Carry on my wayward son...

Having climbed 4 14ers, visited almost all of my friends from last summer, attended Brewfest in spectacular fashion, driven part of Route 66, and hung out on an Indian reservation for 2 days, it was time for me to head home. I set out early from Pueblo, after informing a man that his Ford Taurus with 115,000 miles on it could probably make it to Florida. He seemed encouraged by the fact that mine had 190,000 and could make it to Colorado. I considered my road-tripping duty done.

However, it would have been irresponsible of me to have gone through Kansas without stopping at a ridiculous roadside attraction. This is the land of the world's largest easel, the world's largest ball of twine, and the 6-legged steer. Oh, and don't forget the world's largest prairie dog. I decided to stick with my accidental theme of state highpoints, and made my way to Mt. Sunflower, the highest point in Kansas. At 4,039ft, and only a half-mile from the Colorado border, Mt. Sunflower is a formidable peak. The dirt road leads through miles of treacherous farmland, and you must be ever mindful of the danger of native cattle attacks. However, the summit is built up quite nicely:


Approaching the summit- note the picnic area

After a strenuous hike, I made it to the summit, and rewarded myself with a picnic lunch. I took a couple of summit shots of myself and my travel buddy, signed the summit register, and began my long descent.






After making it back to the car, I continued on my way to Lee's Summit, Missouri, where I stayed with Molly and Chris for the night (thanks Molly!). Gotta love the Midwest. Or something.

Pikes Peak or Bust!

Disclaimer: I'm actually home now. But I got behind on my adventures, so I figured I'd still share.

After my shenanigans in Fort Collins over the weekend, I decided to go for just one more peak before I hit the road to go back home- Pikes Peak. For the record, there's nothing particularly special about Pikes Peak. It's not the tallest mountain, or the prettiest, or the hardest to climb. Zebulon Pike didn't even climb Pikes Peak. It just happens to be the first mountain most people see when they're coming from the eastern plains, so there's a slight obsession with it. There's also a road and a train that go to the top of the mountain, where there's a restaurant and a gift shop. So basically there's no reason to climb it. But I did anyhow.

There are two generally accepted ways to climb Pikes- the Barr Trail, which is 25 miles and 7,500ft of elevation gain, round trip. Then there's the Crags, which is 11.5 miles and 4,200ft of elevation gain. I decided that in the interest of self-preservation, I would go for the Crags.

After spending the night sleeping in my car at the Lake Pueblo State Park, which provided me a gorgeous sunset and sunrise (added benefit of camping and hiking: you tend to see both), I hit the road around 6:00am, and drove to the other side of Pikes Peak, putting me on the trail around 7:30am, since I had to gather my gear that was now dispersed throughout my entire car. It was a beautiful morning, and I enjoyed the trail through the forest, which brought me past some cool rock formations.



As I continued on, I met up with a few other hikers who seemed to be on some kind of scientific expedition, since they were carrying a tackle box. While there is a wide variety of hiking gear that seems to be designed to look dorky, a tackle box is not normal. I found out later on that they were collecting tree growth data.

Once I got above treeline, the trail quickly began to roughly follow the road that leads to the summit. This was sort of a trippy thing, because normally hiking involves seeing maybe a dozen people all day. Instead, I sort of felt like my own tourist attraction, waving to little kids staring out car windows at the crazy person who decided walking up the mountain would be fun. And since it was such a nice day, there were a lot of people going up.


My fellow climbers

The last 500ft or so of elevation involved a lot of rock-hopping, which was slightly hindered by attempting to avoid some snow and ice patches still hanging around. But I made it!



After fielding some goofy looks and the inevitable "Did you actually hike up here?" I went inside to get myself the only warm meal I'll probably ever get on the summit of a 14er. As I devoured my cheeseburger and fries, I remember thinking they were worth every penny of the $10 I had to cough up for them (prices up there are outrageous, of course). And then I began my descent. About half an hour into it, my stomach started to feel a little funny, but I just figured it was the usual fatigue that starts to set in around that time. Nope. Apparently my digestive system was confused by the whole real food thing, because I felt sick for at least half of the hike back. That $10 didn't seem so worth it anymore.

Around the time I hit treeline, I began to recover, and I felt fine by the time I got back to the car. I changed into semi-clean clothes, and headed to Pueblo to grab a slopper at Coor's Tavern and to spend my very last night in Colorado :(

Mt. Elbert (or The Attack of the Precipitation)

The highest of all the 14ers is Mt. Elbert, which stands at 14,440ft. It is also the 2nd tallest peak in the contiguous United States. Lucky for me, it's also one of the least death-inducing peaks out there, for both people and cars. I drove to the trailhead the night before my hike, and slept in my backseat. This was surprisingly comfortable, probably because I am short and it was raining. When I woke up around 6:30am, it was still pretty cloudy, but I was hoping the clouds would burn off as the sun came out. In the meantime, the clouds gave the area an eerie sort of look, like ghosts were floating around the mountains.



Aside from the weather, it was a really pretty hike, and although it's a popular trail, it wasn't very crowded, due to the fact that I was climbing on a weekday.


Pretty wildflowers in the tundra above treeline

The first couple of miles were pretty easy going, but then the trail turned steep and rocky. There was a lot of talus, and pretty soon I was passing people who had passed me further down on the trail. I may not have speed or long legs, but I do have determination! The weather was starting to look better, and I had high hopes for a beer on the summit. Then, about 15 minutes before I hit the top, these massive clouds rolled in, and it started to get really windy. By the time I summitted, you couldn't see anything from the top of the mountain, and I was getting hailed on. I decided to nix the usual celebration, and just took a couple of quick summit shots, relished being higher than anyone else in Colorado at that moment, and ran away from the nasty weather.


Look at that view!


My travel buddy with the summit register

I couldn't wait to hit the protection of treeline. Of course, there were several miles of rain, sleet, snow, and driving winds between me and treeline, so I got moving pretty fast. Once I hit the trees, I at least wasn't getting rained on anymore, and the weather cleared up enough that I was dry before I got back to my car. I drove back to Leadville for some warm food (mmmm... cheeseburger and a shake) and wi-fi, and then I drove to the trailhead for Mt. Sherman, the next 14er on my hitlist. Even though the weather was less than ideal, it was a good day in the mountains- I got some nice views before the weather hit, I summitted the tallest peak in the Rockies, and I got to soak in some of the outdoors (literally!). What more could you want?

And we're back

After a couple of nights with Bob, I decided it was about time to get on back to Colorado. First I made Bob take a picture with my travel buddy though. Note the mesa and the non-functioning uranium plant in the background:



I figure if you're road tripping, you need a buddy, and since I don't have a cool plastic penguin like Liz, I settled for a ridiculously green teddy bear. He rides in my front seat with me, and I take him to the top of 14ers. He travels very well, and doesn't complain about being hungry or needing pit stops.

Bob and I were going to go to Gallup, NM to see some Indian dances before I left New Mexico, but the weather didn't quite cooperate. Since it wasn't terribly far out of my way (when you're going several hundred miles anyhow, what's the difference, really?) I decided to take a side trip to check the place out, even though I wouldn't see the dances. The drive there was gorgeous, with red mesas and rock formations on either side of the road.



Bob had told me about a place called Earl's where Navajo artisans wander the restaurant and sell their wares table-to-table. Since it was about lunchtime when I got to Gallup, I sat down for a quesadilla and green chile, and tried to find some nice jewelry or pottery to buy as a souvenir. Bob had already given me a little piece of horsehair pottery as a farewell gift, and I wanted to see if I could find anything similar. On a side note, the way they make horsehair pottery is really interesting. They actually throw horse hair onto the pot during the firing process, and it explodes and leaves little black squiggles on the pot.

Anyhow... back to Earl's... I didn't find any pottery, but I did find a nice little bracelet for myself, which I bought. I then made my way through the desert and mountains, over parts of historic Route 66, past the oldest church in Colorado, through thunderstorms, to a little town in Colorado called Leadville, which is near the trailhead for Mt. Elbert, the tallest mountain in Colorado. Time for my next mountain adventure!

Mutton sandwiches and crucifix rings... or New Mexico

After climbing Redcloud and Sunshine, I started making my way over to Crownpoint, NM, where my friend Bob, the soon-to-be priest, is staying on an Indian reservation for the summer. To get there, I went through 3 mountain passes , two road construction areas where traffic was down to one lane, one snowstorm, and one sobriety checkpoint. I felt like I was on the Oregon trail- "Get lost in a snowstorm, lose 1 day," "You tried to ford a river and 2 oxen drowned," "Stop at a sobriety checkpoint, lose 15 minutes." I even went past a Chimney Rock. When I told the state patrol where I was going from the sobriety checkpoint, they laughed at me when I said Crownpoint and then said, "Well, it's an interesting place. You'll have good stories to tell when you get back to Ohio." Well then.

I got to Crownpoint around 6pm, after driving through the gorgeous New Mexico landscape. The sisters at the house were just finishing making supper when I got there, so I had the first home-cooked meal I had had in awhile. It was delicious. After some after-dinner conversation, I took my first shower in three days (woo-hoo!), and sunk into a spare bed. It's amazing how much more you appreciate the little things in life- a warm meal, a hot shower, a soft pillow- when you don't have them, even for a few days. The next morning, I went to Mass with Bob and the sisters. The church was really neat, because they had tried to incorporate a lot of Navajo concepts into the construction. The shape of the building was that of a Hogan, which is a traditional Navajo building. The alter was made of a beautiful piece of wood that one of the parishioners had given the church, and it looked like part of a large tree trunk. The walls had lots of Indian rugs, and the windows incorporated the four sacred mountains.

After Mass, I helped tear apart a bike (thank you Wheels for Kids!) so the sisters could take it with them on a road trip to Kansas City, where they had some kind of nun assembly. Bob and I then went to the Tailgate, which is a bunch of little lunch stands set up in a parking lot in "downtown" Crownpoint. We got mutton sandwiches, which are pretty much what they sound like, with mutton, lettuce, and a green chile inside of frybread. And frybread... how delicious it is. It's basically a piece of flatbread, fried. And anything is better fried.

That afternoon, Bob and I hung out around the house, reading and being lazy, and watching the mesa in the changing light. Bob got together a couple of food boxes for some needy families, and we entertained a couple of people who needed to either use the internet or the fax machine. It's amazing what the sisters there do- they give away food and clothes, organized a battered women's shelter, have a clothes shop for people to buy inexpensive clothes, had AA meetings going for awhile- they do it all. Bob and I had to run some errands for them late that afternoon, and we stopped at the local grocery store, just because it was something to do. On the way out, we saw a little 25 cent vending machine with little girls' rings inside of it. Being silly, I put in a quarter.... and got a blue heart-shaped ring with a crucifix on it. I've decided that it's going to be my wedding band.


After dinner, Bob and I watched the sky. I swear there were four different skies, depending on which direction you were looking. And the clouds just kept shifting their shapes and textures and colors. It was fascinating to watch. I never knew clouds could move like that.

And the sunset was gorgeous as well. I understand why New Mexico is the "Land of Enchantment."

14ers!

Ok, so there are 53 mountains in Colorado that reach over 14,000ft. These are called 14ers and there are people out there who make it their goal to do them all. While I'm not that gung-ho, I do like climbing them, and I had done 5 of them last year. I wanted to do some more of them while I was out here, but I had to find ones that were easy enough that I could do them alone without fear of dying or getting lost and whose trailhead I could get to in my Taurus (you need 4wd to get to some of the trailheads). Lucky for me Sunshine and Redcloud fit these requirements, and were roughly on my way to go visit my friend Bob in New Mexico. I drove down to the trailhead on Sunday, and set up camp:



It got so cold that night that there was frost on my tent the next morning. I headed out around 7:30am, and hit the summit of Redcloud around noon, after a long, slow trek. Summit shot:



Then it was over to Sunshine, with a shot of the summit:



Unfortunately, the only way to get back to the trailhead was over Redcloud, so I technically climbed Redcloud twice yesterday. I stopped for a celebratory beer at the summit, then hiked back to camp. 9.5 hours, 12 miles, and 4800ft of elevation gain later, I made it back to the car, tore down my tent, and headed into town for a warm meal. I camped last night at Mill Creek, hoping that the lower elevation would make for a warmer night. And now I'm off to New Mexico!

Getting my mountain legs

Last summer, when I had been in Colorado for all of 2 weeks, and had done one long hike in my entire life, a guy from work, Chris, took me on a hike up a 12,000ft mountain, with his wife, dog, and month-old baby (give or take). It was a torturous hike for me, but it kind of got me hooked. So when Chris asked if I wanted to go on another hike on Saturday, I said sure, why not. We went to the Horns on Cheyenne Mountain (the same mountain with NORAD). We also took his now 15-month-old baby, who is walking and talking and absolutely adorable, and a guy from Goodrich, Daniel, who is originally from Ghana, and who had never been hiking. Did I mention that I was hungover from staying out until 2am and then getting up at 7am? Needless to say, we were quite the crew. It was a really cool hike though, because it ended near an old hotel that burned down, so we went exploring through the ruins. I even found part of a plate. There was also a lookout tower nearby, so we went up that. Daniel was terrified, but we eventually got him to come up the slightly shaky "staircase", and I got a group picture of my hiking buddies:


Daniel, Mady (sp?), and Chris


View of the Horns