point for our little group. We handled two medical emergencies and had to say goodbye to two members. What was left was a no BS squad of dirtbags, ready to take it to the mountain.

We all met up with some of the Park Rangers we’d worked with the previous hitch in Mesa Verde the following day and ended up playing ultimate frisbee with them. I’m not usually a huge frisbee fan but being a part of something was enough to distract us from the crappy hitch we’d just had. I even cemented some hiking plans with one of the rangers. After seeing El Diente and the peaks around it, I was very interested in climbing it. With another 4.5 days of break before the next hitch, there was plenty of time to get a good trip in.

The last item on my checklist before embarking on another mountain-escapade was to see Indiana. He had spent the rest of our hitch loafing around Durango and had agreed to go rock climbing with Hawk (from a different SWCC crew) and a few others near the town. I figured it would be nice to see him, get his story and ask the inevitable question of “whatcha gonna do now?”

Me, in the circle.

After climbing a few routes, I got the full story. Indiana had a heart condition where one of his valves didn’t close all the way. He had also never been at elevations as high as we were operating before. Indiana is, as a state, quite low, and he hadn’t spent much time outside it. Compounding those two factors was persistent asthma. When combined, they produced the seizing and loss of consciousness we’d seen. There was no way to check for that in the backcountry, and he was honestly surprised no previous doctor had told him about it. He had made the tough choice to call it quits. There was simply no way to tell if he would ever acclimatize and the risk for another attack was far too great. We chatted and reminisced about the good times over the past three weeks, but the following day, I was off to climb some 14ers, and Indiana was on his way home.

The San Miguels

El Diente, Mt. Wilson, and Wilson Peak are part of a subrange of mountains known as the San Miguels. They are part of the larger San Juan Range but disconnected from them by the area around Telluride. Wilson Peak is especially prominent from the town and is the summit that appears on Coors beer cans. During the middle and end of the previous hitch, in order to fend off boredom and the somberness of our reduced team, I asked if our CFI mates had any books with them. Turns out, they’d brought a small library, knowing they’d be fixing El Diente all summer long. One of the books was a copy of Colorado’s 14ers: From Hikes to Climbs, by Gerry Roach. It had long been the de-facto resource for climbing all the peaks over 14,000 feet in the state. Eventually, his books would have to compete with excellent route sites like 14ers.com, but out in the wild, internet was suspiciously lacking, so the book was what I had to entertain myself with. Naturally, this led to a slow epiphany. I’d already done two 14ers, might as well do all of them in the San Juans. The epiphany hadn’t quite made it to, “might as well do all of them in the state”, but the wheels were turning inevitably in that direction.

I settled on the trio near our worksite because, after nine days of staring up at El Diente, and knowing there were two other mountains behind it, I was properly motivated. I met my National Park ranger friend, let’s call him Big Bend (he was straight outta west TX), at the trailhead for our hike. I figured the best way to attack the San Miguels from the south was via a campsite at Navajo Lake, situated in a high cirque between the three. So that’s what we did.

The Forest Service often has cooperative grazing contracts with local farmers and apparently Sheepherders.
Found these guys mean mugging us on the way to Navajo Lake.
Navajo Lake and Gladstone Peak behind.

We set up camp in between brief rainstorms and settled in. Do I find it strange that Mount Wilson and Wilson Peak are two separate mountains with similar names that are very close to one another? Yes. But that wasn’t enough of a concern to stop me from scrambling up them. We drifted off into restful sleep and woke up at the butt-crack of dawn to tackle our first target. Wilson Peak is a solid Class 3 scramble over loose rocks. It is a fun and challenging scramble, briefly becoming the toughest 14er I’d climbed yet. That title would fall to Mount Wilson the following day, as it would become my first Class 4 mountain climb.

Climbing up to Rock of Ages Saddle. Gladstone Peak center left, the massive Mt. Wilson to the right.
Looking east to the namesake of the wilderness areas, The Lizard Head (ridge right).
Let it be known that June 2015 was an especially rainy month for the San Juan high country. Had to pause numerous times during our ascent to let the weather clear.
Looking back to Mt. Wilson (left) and El Diente (right). Prominence purists would say El Diente is not an official 14er but, it’s .75 miles from Wilson via a gnarly Class 4 traverse, so it certainly counts for me.
Getting to the top of Wilson Pk. is no joke
Nice view of one of the final pushes to the summit ridge. The rock was wet and loose.
The summit of Wilson Peak!
Making our way back to Rock of Ages Saddle
Heading back to Navajo Lake.
Camp!

The next day we had high hopes of tagging Mt. Wilson and completing the Wilson-Diente traverse, one of 4 “Classic” 14er traverses as Gerry Roach put it. The weather conspired against us in the end, but we did manage to summit Mt. Wilson, and I would come back to hit the traverse twice during the following weeks.

Starts off fairly straightforward…
then, it quickly steepens as you perform an ascending traverse over multiple gullies.
Looking east toward the distinctive summit of Gladstone.
Strange cloud fingers over Wilson Pk. where we stood the day before.
The summit of Mt. Wilson after a series of exposed Class 4 moves to get onto the summit block. Looking towards El Diente and the traverse between them.

Once we got back down to camp, we packed up and moseyed back to the car. The whole Lizard Head Wilderness is wonderful and wild, especially on it’s less traveled western side. Repeat visits were already in the works before I’d even left the trailhead.

Looking back to El Diente as we descend to the car. I would obviously be coming back to summit it soon!

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Final Thoughts

Before saddling up for our next hitch, I found a quiet spot at Durango Joe’s coffee and thought about all the things that had happened since leaving home. Despite the world’s best efforts to knock me down, I kept getting back up again. Standing despondently in the rain, looking at a couple bloated rat corpses was the closest I got to questioning whether or not that was a sane thing to do, but objectively, it was. Sometimes, life just sucks, but it doesn’t mean you should stop trying.

Since leaving the East Coast, I’d burned through a wad of cash on a road trip to “find myself,” taken a job I barely understood, fallen off of multiple mountains, experienced two medical crises, and watched two team members disappear from the ranks. Somewhere along that timeline, I hardened up, not like I really had a choice.

A true test of character is how we understand and respond to adverse situations in our lives. Do we project, throwing blame in every direction, hoping one will stick? Or do we do everything in our power to push ourselves forward, knowing we’ve only got one life to live, and, well dammit, it should be for living? Failure and tragedy make us stronger, but only if we learn from those situations. That doesn’t mean you can’t fail forward. Hell, I think up until this point all I’d been doing was failing forward, but in those moments of profound uncertainty, there is also a strange beauty. Tested, and tested, and tested, yet, still standing. Did I think more tests were coming my way? Yup. Was I ready for them? Nope. Was I going to keep trying? Until I had nothing left. For someone like me, whose biggest fear is shutting myself off from the world and letting apathy poke holes in my brain, even failure meant I had done something worth trying.

I keep thinking of a phrase that feels applicable to the rollercoaster of life:

This too shall pass.

The good times are good because they won’t last forever, so enjoy them while you can, but the bad times don’t go on for an eternity either. If it’s bad now, it won’t be forever. Keep your chin up; nothing really stays the same.

The great human experiment would be awfully boring if none of us did anything. So, onward!

Part 4: The Great West Coast (May 3-May 15, 2015)

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I looked back at my friend and frowned, suddenly very aware of what I had been asking. Jumping into the frigid North Pacific SEEMED like a good idea when I’d first proposed it, but now, on a rock fifteen feet above the deep, I was encountering some internal resistance. What would motivate such a heinous assault on common sense, you may ask? Why the uncommon nature of the situation, of course! Where I was standing, in Smuggler Cove Marine Provincial Park on the Gold Coast of remote British Columbia, was the northernmost part of my entire road trip! Such a geographic achievement had to be celebrated, and what better way than to hurl myself into the ocean?

Looking at the maps below, you can see how far I’d gone, a sizable achievement on its own. Every subsequent destination on my trip after Smuggler Cove would be to the south and, eventually, back east to Colorado. There was still a lot of road left to drive, but I was feeling high on myself for getting this far and wanted to be dramatic about it.

Big overview.
Zoomed in. Way out there, eh?

Ok, Timo, you can do this, I tried telling myself. You can’t let your fans down. And when I say “fans,” I mean my one bored friend and a few lumpy starfish ie. the adoring masses.

Janice, Harold and Lawrence, friends for life.

Finally, after some extensive confidence building, I managed to jump into the water, remembering to tuck my feet in, which seemed super important at the time.

Look at that form! IMMACULATE

The water was absolutely FREEZING, but I was glad I did something to mark the occasion, and after drying off, my friend and I headed back to her home. I had known she’d moved to this remote slice of Canada years before and had been interested in visiting, but living between Georgia and North Carolina never really gave me the excuse to go this far northwest. Once I began constructing my elaborate road trip, I knew I wanted the Gold Coast to be a part of it.

The Gold Coast is a gem of an area, secluded and wild. In true Canadian fashion, while I didn’t meet too many of the locals, the ones I did were overwhelmingly friendly. There was no polarizing political banter and no generational dumping, only a mild curiosity stemming mostly from sighting a Subaru with Georgia license plates, casually driving through remote Canada.

Typical scene in Smuggler Cove

I spent the evening after my ocean plunge at a party hosted by my friend at her house/hippy commune. The collection of people I met there was amazing. There were wailing, dreaded, half-naked people on the roof, while a butch squad sat by the fire, telling stories of their lumberjack lives. In the driveway were truck-people with decadent beards, standing next to their rigs all night with such discipline you’d think they were guarding the Pope himself. And back in the house, preppy, popped-collar university students were inhaling beer as if their existence depended on it. Thoroughly amused and intrigued by the spectacle of it all, I spent the better part of the evening engaged in colorful conversations and casually avoiding repeated calls for “free love.” It was like my own little Canadian Woodstock and obviously not representative of all the folks on the Gold Coast, just what I happened to observe. Not wanting to overstay my welcome, I grabbed lunch with the main group the following day, said my goodbyes, and pointed the Subaru south.

Western British Columbia, if you’re unaware, is like North American Norway. Once you travel north from Vancouver, the Coast Range comes down to the kiss the shoreline and splits into hundreds of fjords. Many secluded sections of land, hemmed in by steep, glaciated mountains on one side and the deep Pacific Ocean on the other, only have access to civilization via ferries. In order to get to/from the Gold Coast, you need to take one and not just any ferry, but one of the behemoths pictured below.

Standing on the top deck of the ferry as it took me across Howe Sound, it felt more like Scandinavia than Canada.

Coast Range
Looking northwest towards Squamish and eventually, Whistler

By midday, I was back off the ferry and driving towards Vancouver, stopping briefly by Cypress ski resort to grab some views of Western Canada’s largest city.

Looking south

I was a bit sad that I couldn’t spend more time in Vancouver, but I had an agenda and a budget to stick to, so I bid adieu to B.C. and reentered the States. As luck or fate would have it, over the next three years, I would end up spending more than three months in Vancouver and its surrounding environs. Many Canadian adventures were still to be had, I just didn’t know it at the time.

Impressed by my little slice of British Columbia, I began my southern drive down the West Coast, looking for exciting things to do and places to see along the way.

As you’ve hopefully picked up through my various blog posts, I LOVE hiking, so, naturally, my first goal was to get some hiking in. Knowing I was going to be climbing and trail building throughout the Colorado Rockies starting in June, I figured I should get a taste of one of the big West Coast ranges beforehand. While there are actually quite a few ranges and subranges between Washington, Oregon, and California (Trinity Alps, Wallowas, Olympic Mts. etc.), the two monster ones are the Cascades and the Sierra, both impressive and wildly different.

The Sierra is a young range with giant slabs of inspiring granite and rock-faces that defy gravity, such as El Cap or Half-dome in Yellowstone National Park. The Cascades, by contrast, consist of a series of lower parallel ridges augmented by a set of monstrous Volcanos, perhaps the most famous one being Mt. St. Helens, which blew its top in a widely analyzed eruption in 1980 (click here for a quick video on it). Perhaps predictably, St. Helens was the one I ended up climbing. Now, it wasn’t because I had a date with death, but St. Helens is quite close to the I-5 highway corridor I was blasting down, very visible from the Portland suburbs, and doesn’t require advanced mountaineering gear to climb. Okie Dokie then. The one requirement, however, was to obtain a permit ahead of time, which I had done during my initial road trip planning phase.

Before I climbed, I figured I would need to get some better gear, so I stopped in Portland at an outdoor gear shop, asked for the cheapest, crappiest pair of crampons, and 50$ later, walked away with an old pair of Stubai’s the shop wasn’t initially aware they even had in stock. 

These old clunkers are not at all like the ones gear shops usually push on potential clients, but I must’ve smelled like cheap college kid because the guy in the shop took one look at me and figured I couldn’t possibly afford anything nicer. I mean…he wasn’t wrong, but I sure got my money’s worth because as I’m typing this years later, I still have and still use the same pair of crampons. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Thanks for coming to my TED talk, follow me for more financial advice.

Think About It Reaction GIF by Identity

Armed with a vague knowledge of what to do and an eagerness to prove myself, I armored up and headed for the trailhead. My first impression of St. Helens was that it looked like a cute frosted covered gumdrop.

Aw

My second impression when I left the trailhead and began climbing was a wee bit different. St. Helens and the Cascade volcanos are BIG!

Mhm, big.

And while the climb was really quite tame compared to future endeavors, it demanded my full attention and respect throughout.

During the climb, I discovered a few things.

1) I was very out of shape

Noob.

2) Cascade Volcanos are not just tall, but very girthy as well.

Looking towards Mt. Adams.

3) A more accurate measure of effort is not total elevation, but prominence, as in, how high is the thing from its base as opposed to sea level. St. Helens is over 8000 feet tall from sea level, but you climb 4500 feet of it, which is substantial as far as single day efforts go.

Getting up to the rim.

4) I could very clearly see evidence of where Lahars ran down the slope due to the 1980 eruption, which was quite cool.

Just imagine water and mud absolutely sprinting down the side of this thing!

5) The mountain caldera is still smoking and gave me the distinct impression of being “alive.”

The “not cloud” is, in fact, smoke. So…there’s that.
Expert Artist Rendition of where the full Caldera rim used to be. As you can see, a TON of mountain was destroyed in the blast, the entire north side is gone.

6) NEVER step to the edge of a Cornice, many people die every year from doing that. A cornice is an overhung piece of snow that forms during winter. In the spring, the warming temperature destabilizes the Cornice. Any excess pressure on the top and the whole thing breaks off, taking everything down with it. Big no no.

The top of the Volcano rim with a dangerous Cornice.
Me and my Stubais, a safe 10 feet from the edge because death was not on my agenda for the day.

Thoroughly licked by the effort, I limped back down to safety, catching glimpses of a crazy mountain dude who damn near ran up the whole thing with a pair of skis on his back and skied down ahead of me. At the time, I chuckled to myself, thinking he was out of his mind. Little did I know that only two years later, I’d be doing the same thing down some mountains in Colorado.

…Hindsight is very strange. In my opinion, the more of declarative statements you make (I will NEVER, or I will ALWAY etc.) the harder circumstance seems to laugh at you in the end. Don’t tempt the gods with a good time, they are always down for a laugh.

While not even close to the top of the Cascade range, St. Helens was a great test piece and gave me the confidence to try other mountains that I may have otherwise been unwilling to try. Box checked, stoke level high.

YES Hockey GIF - YES Hockey Baby GIFs

That evening, I stopped back in Portland to stay at my dad’s best friend’s house.

Portland, Oregon…has a reputation. Not all of the city embraces the reputation, just like not ALL of the people at the hippy commune on the Gold Coast were eating drugs off of a plate a la carte, but many were, and in Portland, many embrace the reputation. A substantial part of the Portland appeal is counterculture. Another northwest city, Seattle, was the center of counterculture in the early ’90s with the Grunge movement, so it isn’t like counterculture is a one-off idea for the region. However, to compare Seattle to Portland would be a serious, serious mistake. To illustrate the Portland stereotype, please watch the following video (click here).

Again, this is NOT a universal truth, but hilarious and applicable in a lot of ways. That stereotype was evident on my wanderings through the city. However, the family I stayed with had been in Portland for decades, predating the current hipster craze, so I didn’t really catch the vibe until the day after I arrived. 

Something else I noticed about Portland was that the homeless population is substantial, and a lot of them are MEAN. I gave a homeless guy 5$, and he looked at me angrily and yelled, “THAT IT?!” I was…surprised, and also out of pocket change, so I told him I didn’t have anymore and…well, he didn’t like that and started coming at me. Luckily, as soon as he stood up, he tripped over an untied shoelace, allowing me to fade behind a large group of people, but I was very unprepared for that kind of encounter. Now, don’t read too much into it, I always give when I am able and have a lot of qualms with how capitalism treats the downtrodden, but I guess I just wasn’t expecting to be the target of ire AFTER I’d given what I had, just a weird situation all around.

Despite the hipsters and angry homeless guys, I had a blast in Portland and was hosted by wonderful people, so all in all, I still say the city came out on top in the impression category (I particularly enjoyed Deschutes Brewery and Mt. Tabor Park). I’ve been back a few times, and it is entirely charming in its own way, just do a little research before you show up and figure out which areas you need to avoid.

During one of my days in Portland, I took a quick detour to the Columbia River Gorge, another impressive geographic area. The Columbia River originates in Canada, runs through the state of Washington, and eventually forms the border between Washington and Oregon on its way to the Pacific. What’s fascinating about it is that the river runs right through the formidable Cascades, creating miles upon miles of outdoor beauty. I ended up climbing Beacon Rock, a pinnacle on the edge of the river with a path built into the side of it. The whole gorge area is quite pretty and worth multiple exploration days.

Excellent day, excellent views.

I stayed in Portland one more night before packing it in and heading out to the famed Oregon Coast. I had previously driven along the Southern California coastline with my family a few years prior, but Oregon’s shoreline remained a mystery, so off I went.

Along the way to Cannon Beach, the closest stretch of sand to Portland, I hiked up Saddle Mountain in the fog and rain. While I wasn’t afforded many views once I hiked into the cloud, it still offered a glimpse into the type of ecosystem common along the northwestern part of the US, between the Cascades and the coast.

After finally attaining the coast, I decided to once again wander into the water. It was just as cold as it felt in Canada. I…I don’t know what I was expecting.

From Cannon Beach, I once again turned the Subaru south and drove a long, uninterrupted stretch of the dramatic Oregon Coast Highway. Like the Gold Coast, many of the coastal areas here felt as if they existed entirely in their own world. While Oregon isn’t necessarily known as a populous state, even the relatively bustling cities of Portland, Salem, and Eugene felt as far away as the dark side of the moon. One of the highlights was taking a stroll through Oswald State Park, where a series of showy bluffs rose dramatically from the reaches of the Pacific, offering fantastic views.

Gorgeous!
Magnificent

It was hard not to fall in love with the coast. It felt unrestrained and ancient, with people still living in harmony with the land. While a lot of the American West still abides by that rule, it is steadily disappearing as cities increase in size and once untouched slices of paradise become the next “must-own” destination.

After driving along as much coast as I could handle, I reluctantly headed back east to Eugene to stay in a cheap hostel. The rain returned with a vengeance, but the hostel was warm, friendly, and close to a few breweries. Craving a beer after the visual overload of the coast, I slogged through the rain and into an empty Ninkasi Brewing, had an hour-long chat with one of the head brewers, and left with free beer and an arm full of merchandise. It was the second time this trip a brewery had taken it upon themselves to reach out to me, which I thought was very cool. Ninkasi and Lagunitas, good places, good people; check them out!

Instead of heading back to the coast right away, I decided to go check out Crater Lake National Park. Continuing the Cascade Volcano theme, the centerpiece of the park is a picturesque high-elevation lake formed by the collapse of an old volcano. What remains is a beautiful and pristine sub-alpine environment. Crater Lake is also disturbingly deep, “cascading” down to a depth of 1949 feet, making it the deepest lake in the US. 

The rain that had started on my drive from Eugene, quickly turned to snow when I reached the edge of the lake. Although I managed to hike around for a few hours, the iconic views were mostly hidden by a thick wall of clouds. I did manage to snag a few shots, and despite the clouds, could see the shape of the lake. While it wasn’t the best day to be out, any chance to experience iconic locations is a chance worth taking. Sometimes, you just have to work with what the weather gives you.

Crater Lake and it’s mesmerizing blue water.

After Crater Lake, I floored it south into California, having booked a tent site from a camper-van-living-couple near the second tallest Cascade Volcano (behind Ranier) Mt. Shasta. The environment became steadily drier as I drove to within sight of the volcano and set up shop.

Shasta, and a much drier climate than Oregon, Washington and British Columbia.

As eager as ever to keep climbing, I gave Lassen Pk. a go (the southernmost Cascade Volcano) but had to turn around as the entrance to the area was closed due to avalanche danger. Resolving to return to the coast, I made my way to the Northern California shore while listening to the always excellent podcast Hardcore History by Dan Carlin. 

Like the Oregon Coast, the Northern California Coast (as in between Oregon and SF) has a lost world type feeling, cemented by crisp natural beauty and sleepy seaside towns like Arcata, where I spent an evening. I was also reintroduced to the Marine Layer, a drunken piece of fog that stumbles into the California shoreline almost every morning to say howdy doody before retreating back to its oceanic staging area.

Go home Marine Layer

Oh, here’s a bird.

The further south I drove, the less the Marine Layer seemed to be impacting the land until I finally burst out of the fog in Sonoma County and enjoyed the last bit of the windy road before settling into my campsite at Wrights Beach Campground. The last leg of the drive was wonderful, the temperature soared back up into the 70’s, the smell of salty seawater wafted through the Subaru, the sun was out, and I drove at my own pace, free of traffic and inclement weather. Utter bliss.

Of all the airbnb’s, campsites, and friends I stayed with, that evening on the sand in Sonoma County was the only beachside overnight I’d managed to snag, and it was a special one. Once my tent was set up, I walked all of twenty feet to the start of the beach and claimed a spot for myself, watching the surf smash against the sand and the sun dip towards the horizon. Having already jumped into the ocean in Canada and Oregon, I knew I’d have to wade in here as well. As they say, third times the charm, right? Nope, not even close; it was still freezing. However, unlike the previous two jumps, I had a warm evening, a six-pack of beer, and time to relax.

Ah, the ocean.

I spent the sunset hours staring over the ocean’s expanse and thinking back on the past two weeks of my trip. From Canada down to my campsite (and with all my mountain side-trips counted) I’d logged another 1880 miles. To date, my total distance driven for the trip was just shy of 6,000 miles. That is a ton of driving! Feeling quite accomplished, I lay against some driftwood and watched the sun go down while sipping my beer. With three Pacific coast plunges under my belt, I felt like I’d given this section of the trip some poetic continuity. Next up was a stay in San Francisco with my aunt, a swing by Lake Tahoe, a lonesome drive through Nevada to Great Basin National Park, a dry haul through Utah, and eventually a hike up my first 14,000 foot mountain outside of Ouray, Colorado. But at the moment, all I could do was stare at the ocean, and let the sound of the waves clear the remaining cobwebs from my brain.

Since the start of the road trip, despite all of the wonderful things I’d seen and done, a nagging voice in my head kept questioning whether or not this was a good idea. I had completely abandoned my former life in order to go on a two month road trip to “find myself” and pursue a career in trail building. Saying it out loud didn’t really help, what if I had made a mistake? What if I couldn’t sustain a new career in Colorado? While these had always been risks, every day I spent driving closer to my ultimate destination brought those risks more into focus. Would I finally be able to make something out of myself at the end of the trip? What I really needed was a moment of clarity. A moment where the angel on my shoulder finally took down the devil on the other one, and I could fully embrace the situation I’d put myself in. On the beach in Sonoma, sipping my Lagunitas, I finally got it.

It isn’t like the movies. Clarity isn’t Clark Kent walking into a phone booth and emerging as Superman, knowing without a doubt who he is and what he needs to do. For me, it was subtle. There was a comfortable fuzzy feeling in my stomach, a happy bubbling, which may have been the beer or the sun warming my body; the difference was, I stopped analyzing it. I felt good and sitting there watching the waves, I kind of forgot to question it. I just knew that of all the places in the world I could’ve been, this one was pretty nice and I was lucky to be there. To be calm inside your own skin is rare, especially for those of us riddled with anxiety, which is probably why I remember that evening so well. I was calm. When this trip finished, I would be starting a brand new life, and it was finally starting to feel like a really good decision. Inhale possibility, exhale anxiety. Cheers.

Part 3: Welcome to the West 4/20-5/2 2015

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“So, let me see if I understand this,” the barkeep said, eyeballing me skeptically. “You’re 24 years old, you ain’t married and you ain’t just got outta jail, and you’re just…driving ’round the country?”

            I’d been in Omaha less than an hour and I already felt like a pariah.

           I tried to calmly explain my tentative plans about the future and how I was making an effort to stop in places I traveled through to add to the experience of my road trip. The reaction from the bartender was mixed at best.

           “Yeah, but why are you here? Nobody comes to Omaha that ain’t born here or stuck here,” she said as she tried to pour me another beer. But like the first attempt, this one was a total disaster from start to finish, and I was handed a glass of about 85% foam. The frustration must’ve been evident on my face because, at long last, she relinquished her line of CIA-style questioning and accepted the fact that I was probably just a weirdo.

Rock Bottom, Omaha’s self deprecating brewery (yes, I realize it is a chain)

           I guess I really hadn’t anticipated what other people might think of my modern manifest destiny. My friends and family had been supportive of the idea, but in Nebraska, I might as well have been speaking Yiddish. Wasting gas on a thinly veiled mission to “find myself,” was not finding much of an audience here, so I drank the 15% of my glass that had beer in it and got back on the highway. What a strange place.

           Since leaving Chicago, I had rolled across the Mississippi River, stopped briefly in Des Moines, and continued churning across the low plains until my awkward encounter in Omaha. For the most part, the Great Plains had, not surprisingly, been rather plain, though I did think Des Moines was quite pretty. Geographically, the occasional fold of land or river was as exciting as the region could muster, so it did feel good, five hours after Omaha, to finally cross into the centennial state.

Nebraskan road side wisdom

           It wasn’t really the state crossing or the mileage markers that convinced me I must be getting close; it was the air. One of the things I had found in my research of Colorado was how high and dry the state is. Despite its hundreds of inches of snow a year, most of the state is in a semi-arid climate at best. So, once I felt the moisture flee my lips until they were just dry husks of skin, and blood began pouring out of both nostrils simultaneously, did I finally feel like I was getting close.

           My goal was to get to Denver, the capital and largest city in Colorado. The city has a great atmosphere, as I was to discover, but its location is also very telling. The city is nestled up against the front range of the Rockies but still technically in the plains below it. It’s as if those first frontier miners, traveling in their rickety old wagons and riddled with dysentery, took one look up at the formidable mountains and instead of declaring “There’s gold in them there hills!” settled for, “Nope, there’s probably gold down here somewhere.” As history can verify, it turned out there was, and that’s how the city started.

Central Denver (2015)

My destination was my friend Allison Johnston’s place in Lakewood, a western suburb of the city. I didn’t have an agenda or list of things to do when I got to Denver but I figured the area could hold my interest for a day or two. I ended up spending nearly a week in the mile-high city and it definitely left an impression.

Looking down at Denver from the first big line of ridges to the West.

           The first night I arrived, I wound up at a local bar with a ridiculous variety of craft beer. In fact (at the time), Colorado had the second most craft breweries in the US behind California and considering there is a population gap of 34 million people, that’s an impressive feat. 5.6 million Coloradans can choose from a dizzying 180+ breweries; Colorado does beer well. Allison met me at the bar, and we caught up before heading back to her family’s place. Allison, like a proper adult, had a job, and since I was in the midst of my road trip of discovery, I used her family’s place as a launchpad for day adventures while she worked.

andy samberg im an adult GIF

           Getting hikes in was a priority, so over the next few days, I made my way to the front range foothills to get some elevation at Green Mountain, White Ranch Open Space, and Mt. Sanitas, which was just outside of Boulder. On the nights when Allison was off work, we’d venture into Denver. The first night, we visited Voodoo Comedy Playhouse and watched an immersive improv comedy group, and when I say immersive, what I mean is that at one point one of the comedians took his shirt off and started gyrating through the crowd. I had gone in expecting nothing and came out smiling from ear to ear. If you’re in the area, I would recommend a visit.

           One of the more memorable evenings was being able to take the light rail into downtown to see a Rockies game in the highest professional baseball stadium in the US. Watching the sunset behind the formidable line of mountains to our West was brilliant. I’m not a huge fan of baseball, but the position of the stadium, looking towards the mountainous skyline, helped elevate the experience. 

sarcastic well done GIF by CBC

ANYWAY, while Allison and her friends were staring at the game, I was staring at the horizon. It was hard not to marvel at how big the sky felt out here, vast and unending. While the Great Plains had given me that expansive feeling as well, with the mountains visible for scale, I was able to really appreciate how immense the land was out West. Nothing like a road trip to make you appreciate how dang big the U.S. is.

…great way to close a day

While I would’ve liked to stay and explore the area more, I reckoned that with my eventual move to Durango, I’d have plenty of time to explore this state in the not too distant future. Five days into my stay, I began to yearn for the open road and committed to pack up and continue my adventure. The next stop was Estes Park at the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.

It was warming up across most of the continental US as April continued churning forward, but Estes Park had evidently forgotten about this, so as I drove up the clouded canyons towards town, I found fresh snow!

After playing in it for a while, I ventured into Estes Park proper and was surprised to see elk casually hanging about. Unbeknownst to me, Estes Park sports a huge elk population, and they are, for all intents and purposes, locals. Seeing those Elk up close was a reminder of how large the wildlife can be out west. Some of these guys were just about as tall as my Subaru!

           The weather began to close in before long, and I decided to get lower in elevation before the snow overnight forced me to stay. The drive down through Big Thompson canyon was windy and steep, a gnarly ride with craggy rock faces looming over both sides of the road after every turn. While it was hard to peel my eyes from the road, during one straight section, I glanced up at the cliffs above and spotted bighorn sheep! I couldn’t stop for fear of creating a car pileup behind me, but there was a whole herd, maybe 30 in total. They were hanging out on steep and rocky terrain above the curves of the road, silently judging all the cars below. I managed to snag a couple of pictures before continuing on.

…Big horn sheep!

           The weather only began clearing once I had driven into Wyoming and started heading west on highway 80. I could still see the snow clouds lingering to the south, but it was dry as I rolled past Vedauwoo, a prominent rock climbing area, and over a lower point of the Continental Divide.

           Wyoming is a geographically interesting state. It’s high up in elevation, but a lot of the state is desolate, with a few pockets of mountain glory. Some of the better-known areas include the Wind River Range, Yellowstone National Park, and the Grand Tetons. Unfortunately, the part I was driving through was just high and dry, not a whole lot else out there. By the time I finally pulled off I-80 and headed towards Jackson Hole, the sun had gone down, and I made the rest of the drive in the dark, wondering what the rest of Wyoming looked like.

Wyoming Sunsets

           My insistence on driving the rest of the distance that night was because I’d rented an Airbnb for two nights on the Idaho side of the Tetons in a HuuUGe remodeled ranch house. The house was owned by a retired horse rancher who had come back to her native corner of Idaho. The following morning, after a lovely breakfast and conversation, I heaved myself back into the car and headed towards the Grand Tetons National Park. Between the Tetons and Yellowstone, northwest Wyoming has some of the most stunning mountain terrain I’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting. The Teton range, in particular, is one of the most picturesque mountain ranges in the Western United States, drawing millions of visitors a year to its rocky reaches.

Grand Teton Peak

           Because it was early season, the road connecting the Tetons to Yellowstone was still buried under snow, but I spent the day staring in awe at Mt. Moran and Grand Teton Peak, shooting up from the Snake River like silent sentinels. Early season visitation has both pros and cons, the biggest con being the road and trail closures due to snow. The biggest pro, however, is the solitude. Not many people come out early to the Western Parks, so I had a lot of the park to myself. Though that isn’t an entirely true statement, I had to share the views and open trails with a serious abundance of elk. They were everywhere and not afraid of me.

Elk!

           Strapping snowshoes on, I ventured out to climb Signal Mountain from the shores of Jackson Lake. In the summer, there is a road to the summit, but with everything closed down, I ventured out into the snowy scape, accompanied only by my thoughts. By the time I returned to my car after a satisfying and successful summit, the sun was beginning to set. I drove out further around the Lake and found a pull-off along the road where I could watch the sun descend behind the mountains. It was a very surreal moment and one that I can still feel as I type this almost years later.

the Tetons: Grant Teton (L), Mt. Moran (R)

           The next day I was off to Yellowstone, through southeast Idaho, which gave me this cool view of the backside of the Tetons.

After a couple of hours of driving, I arrived at the Western entrance to the park and was no more than twenty minutes into the park itself when the Subaru became surrounded by wild Bison. What magnificent creatures!

Bison!

Though, seeing them reminded me of how close we came to losing them entirely. In fact, the Bison of Yellowstone are one of the only herds of wild American Bison that weren’t hunted to extinction in the late 19th-Century.

           Ultimately, I think the story of the wild Bison is emblematic of America’s historically convoluted relationship with nature. First, we go in guns blazing, killing, and eventually running out of the resource entirely. Then, we feel regret for killing all the wild (insert animal type whose habitat we have constricted or decimated). Then, through science and conservation, we bring back the (insert animal type), and finally, we forget that we killed them all in the first place. Lather, rinse, repeat? A pessimist could make a fairly compelling argument that we haven’t really learned anything at all, and instead, just keep covering up our mistakes. At least for the time being, animals such as the American Bison and the Bald Eagle have entered our societal subconscious as crucial to “American Heritage,” so they are offered more protections than other animals, but that doesn’t bode especially well for animals such as the passenger pigeon, which we killed off entirely by the early 20th century.

         I think in a lot of ways, the National Parks allow us to hold a mirror up to our own understanding (or lack thereof) of nature and how we as a species fit into the natural design of the world. For some, a visit can become an almost spiritual experience, where the symbiotic relationship between species is on full display. Some National Parks, however, have to contend with millions of visitors a year, and sadly, many of those people do not care about the delicate natural balance that the Parks represent. Yellowstone is in many ways the epicenter of the US national park complex and, as such, appears to attract a stunning amount of stupid people.

While I didn’t personally experience gross levels of idiocy during my exploration of the park, one needs only to turn to the internet to find examples. For some reason, Yellowstone just appears to be a magnet for imbeciles. From tourists putting animals into their cars to chasing bison to pissing off bears, to stepping into off-limits areas like geysers, people continue to impress with their complete lack of awareness. Seeing that type of behavior makes you wonder how on earth we ended up at the top of the food chain…but I digress.

           For those who come out to genuinely enjoy the parks, Yellowstone offers a dizzying amount of terrain to help people find their spiritual moments. It has everything: wild animals (including the bison and reintroduced wolf), thundering waterfalls, mountains, hundreds of miles of uninterrupted wilderness, lakes, and the world-famous geysers.

Even more interesting, or terrifying depending on how you look at it, is the geology of the area. More than half of the national park lies atop the Yellowstone caldera or supervolcano. A little more than six hundred and forty thousand years ago, the last of three eruptions occurred, spewing ash as far as Mississippi and covering the intermountain west. Scientists suspect it’ll be another few hundred thousand years before a subsequent eruption, but the land is definitely alive, epitomized by the geysers themselves, which are essentially pressure release valves blowing out scalding hot water. 

Yellowstone falls

           When the day finally closed, I had seen bison, geysers, Yellowstone falls, climbed Bunsen Peak, and managed to set up my tent at a developed campsite by Mammoth Springs. Yellowstone is a national treasure, and I hope collectively, people continue to appreciate how crucial these areas are to biodiversity and our understanding of the environment.

Looking towards Static Peak from Bunsen Peak trail

The next morning, satisfied with my visit to Yellowstone, I soldiered on, driving into Montana to continue my transformative pilgrimage.

           Montana, like Wyoming and Colorado before it, was awesome. From the views of the Beartooth and Absaroka Ranges to the headwaters of the Missouri river to the funky college town of Missoula, Montana exceeded expectations. I confess I didn’t spend much time there, busting through the state with a small stop to climb the M outside Missoula, but I logged away the memory of the drive and vowed to return to explore the state properly. There are so many things to do in the rocky mountain states that if you’re a tree hugger like me, it’s worth splitting it up into multiple adventures, to really give an area the appropriate amount of attention it deserves.

Marvelous Montana

           The surprise of the day was Northern Idaho, that skinny panhandle section on the map. After a long crossing through the Bitterroot Mountains, I ended up in Coeur D’Alene, a fun town on the banks of a giant lake of the same name and ringed by steep hills. I took a detour to explore the area around the lake, and it was absolutely breathtaking. The foliage was thick and a deep shade of green, pockets of snow still hiding beneath the canopy of the denser areas. I hadn’t expected much from this small part of Idaho, which is more easily accessible from Canada than from Boise (the state capital), but it was surprisingly beautiful.   

I spent the night in another AirBnB in Spokane Washington, driving the following day across one of the most barren parts of the states I’d seen so far, comparable to the Mojave in Southern California. I did NOT expect Washington to be that dry! It’s really only that sliver of land between the Cascades and the Pacific Ocean that gets 90% of the rainy Northwestern stereotype. As expected, once I crossed the Cascades it started raining and continued to do so as I blasted through Seattle and up the 5 past Bellingham. By the time it stopped raining, I had reached the Canadian border, bound for my most northerly destination: The Gold Coast, British Columbia.

As I sat in my car at the border crossing, waiting for my turn in line, I thought about what the barkeep had asked me way back in Omaha, “why are you here?”

…I guess it had seemed like a legitimate question at the time, but this road trip had morphed into something beyond a simple explanation to me. The roar of the car engine, the ability to be my own captain, and the freedom to set my own course were things I was finding to be incredibly inspirational. I was drunk with choices, and I wanted to see as much as I could. Logically, I’m sure it didn’t make any sense to her; Omaha might’ve been the only place she’d ever known. But, after seeing Colorado, the Tetons, Yellowstone, and Montana, sitting still just wasn’t an option for me. As silly as the answer might’ve seemed to her, were she to ask me the same question again, I might only have responded with, “Why not?” Life is for the living soul, and after this adventure (and all the ones to follow), not even that bartender in Omaha could say that I hadn’t lived.

Part 2: Modern Manifest Destiny

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Don’t let the title fool you. The old Manifest destiny, if you are unfamiliar, was a widely held belief in the 19th century that westward expansion of American interests throughout the North American continent was not only justified but inevitable. What ended up happening was nothing short of terrifying and involved lawlessness, greed, murder, and the forced removal of thousands upon thousands of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands.

            In contrast, my modern version of manifest destiny was highly personal, completely peaceful, and had almost nothing in common with the old one, save one word: inevitable. Like the original doctrine, I knew my journey west was inevitable. Justified? maybe not, it was pretty self-indulgent but definitely inevitable. It wasn’t just a dream that was nice to think about, this was going to happen…it had to happen. I couldn’t tell you when I knew it for sure, but for years I had flirted with the idea of going the way of the setting sun, and with each passing year, the feeling had grown. Eventually, I couldn’t stifle it anymore and the result was spectacular.

            2014 was, for the most part, a very challenging year. I had graduated from UNC-Asheville the previous fall, and while I was thrilled to have earned an undergraduate degree in four years, I had spent far too little time figuring out what my next steps were going to be. So, with panic setting in and a flimsy piece of paper that said “Bachelor of Liberal Arts,” I looked at the adult world looming in front of me and thought, “oh shiiiiiiit.”

            Consequently, I grabbed the first stable gig I could find and moved to Northern Virginia, where I worked through the end of 2013 as a counselor at an adventure camp.

            Once 2014 kicked in, I moved right back to my college town. Two wrongs don’t make a right, in case anyone was counting, but at the time, I thought I had solid reasons for moving back. I was in a pretty serious relationship with a woman in her senior year at UNC-Asheville, my job in Virginia wasn’t pushing me in a direction I felt was worth pursuing, and most of my friends were still in Asheville. Perhaps the most powerful reason was that I was still subservient to the siren song of the Blue Ridge. If you’ve been there, you know, it grabs you hard. I guess I thought I’d be able to tread water for the duration until opportunity fell into my lap.

            Well, you can imagine how that went.

            As 2014 dragged on, I began dragging myself down. The two highlights I had were hiking and working for a zip line company north of town. If you’ve never zipped through the canopy at upwards of 60 mph. I would highly recommend it. Through that experience, I began to open up the possibility in my head that somehow, I could combine my intense desire for outdoor recreation with something that resembled a decent paying job. The big question I needed to answer was, could I do it in Asheville?

            Asheville had, and always will have, a special place in my heart, but moving back to your college town is risky. I didn’t realize it immediately, but I was stuck. For me, Asheville, like TV shows that run too long, needed to end. The good seasons were gone, the most relatable characters had left and everything else was filler. I had to give Asheville a dignified death and move on or risk sinking along with it.

            So, I divorced my college town, broke up with my girlfriend, and planned to move out west, buoyed by a fairly comprehensive set of outdoor skills. Having spent the better part of four years hiking everything I could in North Carolina, I was comfortable with the outdoors and figured the easiest way to transition was through an outdoor-oriented job. It didn’t take me long to stumble upon Conservation Corp.

            As I poured through the history of the organization, from its humble beginnings as the Civilian Conservation Corp during the great depression to the present, I found myself attracted to this concept of trails. I guess I’d never considered how much effort went into maintaining our access to the outdoors, not only for our enjoyment, but to limit human damage to sensitive areas. I knew I was in shape, and of *relatively sound mind, so I gave it a go. Then, before I could hit apply on the website, I found the prerequisite section and stumbled onto this word, WFR…what the hell was that?

            WFR (Wilderness First Responder): An individual who has been trained to deal with emergency situations in remote areas, thanks Wikipedia.

            It was a seven days course that covered everything you could possibly encounter in a wilderness setting, and as I was researching it, a few things hit me. This was real. If I took this course and got the job, then I could be in situations that might require serious medical mediation in isolated and remote places. I think to some, that might’ve been a deal-breaker, but to me? I got excited. I thought fondly of the life-changing Outward Bound experience I’d been in for 14 days in the Gore Range of Colorado back in high school. Really being out there, and having your finger on the pulse of the land was freeing in a way that I hadn’t been able to replicate since. My mind was made up. I signed up for the nearest WFR course and applied to be a crew leader for Conservation Corp in Colorado. The branch I ended up choosing was Southwest Conservation Corp, out of Durango. Why? Location, location, location.

            Within an hour of Durango was the San Juan Mountains, Colorado’s most extensive mountain range with wilderness areas up to half a million acres. Half a million?? Y’all, the biggest wilderness area in the Southern Blue Ridge was the Cohutta at a little over 37-grand (up to 40-grand if you add the Big Frog just across the border in TN). The Weminuche Wilderness in the San Juans? Almost 500,000. The difference in scale was enormous. Plus, the San Juans had 13 of Colorado’s famed 14,000-foot peaks, which I’d wanted to climb ever since I’d found out about them. To sweeten the pot, Durango was only 40 minutes from Mesa Verde National Park, 5 hours from the Grand Canyon, 2.75 from Canyonlands and Moab, 2 from Telluride, 3 from the Great Sand Dunes, and only an hour from the hot springs in Pagosa. Appropriately, I began frothing at the mouth.

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            In the meantime, I moved back to my parent’s place in North Georgia to gear up for what I was certain would be an exquisite next chapter of adulthood. If I got the leadership position, I could begin as early as March, which would limit my time pretending I wasn’t a college graduate living at home again.

            Silly Timo.

            I didn’t get the leadership position.

            Admittedly I was a bit hurt, I mean, why wouldn’t they take a gamble on someone with no leadership or trailwork experience? RUDE.

            I guess zipline guide, camp counselor and Outward-Bound participant weren’t exactly confidence inspiring resume highlights. But, they did offer me a position to join as a crew member for a 26-week program starting June first. I felt a little crushed by the leadership rub, but there was no way I was staying at home. Seeing no realistic alternative, I made the best of it and accepted. That was late February 2015.

            I have a confession to make, I’m not a very patient man.

            I knew that if I sat on my butt for four months, my motivation would be shot, and I wouldn’t have the strength to marshal it back. So, I adjusted. I’m not super with money, but I knew enough to save, and because of graduation, I had received a bit of a bonus from family members that I hadn’t used. Armed with my wilderness certification, a little cash, and facing down the possibility of a demanding summer working for Conservation Corp, I made a plan to stay in shape.

            I was highly motivated in this department. While in Asheville, I’d completed hiking all the peaks in North Carolina and Tennessee that broke 6,000 feet. I was also 11 wilderness hikes into a 12-wilderness hike challenge called the Dirty Dozen, created to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act. More ambitiously, I had done a 50 mile, 4-day loop of the AT and Bartram Long trails with my friend David Greene, and that previous winter had done a demanding three-day trek in the snow, through the northern section of the Great Smokey’s. I was seasoned, but how could I keep the physical activity up? Well, Georgia had 78.6 miles of the Appalachian Trail…ok then.

            In order to keep it interesting, I had my dad drop me off on the North Carolina side, I’d then hike south into Georgia, ending at the southern terminus in about a week. With all side trails and approach trails counted, the total mileage was more like 97 and change. So, one morning, my dad drove me out to the North Carolina side and dropped me off at the Chunky Gal approach trail, a voluptuous stretch of path that let me know right away how demanding this adventure would be. A week later, as I lay half-collapsed on a sunny rock at Amicalola Falls, with every single muscle screaming for mercy, I thought about the things that my week in the woods had taught me.

            1. You can never have enough moleskin for blisters

            2. Make sure your tent is WATERPROOF

            3. Stretch every day, make it a habit

           4. Trail people are weird, but ‘weird’ is more of a spectrum than a blanket statement: good weird, weird-weird, bad weird etc.

            5. BUY A SLEEPING PAD

            6. Clear sticks from underneath where you set up your tent

            7. Softshell tortillas are cheap and take up no space in a backpack

            8. Trail-runners and ultra-light hikers make everyone else feel bad about themselves

            9. Trekking poles=knee savers

            10. North Georgia has a surprising amount of what I would consider to be wild places

            11. Your nostrils give up around day 3, after that, you don’t smell so bad anymore

            12. Dry wet clothing on the outside of your backpack, especially socks

            13. ALL SMELLY ITEMS NEED TO BE IN A BEAR HANG OR BEAR BOX

            14. Every meal is DELICIOUS

            15. Even though my body hurt, I woke up every day with a smile. The outdoors were my slice of Nirvana.

            That adventure and subsequent hikes took me to the tail end of March, but I still had time. One night, I took out the maps, got the computer, and began to plan a road trip. I’d been across the country a couple of times, but they were usually pretty fast trips with a set destination and time frame in mind. With two months to kill and my money calculator telling me I’d have just enough to limp back into Durango at the end of it, I decided to go big. As I suspected, the planning stage took some time because the undertaking was immense, but things came together, and on April 13, I knew it was time to go.

            So, after a tearful goodbye with my mama, and on a rainy North Georgia morning, I packed up the Subaru and headed out into the world. Timo had been released.

            I decided to divide the cross-country drive into three sections. There was so much to see and do that I had to break it up, or it would all blur together. Seeing as I was on a tight budget, a lot of the drive would involve hopscotching between locations that had people with whom I could stay. It also meant that certain parts of the trip looked completely schizophrenic on the map. Regardless, I was ready.

            The start of the trip could’ve had some better weather, but since the rain and fog had socked in everything east of the Mississippi, I had to make do. Three hours and a little extra after I started, I found myself in the cold gray woods of Southwestern Tennessee. SW TN is moonshine country, lots of little hollers tucked up in the folds of the hills where you don’t venture unless it’s very clearly marked public land. It’s one of those regions where you might hear the dueling banjos start to play, and if you get that reference, you may understand how I felt in the moment. (Dueling Banjos).

            I had to come this way because I had one wilderness left to hike before I completed the Dirty Dozen Hiking Challenge and Big Frog Wilderness was one I’d never been to. All in all, it was a cold, wet hike, but it reminded me about some of the things I’d be leaving behind in the Southeast: the humidity, the sound of leaves underfoot, the roaring creeks and moss, and the insane biological diversity of the region. In fact, according to the USNP website, the Smokies and the surrounding mountains may have somewhere between 80,000-100,000 individual species within them, which is bananas! It’s a part of the world that is brimming with biological life, a naturalist’s paradise.

           I finished the hike in good time, no views to speak of on account of the weather, but no run-ins with moonshiners either, so we’ll call it a win. The last part of the day I spent driving towards Asheville NC, to put a final lid on my history there.

            In many ways, the city and the surrounding environs belong out west. The outdoor recreation opportunities, fairly progressive mindset, and craft beer craze would put it right at home along the Colorado Front Range, or the Pacific Northwest. People were very proud of the weird things that made the town hum. At one point, it was called a ‘cesspool of sin’ by conservative North Carolina senator James Forrester, and those Blue Ridge hippies just turned it around and made it an unofficial slogan. I loved its connection to the outdoors and the mentality it fostered but, for me, after a total of five years there, the town had become small.

            When you first move to an area as beautiful as Asheville, you fall under its spell. When the spell wears off, you notice small things that bug you, and eventually, those small things become too large to ignore. But I owed it one last visit, this time as a tourist, to rekindle the magic that it had given me when I first arrived.

            After a night sipping beer at Wicked Weed and reconnecting with friends, I ended up spending the night at my friend Steven Whites’ house. He was a direct connection to my college years and we had an absolute blast recalling all the ridiculous episodes in that four-year series. It was a night that did exactly what it was supposed to: remind me of the good times.

            The following day, I got a quick reminder of what I was escaping…

            Another friend I’d known had recently overdosed. They’d woken up 8 hours later, after having collapsed on top of their arm. The blood hadn’t been able to flow to the arm so it was essentially a dead appendage, and their kidneys had failed, trying to keep the rest of the body working. In order to save the arm, doctors had to cut out dead tissue, and graft a chunk of skin and tissue from the leg back onto the arm. I went to go see them in the recovery center, and while their attitude was as bright and cheery as I’d ever seen, to be with them really hit home because I had partied HARD with them in college. Were it not for a handful of different choices, friends, and circumstances, I could’ve been in their situation, or worse.

            I’m sure people have all sorts of theories on happiness and success, but mine have always centered on geography and location. After moving so much as a child, I STRONGLY feel there is a time limit on the places you live. Once you exceed your time limit, bad things tend to happen, and if you go past it too far, there is no reset button. At the end of the day, you need to have that honest conversation with yourself, is this still working for me? I knew in my heart that going west was the best move for me, and in a strange way, seeing my friend in their condition helped validate it. After some heartfelt goodbyes and a few “see you arounds”, I set out for my next stop, Boone, NC.

            My time in Boone was brief, but just long enough to reconnect with Chloe, an old study abroad friend I’d met in New Zealand. She is/was/will always be a wonderful person, and although she wasn’t at her place when I arrived, there was a key for me, a fully made bed and a note that said “So excited to see you! Help yourself to anything, mi casa es su casa! You can use the IPad (wifi on the fridge) or take a snooze on the bed. See you tonight!”

            It was only a small, simple note, but the effect on me was profound.

            The drive from Asheville to Boone was only three hours, but from here on out, it was all unfamiliar. I had left the last vestiges of my world behind and was into uncharted lands. To have that beautiful note, open and ready to be smiled upon, constituted a precious moment for me. I knew I was welcome, and there is no finer feeling.

With a big smile, I fell right asleep. That evening, Chloe, her friends, and I went out, played some pool at Appalachian Mountain Brewery, listened to some live southern rock, had a great conversation, and turned in. When the morning came I was off again, to more uncharted territory, content with how the adventure was shaping up.

            The drive down into Tennessee was interesting because it was new! My years in Asheville had me chasing mountains all over the place, and every time I hit a new summit or traveled on a new road, a new piece of my mental puzzle fill in. For RPG gamers, this should sound familiar, your map is a fog until you explore it. Once explored, the knowledge stays with your character, and they can easily navigate that part of the game world. I was just filling in my map. I felt I knew the Southern Blue Ridge better than many of my college friends because I’d stood on top of most of it, and it gave me a strong sense of place. New roads added to that understanding.

            The Appalachian Trail crossed the road I was descending, and when I pulled over to take a photo of the sign, I found a thru-hiker taking a break on the shore of Watauga Lake. Recalling my week on the trail in North Georgia and how hungry I had been, I made sure to throw as much food as I could at him…which was probably very startling at first. I don’t think I even introduced myself before hurling instant ramen at the poor guy. But, once the initial fright subsided, he gratefully accepted and I offered to haul some of his trash out for him. Leave no trace! After a couple of quick words of encouragement, I was off and he was packing up to head out again.

             My destination for the evening was Bloomington, Indiana, via a stop at Cumberland Gap National Historic Park. One of my best friends growing up, Chris Schreiber, lived in Bloomington, and I hadn’t seen him in a while. I just had to get there first. From Boone to Bloomington (sounds like the name of a country album) and was also a total of 8 hours, my longest driving segment yet. After blasting through Kentucky coal country and down towards Lexington, the clouds that had lingered for the last three days finally parted, and I saw a brilliant sunset over the horse pastures of Northern Kentucky. By the time I got to Bloomington, it was late, and I was tired, but Chris helped me grab my stuff, set me up on a bed, and I was out almost immediately.

             Bloomington is like a mini Asheville, a college town in its own right and far more personable and friendly than I had anticipated. We spent the following day walking around and exploring the kooky ins and outs that really only exist in the forgotten corners of college towns. In the evening, we had dinner with some of his friends from the University of Indiana, one of whom worked in the anatomy department. They were working on dissecting cadavers and had been for the majority of their semester. When we expressed interest in what they were doing, they offered to let us see some dead people, so, naturally, we agreed.

            The next morning, I was standing with Chris in a whitewashed room with a couple of corpses on some metal tables. At first, it didn’t seem real because the heads had been removed, and most of the guts scooped out. What was left were the circulatory and musculoskeletal systems. Fighting the urge to pretend I was on some procedural crime drama, I watched with fascination as the students explained what they were doing. Their explanations and the way the students presented the information was so clinical that I forgot for a moment that these used to be people. That naiveté came crashing down when one of the students offered to show me something cool and pushed down on some of the veins and arteries near the wrist. Almost immediately the fingers of the cadaver began to curl in slowly like they were trying to grab something. Seeing the fingers move, seemingly independently, was enough to remind me that this was all very, very real. There was only one thought bouncing around in my head, but it wasn’t shock or horror as I had expected. All I could think was, “Oh my god, how cool is this???”  

            Admittedly, it was nice to breathe the fresh air again after being in a room that smelled like formaldehyde for a good half an hour. After that unique experience, we grabbed a last lunch together on the patio of a downtown establishment. Then, I parted ways with Chris and got into the Subaru, bound for the next destination, Chicago.

            The southern part of Indiana around Bloomington had been hilly, and at least mildly interesting. Northern Indiana was flat. That’s it, just flat. While it was only a four-hour drive to Chi-town from Bloomington it felt at least twice as long, and I was thrilled to get towards the metro area and finally have some things to stare at.

            The lady I was to stay with in Chicago, was named Kate. I had met her in the Wilderness First Responder class I’d taken and we’d learned how to create traction splints together. Unfortunately, the last time I’d seen her was a little embarrassing for me.

            I’d invited her and about six friends over to my place in Asheville to celebrate the completion of our WFR certification and to have a couple of drinks. Well, it had snowed that evening and we all got this brilliant idea to go sledding. Mind you this was fresh snow on top of nothing, there was no base layer, nothing had settled, just a few inches of white on cold hard ground, or in my case asphalt.

            To make things interesting, I had decided to launch my little plastic sled in front of me and was then going to dive on top of it and slide down this side road in flawless fashion. I launched the sled according to my brilliant plan but was a little overenthusiastic about the dive and ended up overshooting my landing zone. I crashed into the snow, chin first, and sunk right through to the asphalt underneath. What I had created for myself in medical speak was called an avulsion, or a ‘flapper’ in laymen’s terms. A part of my chin skin was just kind of flapping about, a deep cut separating its previous bond with the rest of my face.

Schitts Creek No GIF by CBC

            Initially, I was mortified, but since everyone else was pretty tipsy I managed to retreat back to the house and look at the damage without arousing too much suspicion. Being a newly certified wilderness first responder and all-around excellent decision-maker, I decided to skip the hospital visit and fix it myself. So, I put a bandage clumsily over the wound, and then, realizing I didn’t have any medical adhesive, used an excessive amount of Blue Painter’s tape to cinch everything down. With the mission seemingly accomplished, I went to sleep. Needless to say, when I did finally go to the doctor the next day, everyone in the hospital was thoroughly disappointed in me.

nailed it the office GIF

            The point is that Kate had seen the whole thing unfold. I had conveniently forgotten about this episode until I was driving towards her apartment in Chicago and then promptly realized that I might need to craft a better impression of myself. Maybe by some miracle, she had forgotten too…either way, the bar was set pretty low.

            After what seemed like years of trying to find street parking, I finally stopped the Subaru and made it to the apartment. She and her boyfriend were just west of downtown in a “hip” neighborhood with a great atmosphere. Turns out, she did remember my night of idiocy because unlike my friends and me, she hadn’t been drinking. Ten points to Timo.

            After a solid round of laughing at my expense, we took off walking into the city. Her boyfriend was working at the time, so we picked up one of her friends and strolled through the city towards the downtown area. At this point, the light of the day was fading, but we soldiered on and made it all the way to the shore of Lake Michigan. There, I got to stare at the famous Chicago skyline. The Hancock tower was glowing ominously, and the lights of the city were bouncing off the fairly violent surf, it had a real Dark Knight kinda vibe going on. Having made it this far in my journey, I figured it was time for a celebration, so I ran into Lake Michigan…and then ran right the f_8C* back out. It was only April, and that lake is COLD.

            The city was such a contrast from my mountain living for the past few years that I really enjoyed being out amongst people. There’s obviously a huge difference between visiting a city and living there, but I liked the way Chicago presented itself to me. Once we had retreated back to the apartment and met up with Kate’s boyfriend, we all set off to go see What We Do in the Shadows, a vampire mockumentary courtesy of soon to be super famous director Taika Waititi, that had me in stitches from the opening scene right up to the end. The movie was showing at the Logan Theater, a great older venue built in 1915 and chock full of hipsters. The building and atmosphere were impressive, and perhaps the most exciting part for me was the commute to it via the local elevated train line. After living in the South, where public transportation is more of a joke than an alternate mode of travel, it was nice to be able to get to somewhere via train.

           The following day Kate took me to the ‘bean’. It’s art, it’s weird, and it’s in Chicago, tell your friends? Actually, check this story out, apparently, the history of the statue and its wackadoodle creator is an adventure in its own right, enjoy.

After waltzing through downtown, Kate and I were picked up by her boyfriend and taken out to Lagunitas Brewing near the shore of Lake Michigan and just south of the main parts of downtown. Originally, the Brewing company was based out of Petaluma, California but the state had been in a crippling drought since 2011, and by 2015 it hadn’t gotten better. Fearing that the conditions would continue to impact production, and since beer production is so water-heavy, the company opened a second location in Chicago. With Lake Michigan so close by and with a huge beer drinking population available in the immediate area, it seemed like a good move.

            We took a brewery tour, and the facilities were enormous, set up in a gigantic old warehouse. Our tour guide’s official title was Raconteur, and he had what can only be described as a…unique accent. He had a microphone, which he held so close to his face that every time he opened his mouth I thought he was going to eat and/or make out with it. When he said Chicago, he would swallow the back half of the word until all that was left were some strange gurgling sounds. Phonetically, what we heard sounded like “Shi-Kawwwhrghhhlo…” I guess he kind of liked us though, because, after the tour, he took us back to an employee part of the brewery and loaded us up with a 24 case of beer from his personal fridge, and sent us out into the world. Thanks guy.

            After a final night in the windy city, spent enjoying our beer and trading stories, I said another round of farewells and headed out towards the great plains. The next phase would take me across the mighty Mississip, following the way of the ancient covered wagons during that first Manifest Destiny. Yeehaw!

Part 1: Various Methods of Escape

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(Sept. 2017)

            Without context, memories are just words and images floating in space. Context wrestles them down and tethers them to meaning. But, in my opinion, there is a crucial third ingredient: time. In order to publish complete memories, you need to let them mature, let them wander, and then let them come back to you in time. We often don’t see the context surrounding a situation until time has passed, and reflection takes hold. You can capture the moment as it occurs, or shortly after, but then let it age. Maybe not for too long, lest we forget entirely, but enough to see why those memories were worth remembering. When enough time has passed and the memories ferment, you allow yourself to really see how it all fits. Once the process concludes, the words and images are free to take on a life of their own and what you’re left with is something much more powerful than just memories… 

            The rain was still coming down, had been for the past hour, but it might change over soon, I could feel it getting colder. Tonight could bring snow, the first of the season. September was always an odd month for me, really an odd month for Colorado as well. Conditions were highly dependent on what part of the state you were in. For most people, living in the Front Range or the lower areas of the western slope, September was synonymous with Colorado’s brief version of autumn. These were the precious few weeks of fall when the aspens all turned bright yellow and the sky revealed a radiant blue, deep enough to fall into. But for me, September meant the beginning of the end. You couldn’t build trail when the ground was buried under snow. So, while some parts of the state were reveling in the crisp air and brilliant sunshine, I was standing in a cloud, on the forgotten side of Mt. Quandary, dreading the possibility of snow.

            Don’t misread, I do love winter, but the transition to it is rough. This was the third year I had been living off the seasons. In the winter, I was a ski instructor at a fancy resort. In the summer, I was a dirtbag, building trail in the alpine. I loved both my lives, but the contrast between the two was heavy. I wasn’t sure if I could keep them both anymore, in fact, I knew I couldn’t, but I wasn’t ready to admit it just yet.

            The company I worked for was called Colorado Fourteeners Initiative or CFI for short. They built sustainable trails up the 14ers; the 54 peaks in Colorado that broke 14,000 feet in elevation. To this day, working for them has been the best job I’ve ever had. But manual labor at high elevation is taxing, if you don’t end up getting hurt, it slowly starts to wear your body down. So inside, I knew that this was the last September I’d be out amongst it, so to speak.

            The reality of the transition away from dirtbag life had been hovering around my head for a while, but it was this night that it really sunk in. Soon, I would have to give up my escape and rejoin society in some capacity. Ugh. The weather wasn’t helping either, but it did solidify the dreary mood with which I approached this particular evening.

            “Heading into town tonight?” Margaret asked, emerging from the wall tent behind me. I nodded silently.

            Margaret had been on Quandary for two seasons and had worked in the trail world for nearly thrice as long. She had spent countless hours shaping trails into formidable ribbons of foot traffic that would last for decades. For all intents and purposes, Quandary was her project, and when she spoke about it, you could feel the attachment to it. I understood that feeling well because I felt it too, we all did. It was more than a project, it was happiness. The emotional attachment was strong, and the resistance to change formidable in its own right. Yet, I knew change was inevitable, and I needed to find some way to accept that.

            Part of accepting change is understanding why it’s necessary. For me, I knew that I needed to break away from my seasonal job because I was getting married in less than a year, and my future wife was not a dirtbag like yours truly. Trailwork is a hard life to empathize with unless you are living it, and the challenges to maintaining a healthy relationship when I worked out of cell range for days at a time were numerous. Not surprisingly, having ski instructor and trail builder as my resume backstops didn’t really add all that much to my portfolio. I needed a bit more. So, I applied to graduate school; which, naturally, created more problems.

            Trail work requires you to be all in for the duration of the season, usually June through the first week of October. My graduate program started in August. Determined to make it work, I convinced the program to let me take the first couple of months online. Somehow, I would be able to manage the coursework around a 10-hour workday that started at 4 AM. In hindsight, that may have been a little enthusiastic, but so far, I had stubbornly found a way to force it to work. It just meant my days were a lot longer than my coworkers.

            “Well, we’ll wake at five tomorrow, it’s the last day of the hitch anyway,” Margaret said with a smile, understanding my day wasn’t over yet. That extra hour of sleep would honestly do a lot for me. “The propane is off, so you just have to close the wall tent.”

            “Will do,” I said back.

            She nodded and turned to walk to her personal tent to escape the cold. Jack, our intern with Rocky Mountain Youth Corp. was already in his tent, probably cocooned in sleeping bags and a full set of clothes, a Nalgene filled with hot water at his feet…this was high living. It was only 4:15 PM, but when you wake up early to work, the day ends early.

          I waited a few more minutes in the cold and silence, appreciating the simplicity of it all. I loved it up here, away from the noise. It was nice to be able to breathe. But, I had homework tonight, an essay response to an article I hadn’t read yet, so, I knew I had to go. With a deep sigh of acceptance, I closed the wall tent, zipped up my layers of clothing, and walked away from camp, towards the dirt road.

            We had a work truck with us, an F-250, parked on an old logging road behind a forest service fence. Its name was Headache, and I hated it. Some people can handle trucks well; I am NOT one of them. It was clunky, loud, and enormous. Aside from an abysmal turning radius and Manhattan-sized blind spot, it’s rusted frame and beat up demeanor served as another visual reminder that I was not bringing class back to Breckenridge.

            That was my destination, another Colorado resort town, and the closest one with reliable wifi: a prerequisite for online classes. After struggling to climb into the elevated cab like it was the top of a 5.12 rock wall, I turned the key and started it up. The drive from camp wasn’t long once I got off the dirt road and back on route 9. There weren’t many cars around at first, but by the time I approached the town limits and was passed by a couple of Teslas and BMW’s, I began to feel out of place. Breckenridge was pop, and I was all grunge.

            The whole situation I was in was pretty absurd, dirtbag by day, student by night. I definitely felt absurd, walking towards the coffee shop after parking the truck out of sight and off the main street. I’d pass the occasional couple with brand new designer clothes and fancy smelling fragrances. They took wide paths around me, I guess I couldn’t blame them. I looked like a vagabond, crusty, and gross after a week of alpine work; but, instead of letting it work on my mood, I embraced the absurdity of the moment and escaped along with it. Allowing myself to smile, I thought about a runway fashion announcer, trying his best to introduce me and my get up…

    “Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome back to dirtbag fashion night, and boy do we have a special treat for you! Our model tonight is donning a ratty 7-year-old backpack, Carhartt knock-offs with dirt and sweat soaked completely into the fabric, and covering up that greasy head of hair is an Avalanche beanie with what appears to be either ketchup or a bloodstain over one side. Delicious.”

    “Covering his beleaguered frame is a disgusting green t-shirt, expertly hidden by a red fleece with a zipper that won’t zip. On top of that is a hideous gray rain shell held together by little more than duct tape. To complete this bizarre ensemble, our model is showing off a pair of what used to be hikers, with blown-out seems in no less than four places and rubber traction on the soles as featureless as a bald set of tires…wow.”

            It was called the Crown, the coffee shop I ended up at, and still one of the best coffee shops I’ve been to. No, it didn’t have one drink that blew my mind, and no, it wasn’t the only coffee shop in town, but it had exactly what I was looking for: warmth. The lighting was soft, the people respectful, and there was this Kiwi behind the bar tonight, hearing his accent was always satisfying. There were your usual choices of coffees and teas, and a handful of local beers to really tap into that Colorado feeling. I knew that because the seasons were transitioning, I would find an emptier shop, with more room to grab a table and get to work.

            So, once I found an empty table, I opened my laptop, grabbed my notebook, and prepared to get some schoolwork done. Then, when I had finally psyched myself up enough to try to read my assignment, I pulled up the essay prompt, noticing immediately that the due date for the assignment was next Thursday, not today. There was no homework for me to do.

            Well done Timo, 10/10.

            Dumfounded, I sat for a moment, thinking on how idiotic I was to waste time, gas, and energy to come all the way down here for nothing. What a classic fool.

             Logically, I should’ve returned to camp, my primary purpose in being here was no longer relevant, but something kept me seated. Could’ve been the fact that it was freezing outside, and I was finally warm, or that the smell of hot cider and tea was making me deliriously happy. But I think I wanted to salvage something from the moment I created by coming here. Yeah, I mucked up the due date of my assignment, but I was here now, so what could I make of it? If it had been a schoolwork night, I’d have a little more than four hours to do work before the shop closed. So, I had created a couple of hours that I didn’t have before, I had a fat computer full of memories at my disposal, and was mentally wrestling with the idea that my life was going to change dramatically after this trail season. I think deep down I knew that the Crown coffee shop was calm enough, and quiet enough, to reflect. So, I began to reflect on the end…not of life or anything too dramatic, but the end of a phase.

            I’d been working in trails for three years, and that time was winding down, graduate school was proof of that. In my constant state of planning for the future, I’d forgotten to realize that I was charging towards a new uncertainty with gleeful abandon. Had I really given the last few years an adequate ending in my mind? The second I asked that question of myself I knew the answer was no, and suddenly felt cheated. I’d forgotten to package up those dirtbag years, and for some reason, this coffee shop was going to be the place that I would do it.

            Of course, that thought led to an obvious question, why here? Usually, I was repulsed by the idea of people, why did I want to start my mental farewell to trail work here, as opposed to my tent? Did these coffee-shop dwellers deserve to occupy the space within which I would barrel down memory highway? Well, yes, because as I looked at the people around me, I realized that they were all doing the same thing I was. They just had different ways of expressing it.

            The young lady by the window, watching her show on her computer with headphones on and shooting glances out at the rain coming down; the old man and his grandkid, sitting on the couches playing cards; the middle-aged man with his pencil flying to paper, sketching out his thoughts as he hummed along to whatever song was playing inside his head; the table of three ladies, each consumed by the open books in front of them; and the staff behind the bar, chatting quietly amongst themselves: we were all doing the same thing, diving head first into our various methods of escape.

           Coffee shops are like culturally approved mental escape areas. You can have a conversation, or you can ignore the world, and it’s all totally fine. The Crown was one of those places where you could have the comfort of knowing others were around, without having to actually speak to anyone. And while I can’t heap that kind of praise on every coffee shop or bookstore, those are the kind of places where you can find that strange balance between those that have no interest in society and those that can’t live without it.

            After I looked around at all the people, I ordered a warm cider from the bar, sat back down at my computer, and began looking at the notes, scribbles, and thousands upon thousands of pictures I’d taken since coming to Colorado. While I hadn’t ever given proper thought to the ridiculous set of circumstances that brought me out here, I had taken pictures, and I began to use them like mental bread crumbs, following the memories as they flooded in.

            Three years is a long time, especially when you pack it full of adventures. Road trips, summers of trail work, winters of ski instructing, hikes and summits, hot springs, sand dunes, canyons, concerts, a proposal, and plenty of ups and downs. It felt odd, to be sitting there in my state at the ripe old age of almost 27, and thinking back on three years as if they contained a whole lifetime of activities within them. But they did, and while I had no plans to stop immersing myself in whatever bits of nature I could find after this evening, I knew it would be different going forward because it would be without trailwork.

            Trailwork had been the key that made my move out west possible, the gateway to my love for, and appreciation of, the high country. It was like saying goodbye to an old friend. So, while I had come to escape the weather and do schoolwork, I began instead to drift and found myself escaping back to the stories that had taken me away from my previous life, and brought me all the way to this moment.

            It was a beautiful meditation and a fitting tribute, a poignant farewell to trails.

            Now, years later, the thoughts from that night have fermented, aged and matured, and I think I’ve finally found the words to match the meditation I had, that cold night at the Crown. 

Queensway Couloir: An IPW Backcountry Ski Shuffle

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Table of Contents

Background

(Adventure date: May 31, 2020)

It’s cold in winter, it’s hot in the summer. In most places around the globe, this distinction holds true. Colorado, however, likes to push the limits of what these seasons mean. While ski resorts in the state are usually open from Thanksgiving to mid-April, it can snow any month of the year. In fact, as I sit here typing up this report in July, two inches are forecast to fall above 13,500 feet in some parts of the state tomorrow night. Nice.

So, if May rolls around, and you’ve done all the resort skiing you want, what do you do while the snow at the higher elevations slowly melts out? You could wait for most of the snow to disappear, but depending on the ferocity of the previous winter, that waiting could push you into mid-July. If that’s the case, you only have two months before the first snows roll back in. Summer is short in the big mountains. Alternatively, you could strap on some crampons and go forth to bag some peaks, or you could go backcountry skiing. From April-June, there are ample opportunities to go out and earn your turns, while advancing into places that would normally be inaccessible until months later. Over the last couple of years, I’ve been dabbling in some backcountry skiing while I wait for the high country to open up.

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Logistics and Risks

Like most mountain activities, backcountry skiing is inherently dangerous. You need to be able to ski or ride at an expert level and understand how changing snow conditions affect your body position. Additionally, you must understand avalanches, what causes them, what features to avoid, and what the avalanche forecast calls for. To this end, a visit to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center is MANDATORY before any backcountry run in Colorado. In addition, the following bullet points are HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, if not also mandatory. Remember, Colorado is the embarkation point for a lot of people visiting the Rocky Mountains, do not end up on the local news because you died trying to do something you had no business doing.

Before you Go Checklist:

  • Can you ski at an expert level?
  • Have you checked the weather? Tip: If theres snow on the ground and its sunny, apply sunscreen liberally and wear thick sunglasses or ski goggles. The snow reflects sunlight right into your face and eyes.
  • Was it cold enough to freeze last night? If not, you will encounter very slushy and slidey conditions, plan accordingly.
  • How’s the wind forecast? I count this separately because wind is such a crucial factor for not only Colorado in general but you’re well being as well. A 25 mph day up high will zap all your energy and can easily lead to frost bite.
  • Have you checked the avalanche forecast site? (CAIC )
  • Do you have all the proper equipment? Backcountry ski set up? Skins? Beacon? Probe? Radios? HELMET?
  • Did you bring a friend?
  • Have you researched the route THOROUGHLY before attempting?
  • Did you text (at minimum) 2 other people your plan and emergency numbers to call should you not return at the planned time? (numbers to know: local forest service ranger district AND county sheriff office where you are adventuring)
  • Do you know the following information for your plan?: trailhead, access point, mountain names, distinct geographic features in your area, ie markers to reference should you need an emergency extraction
Apache Pk with Queensway Couloir to the left of the summit: May 31, 2020

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The Plan

1. Gateway Trailhead and road section 2. Start of lakes section 3. Start of alpine section. NOTE: the lines I drew were on a small phone and I have fat fingers, use the actual trails to follow path of least resistance.

The Indian Peaks Wilderness (IPW), is a 73,391-acre swath of protected federal land near Boulder and Denver. The wilderness straddles the continental divide and there are no roads across the divide near it (the closest northern option being Trail Ridge in Rocky Mountain National Park, and the closest southern option being Berthoud Pass). Because of its unique geographic location, the wilderness can be divided into an eastern and western section. The eastern section lies only an hour from Boulder and two from the Denver Metro area. It is VERY popular in the summer months. However, there is a seasonal caveat. Owing in part to the amount of snow received, the road into Brainard Lake Recreation area (one of two hugely popular eastern wilderness access points) does not open up until June. When it is open, the paved road into Brainard requires a 12$ entrance fee (2020) and deposits you close to the mountain majesty. Up until the road opens, if you are willing to park at the gateway trailhead (adding 2.5 miles of road walking each direction), you can get into the wilderness for free and lose the crowds relatively quickly.

Why would anyone want to add an extra five miles to an already taxing outdoor excursion? Well, there are a TON of unique backcountry ski lines that can be accessed from the Brainard area, and they only exist as long as there’s snow. Waiting for the winter gate to open often means missing these lines. Because its so close to Boulder, even in the transition months (March-June), you’ll find hearty Coloradans here, heading out before dawn to shred the gnar. Click here for an older, but nicely laid out front range backcountry ski information page.

My buddy, Harlan, had been wanting to take on a ski descent of the Queensway Couloir on Apache Peak for a while. I had done a solo outing on it the year prior and wanted to revisit, thus the plan was born. We’d meet at Brainard Gateway Trailhead, get to the top of Queensway, ski down as far as possible, and get back to the car. Statistics: ~15 miles (5 miles total of road walk). Elevation gain: 3000 feet. Altogether it is not a monstrous day, that five miles of road walking is a huge hindrance, unless…

Two wheels are better than none.

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Part 1: The Shuffle

Bikes! Yes! A few years back when I first encountered the “road problem”, I noticed that everyone else crazy enough to be at the trailhead at 4:30 AM had bikes. Even with a couple snow berms blocking the road, if the conditions are right (think mid/late May), there are large stretches of road behind the winter gate at Brainard that can be biked. This is the first logistical hurdle of the shuffle, don’t forget to bring a bike, 5 miles of road walking with skis on your back is a chore.

Upon meeting at the trailhead, Harlan and I set up our skis ( I went A-frame, while Harlan opted for a diagonal carry since he had a specific backcountry pack that allowed this very simple set up). Click here for a simple video of some (not all) ski carry variations. The goal of backcountry skiing, aside from having a rad time, is to carry your skis as little as possible. The bikes helped this problem out immensely.

We made tracks up the road to the Long Lake trailhead, locked up our bikes, and looked at the conditions before us. Luckily, with thick snow covering the trail, we could set up our skins and clip into AT bindings without having to carry the skis up the trailhead. (Ski Skins definition: Wikipedia)

Photo stop, we continued w/ bikes until Long Lake TH.

We skinned awkwardly past Long Lake (on the North, or right side) and up to Lake Isabelle, enjoying brief conversation amongst near-constant huffing and puffing. The trail was snow-covered the whole way, but it hadn’t snowed in a week, so many sets of obvious skin tracks led us up to the lake. If this isn’t the case for you, stay to the right side of Long Lake on the ascent, continue on flat terrain until arriving at a signed trail junction. Head right, as if making for Pawnee Pass (a turn left will just circle Long Lake). Parallel the slope for as long as you can, ultimately banking right up a steeper snow chute BEFORE you get to the waterfall (you’ll be able to see it) that spills down from Lake Isabelle. At the top of this incline, bear left to a slightly higher bench and you’ll reach Lake Isabelle.

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Part 2: Enter Alpine

The next logistic challenge was getting around the lake. There is a trail on the right (north) side of the lake but with snow and slick conditions, it’s a pain to traverse. Luckily for us, 75% of the lake was still frozen. After nervously testing the ice and trying to see how thick it was (thankfully quite thick, at least 6 inches) we marched across the lake.

Skinning across Lake Isabelle. (L to R.) Niwot Ridge, Navajo Pk (the snowcone looking one), ridge up to Apache Pk, Shoshoni Pk in front and furthest Right)

On the far side, we encountered our next large ascent. In ideal conditions, you can ski from the top of Apache Pk all the way down to the shores of Lake Isabelle. We missed the window by a few weeks and found that out upon climbing this incline and seeing an exposed rock garden for about 30 feet. Dutifully, we unclipped, held our skis, and traversed across to the next snowfield before putting them back on. The next section was relatively flat and included a couple of stretches that melt out a little faster than others. This section ended at an unnamed tarn with fantastic views of the upper cirque, ringed by the always intimidating looking Navajo Peak and the broad shoulders of Apache Peak.

The direct ascent route up to the bench that holds Isabelle Glacier and the beginning of Queensway Couloir is steep and unforgiving. Once climbed, there is only a brief respite before you have to ascend the couloir. While probably the fastest route, we were in no rush and decided to cross below the tarn to the north side of the bowl and climb up to the foot of the glacier, roughly mirroring the route of the summer trail. Our reasoning was simple, if we ascended this way, we’d have to carry the skis for a shorter period of time. We could then leisurely skin along the edge of the glacier (which sits on a pleasant bench and doesn’t require any crampon action) with the couloir in full view, until our final climb up it. With the direct ascent route, your skis are on your back from the tarn all the way up to the top of the couloir (or even the summit of Apache if you’re going further).

Up where the summer trail goes, you can barely see the unnamed tarn behind the second line of rocks. The long horizontal line through the snow in the back is the way to the direct ascent.

This plan worked fairly well and before long we were done with our first climb, back into our skis and skinning alongside one of Colorado’s last (and most accessible) glaciers. There were two guys that had passed us near the beginning of the trailhead hours earlier, and from the glacier, we had a great view of their ascent. We were even treated to a show as we watched them descend. The visual of the route really gives you a better idea of what to expect if it’s your first time up there. Pro Tip: if you want to scout the route, climb Shoshoni Pk, the summit has a great view of most of the descent.

A tired Harlan, and the rest of our route alongside the glacier edge to the Couloir
A close up view of the Couloir

After another 30 minutes of skinning, we arrived at the base of the couloir and reattached skis to packs once more. Here, the crampons came out. Microspikes are not a good alternative for this kind of adventure. Although they say they can help on slopes up to 35 degrees, the margin for error is too great —you’re not just carrying a normal pack’s worth of weight. You want big, beefy crampon spikes to carry you and all the gear your hauling up. Don’t skimp on good gear.

Me, climbing up the couloir

This was the most exhausting and most exhilarating part of the ascent. Is it the steepest couloir you can climb in Colorado? No, but its one of the closest places to the front range that makes you feel like you are truly mountaineering. It’s also a GREAT training ground for practicing snow skills and self-arrest techniques as the couloir doesn’t melt out until late August and the glacier sticks around all year.

After getting out of the couloir, we continued up to a smattering of rocks about 300 feet higher. We were doggin’ it at this point and clouds were starting to build to our west. Here, we made one of the most crucial decisions in mountaineering, to continue, or drop-down? The temptation to reach the summit is intoxicating (hence why they call it summit fever), try not to give in to it. Harlan helped me through this decision and proved why it’s so important to have friends with you in the backcountry. The mountain will be there tomorrow, you might not be if you push too hard. So, at ~13,100ft we strapped in and began our descent.

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Part 3: The Descent

This is an edited picture from the summit of Shoshoni (taken the year prior) for route perspective.

The skiing was great, but the conditions were challenging. The slushy snow forced us to really sink our body weight back as we made our turns, or risk tomahawking over the front of our skis. Shaking off the initial jitters, we made it back down to the glacial bench and skied down the “direct ascent” route back down to the tarn, marked with a 3 in the picture above.

The down view from ~300 feet below where we started.
Towards the top of Queensway
Pondering the future
Me, in upper center of the couloir, good perspective of slope angle.

Skiing the actual couloir does not take long, you can thread through it in maybe 10-15 turns. At its steepest, the slope is roughly 35 degrees. On the descent, skier’s right starts mellow before getting sharply steeper. Skier’s left starts steeply above the couloir entrance (Section 1) and then mellows out towards the bottom. The middle was ok.

At the bottom of the couloir as the apron opens up. You can see the terminal tarn poking out of the bottom of the glacier (center mid, below Shoshoni’s cliffs). To the right of (and behind) Shoshoni’s jagged edge is Lake Isabelle, and even further back is Long Lake, ~ 2.5 miles further was our starting point.

From here, we had two brief ski carries across rock gardens before we were able to strap in and ski the last section back down to the shores of Lake Isabelle. While recrossing the ice, we got hailed on, which was unfortunate. However, after we crossed and hunkered down, it only took another fifteen minutes for the storm to swipe passed us. We only heard one thunderclap, which was lucky.

The rest of the skin and hike out was exhausting. As always it seemed longer than on the way up, but we made it back to our bikes in decent time, hopped on, and got back to the trailhead in one piece. The most amusing part of the whole adventure was the looks we received from casual day hikers along the road portion back to our car. Nearly everyone was in disbelief, which went a long way towards making us feel better for all the effort we just put into the adventure.

Well, there you have it, one of the best ski descents near the big metro areas of Colorado and one where you can say, without any reservations, that you earned your turns. Now, with the snow on full meltdown, it’s time to switch to scrambling season!

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10 Types of Powder People

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No other word in Colorado Ski country garners more attention than powder. It immediately conjures images of snowy glory and the attainment of winter nirvana. At the same time, it reveals a comical undercurrent to skiing and riding that seldom makes the front page when discussing the Rocky Mountains or the bastion of culture they harbor. While powder is certainly synonymous with mountain winters, it has become somewhat of a divisive term. It’s either lauded with admiration or shunned because it turns seemingly regular people into dopey snow junkies. As a wise snow shaman once told me, “No one is your friend on a powder day.” A powder day brings out the crazies, and if nothing else, allows for some of the most exceptional people watching I’ve ever experienced. So, without further ado, I present: 10 types of people you may meet on a powder day.

           Covering the bases: Before beginning, allow me to say that the following list is almost certainly incomplete and based only on my personal observations at established ski resorts. I have seen all of these types of people in action, but please note that the descriptions offered are intentionally comedic. In addition, you may encounter any of these people on any given winter’s day, but to me, they always appear more evident on powder days. Lastly, I am in no way exempt and absolutely exhibit many (if not all) of the same qualities I am poking fun at. Enjoy.

1. The Chairlift Chatterbox: Let’s set the scene. You arrive at your favorite ski hill and get in the chairlift line, excited to plunge into the fresh snow. You are stoked, you are ready, the day is yours. Then, someone else gets on the chair with you… and they’re a talker.

           It starts with a simple comment (probably about the weather) to seemingly no one in particular… but it’s just the two of you on the chair…you know it was meant for you. Maybe if you stay still, they won’t notice you, perhaps their vision is based on movement! Unfortunately, the ruse doesn’t work, and they start ramping up the pressure.

           Their next comment is about your equipment: they noticed it was new, and they complimented it—a bead of sweat forms on your brow. Don’t engage, you tell yourself, be strong, remember your training. You can feel their eyes on you; they’re persistent. Then, they start quoting movies you love, books you’ve read, games you’ve played, oh lord, how much more of this can you take?! Finally, they say one thing that’s just too dumb to ignore. You know it’s a trap, but you can’t resist. You give them the smallest look possible; your eyes make contact…it’s all over.

           Speaking at a mile a minute, they’ve gone through their entire family history since the 1600s, told you about that weird growth on their foot, offered sage advice about how versatile khakis are, and have conned you into watching their pet gerbil next weekend… all before the third chairlift tower. By the time you finally get off the lift, they’ve leeched out so much of your energy that you have to guzzle a Red bull just to stay upright.

2. Too Focused on Tech: As you digest the Red Bull, you let your eyes wander, admiring the view from the top of the chairlift. That’s when you notice the tech addicts. They usually present themselves in a few different ways; this morning, you see two versions.

           The first of the two is the social media mogul:they never miss an opportunity to post. There’s a group of them with phones at the ready, jockeying amongst themselves for the best view and best poses. As the competition between them heats up, someone unearths a selfie stick and, with it, a new level of narcissism. Straight to Instagram, the pictures go. Every one of the amateur photographers is just so #blessed to be here.

           A group of intense looking individuals comes off the chair lift, they represent the second version of the tech addicts, and you catch their conversation.

           “Alright, we’ve done three runs already, we’re on pace to hit all of the ones we want by 3:00, then we peel out of here asap to avoid traffic. Jason, how much have we skied?”

           The one named Jason pulls out his phone and opens an app that allows him to see how many vertical feet he has skied so far. The rest of the group gathers around Jason as if he’s a prophet.

           “Sitting at more than 4,000 vert already.”

           “Nice,” another member says, nodding their head ad infinitum.

           “Agreed,” another one echoes, “Let’s keep it up, and it’ll be a day for the record books.”

           You half expect them to conclude their little meeting by bowing their heads together and chanting, “All hail the app.”

           These techies know their time on the mountain is limited, so they focus on hitting the runs that will net them the most vertical feet. Lather, rinse, repeat until every personal record they’ve ever had is broken. The app is their metronome; with it, there is balance in the force; without it, they cannot calculate ‘vert,’ and all equilibrium is lost. You’ve skied with this type before; every moment you are on the mountain, you are on the clock. It’s a relief to be on your own schedule today.

3. The ‘Kinesthetics’ aka Committed and Uncoordinated: Feeling a little more human after your energy boost, you hit your first run, and it is sweet. Thank Ullr. You come to a leisurely stop halfway down to admire your tracks and tighten your bindings. To your right, a talented rider hits a kicker on the side of the run. He gets a respectable amount of air, a quick tail grab, and executes a flawless landing. But you weren’t the only one to see it.

           Inspired by the performance, a new rider gets it in his head that he can do that. He tells his buddies to film him and then (on shaky knees because this is only his second time on a snowboard) he straightlines into the jump and rockets into the stratosphere, screaming bloody murder, before landing face-first into the snow.

           There is thick silence for a moment, then movement.

           Broken bones be dammed.

           The kinesthetic gets right back up, looks up at his buddies, and anxiously asks, “Did you get it? Did you get it, bro? How sick was that air? Mad air, right?”

           The Kinesthetics learn by doing, treating their bodies as punching bags in the process. Sometimes it’s painful to watch, but you have to admit, they are not afraid of anything. You smirk, shake your head, and continue skiing.

4. The Music Man: That first run was great, skis breaking through powder like the prow of a ship through water. Before you’ve had enough, you’re at the bottom and at another chairlift. Determined to get back amongst it, you line up… but suddenly, something unpleasant assaults your ears.

           In front of you is a young adult wearing snowverralls and a fanny pack. But this fanny pack is different; it has speakers in it, and they are screaming out music at an unacceptable volume. Everyone else in the lift line shoots the person worried looks, but nothing changes… if anything, the music gets louder.

           The older couple behind you starts crying; this isn’t what they signed up for. Someone calls the UN to report a human rights violation, and you feel your brain start to slide out of your ears. Madness creeps closer, who is this spawn of Satan? Why is he playing Moby so f*&(#@! loudly??? You contemplate using your ski poles to stab holes in the speakers, but thankfully the lift line starts moving faster, and the music moves away from you. You let three groups alternate between you and the music man, but not because you’re being nice.

5. Why me? At this point, you’re two chairlifts in and getting to more challenging terrain. The second run is deeper than the first: fewer people, more powder. As you cruise down, you notice some frantic arm motions out of the corner of your eye, so you stop to observe. The person attached to those arms is having a struggle. 

           They’ve fallen multiple times, are drenched in powder, and are livid. You keep your distance but watch as they right themselves once more. Having momentarily defeated gravity, they again try to ski. It looks like it’s working, but then they attempt a turn, lose their balance, fall over their downhill ski and evaporate into a thick cloud of powder.

           Having lost both skis in the fall, they emerge from the powder and begin searching frantically, but it snowed a foot overnight, this situation will not resolve itself quickly. Feeling useless and frustrated, they collapse to their knees, throw their hands up to the sky and ask a simple question of the clouds, “why me?!”

           You continue skiing but stop less than a minute later when you hear another exasperated, “why me?!” Searching for the origin, your eyes come across a ski instructor and a group of energetic kids. Half of them have fallen over, unable to right themselves in the thick snow, while the other half are gleefully launching themselves into the powder on purpose, with some of the smaller ones sinking in as far as their helmets. The outmatched ski instructor is trying her best to give instructions, pull the nearest kid out of the snow, and watch out for skier traffic all at the same time. The second she helps one up, another kid falls over, and the maddening pattern continues. “I wanna go home!” the children yell, their cries dominating the audible spectrum. You want to help, but there’s nothing you can do here, so you continue downhill, not wanting to add to the instructor’s woes.

           By the time you get back to the chairlift, a new example of exasperation reveals itself. He is the frustrated dad in all of us: three miniature humans surround him. One child is crying, one is poking the other with their ski poles, and the third is tugging on dad’s pants, trying to get his attention while screaming “code yellow daddy, code yellowwww!” The father is tight-lipped and glum. With kids in tow, he cannot indulge his powder fantasies. He must be an adult, and he is not pleased. You give him a nod of sympathy and get back on the chair.

6. Powder Hound aka the Backcountry Bro: Only one more chairlift before the powder stash you’re gunning for. This time you share it with a backcountry bro. He has a backpack… For what purpose you don’t know, but its immediately evident that he’s better than you. He pulls a beer from the backpack, throws his thumb through the bottom of the can like an animal, and shotguns the whole thing in front of you. Does he throw the empty can from the chair? No, he crumples it up and sticks it back into his bag. Pack it in, pack it out.

           He has gigantic, floppy powder skis. His gear is expensive but used; there are miles on it. His beard? Large and majestic, of course. You don’t say anything for a few minutes, because you feel like the wrong delivery might sully the moment, and then he won’t invite you into the secret powder club. But then, towards the end of the chair, he looks over to you and reaches into his backpack once more. It takes a minute to unearth what he wants, but you assume it’s because he has to dig past all the maps, animal pelts, and hunting knives he has in there. Out comes a shooter of whiskey; with a toothy smile, he offers you the small bottle. You accept but stammer for a response.

           Just as the right words pop into your head, the bro holds up a finger and cocks his head to the sky. His nose twitches, he smells untracked powder nearby; the hunt is on. The chair lift ride ends, and the powder hound skis effortlessly off towards the horizon, the screaming chorus of a thousand bald eagles propelling him forward, while you contemplate whether or not you’ve just fallen in love.

7 & 8. ‘The Stoners’, and The ‘Local 2.0’: 

 At the top of the chairlift, you have a couple of options: ski down, or hike above the treeline towards the alpine bowls. Dutifully you climb, following the well-worn path and the serpentine of snow junkies headed for higher ground. About 30 yards into the hike, you hear it, a nasally voice above the stomping of boots on the packed snow. The voice gets progressively louder until you have a visual.

           The voice belongs to a Local 2.0: he’s from here, and he wants to tell you about it. Luckily when you get close, he’s already found a captive audience: a group of guys with bloodshot eyes. One of the stoners had said that at this elevation, one puff had gotten him high. That comment was enough for the Local 2.0 to swoop in uninvited, and crash their conversation. “Hey guys, local speaking: listen, I’m from here, and I guarantee you I smoke more than all of you, yeah. I do this hike all the time high, like all the way up to the ridge, at least twice a day, so I know how hard it is. I’m a local. This is pretty much my backyard. I would know, I’m from here.” The stoners express concern that they’ve courted this ego with legs, but they’re too mellow to get rid of him, so they must endure the monologue that follows.

           The other people around you get restless; they don’t want anything to do with this clown, and neither do you. Your fight or flight response kicks in, and your pace quickens. You bolt past the ego with fervent strides. It’s another 50 yards before you venture a look over your shoulder. He did not follow; you’re safe for now.

9. The Humble Ripper: Finally, you’ve found your spot. You can trace the line you want to ski down the side of a brilliant alpine cirque. Beyond the open snow, a few tracks lead into a labyrinth of trees until finally, miles below where you are, the run finds a catwalk and circles back to the resort. Only one person is nearby. You look over at her: she doesn’t have a majestic beard or a backpack, she’s kind of scrawny, and her helmet doesn’t fit properly. But her smile is contagious, so you smile back. You wonder if she’s ready for such an endeavor since this is an expert level area. Your wondering doesn’t last long.

           “See you down there,” she says coyly before picking up momentum, jumping a small cornice into the cirque and slicing through powder as if it were nothing but air. She moves fluidly and rhythmically, and all other commotion on the ridge stops as envious souls stare. That scrawny skier made easy work of the terrain with humility, made you feel bad about doubting her, and is now the second person you’ve fallen in love with today.

           Only a few seconds pass before the Kinesthetics start debating amongst themselves if they can copy. It only takes one of them to mobilize the rest…

           There is no order, only chaos: it’s like lemmings falling off a cliff, all of them eating snow in new and dramatic ways.

10. The ‘Just Grateful to be Here’: About halfway down the run, which you hit with reasonable confidence, you come across someone sitting in the snow, staring out at the surround. Curious, you venture closer and see that they don’t appear injured or broken.

           “Everything ok?” you ask, wanting to make sure that this far out, they have the ability to carry themselves back to the resort.

           They turn to look at you and offer a genuine smile.

           “Yeah, man, I’m just grateful to be here.”

           You agree and accompany the wayward soul for a moment as you both stare into the wild yonder. The spiritual moment doesn’t last long, but it’s enough to smooth out the worries and wrinkles on your face. You too, are grateful to be here, and it’s a profound moment, being able to share that realization with another.

           By the time you both re-engage the slope, you feel revitalized and rejuvenated because, at the end of the day, the opportunity to be here far outweighs all other concerns.

           The rest of the day is glorious: you set your own pace, you set your own goals, and the runs come swiftly and smoothly. The people-watching continues, but it finally takes a back seat to your own enjoyment.

           Finally, hours later, as you set your sights on the last run, you catch a glimpse of the backcountry bro. But he has not tired at all and hits a double black diamond because he can. Feeling the aches and pains on your own body, you opt for an easier run and breathe a sigh of relief once you get back to your car.

           As you begin putting your ski gear back into the car, satisfied with how your day went, you get the feeling that someone is watching you… Your heart sinks because deep down… you know who it is.

           “Hey, friend,” the chairlift chatterbox begins, “still good to watch my gerbil next weekend?”

           Dammit…