My Account
And with age comes responsbility. I planned
this to Colorado trip (albeit at the last minute) with great caution,
keeping self-preservation in the forefront of my mind. I fully
acknowledged the risk of the undertaking and took the appropriate
precautions. Eli and I had never attempted to
summit anything higher than a sledding hill in the winter, and purchased
shiny new equipment for the undertaking. I rented a car with
unlimited miles, as the irresponsibility of wearing out one of our own
cars was out of the question. I scoured the online newsgroups, read
first person accounts of similiar trips and bought topography maps.
I even borrowed a friends GPS unit. Friday rolled around and we were giddy as
little school girls to get to the mountains. We drove to the rental
agency (right next to the Mall of America) and picked up the car. My
heart sank as I initialled an additional stipulation on the contract which
would not allow us to take the car any further than the surrounding states
of Minnesota. It was too late to find a different rental agency and
we had to take the risk that this small outfit did not track their cars,
as some have started to do lately. The slippery slope towards irresponsibility
had begun. . . The trip out west was uneventful, with the
exception that we drank about a gallon of water each in order to "get
loaded" for the climb. The only known way to mitigate the affects of
altitude (with the exception of hemoglobin injections) is to hydrate
as much as possible in the twenty four hours leading up to the climb, and
this translated into roughly ten bathroom break along the way. I drove for the first ten or twelve hours
into Colorado, Eli caught up on sleep, and we traded
places heading into Denver. We arrived in Denver around 2:00am, found the
office of one of our (four51) client's and dropped off a box full of
trinkets and trash (this is an industry term) that is, t-shirts and
matchbooks. Our plan was to do at least part of an
"easy" fourteener, Mt. Bierstadt, the first morning, rest up, and then
tackle Torreys and possibly Grays the next day. The three peaks were all
relatively close to a small town, Georgetown, which according to a
7-11 clerk, had been snowed on all of the past week. We found a sign
to the "Gaunella Pass Road" and started our ten mile and 2000 foot
elevation gain to the trailhead. Our full size Integris struggled up
the first half of the road which had four fresh inches of snow, prior to
getting stuck. Eli got out and pushed us
free. This happened a few more times and then we encountered a
really steep hill that I just could not coax the brand new sedan up.
We switched places, backed down part of the way, and got a running start
in low gear. Eli made a 90 degree turn (no guard
rails) at about 20 miles an hour, floored the poor rental, and made it up
the hill. At 8:00am we found the trailhead and spent
the next half hour (literally) getting geared up. Drinking all that
water on the way really helped with the altitude. I didn't get the
usual headache and felt good about about our climb, even with only two
hours of sleep. A group of three guys were parked next to us getting
ready as well, with the small exception that we were covertly ripping tags
off of our equipment. It made me feel a lot better that we were not
the only ones attempting to summit at this time in this weather.
The first hour of the hike through a field
of willows was really fun. It was the first time I had ever been on
snowshoes, and winding along the path to the mountain in four feet of
fresh powder was a blast, unfortunately, I was out of breath from the thin
air, and keeping up with Eli was already making me
tired. I told Eli that I wasn't sure if I would be able to continue
if we were going to climb Torreys and Grays tomorrow. He asked me if
I minded if he continued on alone and I said "Sure...I'll just slog along
and when I am through for the day, I'll head back to the car and wait for
you." I continued on at a slower
pace, and eventually caught up with Eli as he was taking off his
snowshoes. I left mine on, and continued past him. "Maybe I'll be
able to make it after all." I thought to myself. The problem with winter climbing is that
slightly different conditions call for either boots, snowshoes, or
crampons. Some trips require all three. This trip was difficult with
the fresh snow as the snow was too deep to ever really change out of
snowshoes, yet some of the steeper pitches were incredibly difficult to
get through with the clunky pices of metal strapped to our feet. In
a lot of ways, this trip was a real learning experience. We both knew that
drinking water and eating food was necessary in order to have the energy
to finish any of these climbs, yet the cold froze our water in our water
bottles, and my power bar was frozen solid and inedible. One of
Eli's waterbottles was inside his down suit, yet it was
still frozen solid. We also knew that thunderstorms came through the
14ers almost every day in the summer and fall, but didn't know (or count
on) the fact that as we hit about about 12,000 feet, the afternoon storm
hit its peak, that is afternoon snow-storm. The snow was blowing hard, horizontal
against us on the fully exposed side of the mountain. So as not to get
blown off of our feet, when a mighty gust would start blowing, we hit the
deck, laying on the mountain, with our backs towards the wind. It
was thrilling. With the exception of my hands and feet, I was not
cold, and to stand on the mountain and feel the power of the elements was
awesome. At this point I started to get a little disoriented from
the altitude. For the past hour I had noticed something that looked
whitish on Eli's face. I didn't think much of it. When I
caught up with him, I looked at him closely and noticed that those pure
white patches were frostbite. His built in face mask was not
adjusted right, and he had a healthy dose of dead skin on his face.
We fixed his hood and continued. Between 12,500 and 13,500 we started to
bonk. I felt sleepy tired, altitude-sick and malnourashed. A few times I
collapsed and laid down to rest for a few minutes, Eli's
oxygen-deprived response to this was hysterical laughter. I worried
that if I responded to his laughter, his fit would continue to the point
of passing out so I ignored him. (Later he agreed that this was the
appropriate resonse) For the next half hour or so, we walked up about ten
paces and rested, Eli would look back to me, I would give
him the thumbs up, he would return it, and we would continue for another
ten paces. Eli had been persistant to continue long after I had give
up hope. We finally got to a point where I realized that the summit was
just plain out of reach. The distance left was do-able, but the
sheer increase in height that we would have to navigate was too much to
get back down by dark. Thankfully,
Eli agreed and we started back down the mountain.
We were lost. The snow had blown over our
tracks, and while we knew that down was important, we didn't know anything
else. The blowing snow made visibility limited, and landmarks nearly
impossible to find. There was no trail to follow, and so we continued
down. It is difficult to communicate the frustration of being done
in physically and mentally and repeatedly falling through waste deep snow
in order to get back to our car. I was having hallucinating (no
joke) of big boulders which turned into fictitous cars and hikers
huddled against the snow. I heard laughter that belonged to the
wind. I was messed up. I had given up on using my own cognitive
ability to find my way down and relied on Eli to guide us
home. We got within a half mile of those initial willows and
regrouped. We told ourselves that daylight was fast declining and we
needed to make a final push to get off this mountain or else it would be
an uncomfortable night. Full of vigor from the pep talk,
Eli promptly slid down a twenty foot pitch, heard an
audible pop from his knee, and while I couldn't see his covered face, I
imagined it was twisted in pain. Fortunately, he was able to walk
off the injury and we continued plodding slowly for the car. Luckily we found a tent that served as a
landmark to get us back safely. The last hour was incredibly
exhuasting. I tried forcing myself to go fifty paces before resting,
and I carried this on until by pace forty I felt like throwing up.
To make matters worse, the final few hundred yards were uphill. When
at last we got to the car, using the final bit of energy I had left, I
opened the car door, turned on the car, and fell into the drivers sleep,
dazed. I sat staring for a few minutes before I realized that
Eli had not joined me, in fact, he was passed out laying
with his upper body on top of the car. I knew I should have walked
him to the passanger door and helped him, but all I could muster was
opening my door and yelling, "Dude! You gotta get inside, man!"
Fortunately that was enough to get him to join me. We passed out for
I don't know how long. I do know that due to my lack of sleep, I
started dreaming immediately about the awful hike down the mountain.
But by the time we woke up, the car was warm. We changed out of our wet clothes, checked
into the hotel, and fell asleep for about twelve hours. The next day we
hung out for a while in Boulder, eating a St. Patrick's day lunch, and
donating money to the street vagrants. Eli donated to the
cause of a self-described immigrant juggler and modern dance puppets,
while I gave a couple of quarters to two younger guys spare changing for
"a Guiness and a jigger of whiskey." It was, after all, St. Patt's Day,
and no bum should go without alcohol. The trip back was uneventful until we were
leaving the Lincoln, Nebraska city limits. I was driving, thought the
speed limit had gone back up to 75mph, and was pulled over. The police
officer was extremely friendly, almost to the point of insincerity. Taking
advantage of tips I had read about, I kept my hands on the wheel when he
approached, I did not admit to knowing I was speeding, and I was as
friendly as I could be. He seemed fascinated by our trip, and then I
realized it was an act, and imagined the red flegs being raised in his
tiny brain. Bing! Rental car. Bing! Two guys allegedly driving "home" to a
state neither of them have driver's liscenes in. Bing! 30 hours of driving
in 3 days. Bing! They appear to be using correct grammar and I've never
trusted educated folks. He took our papers, diappeared for 10
minutes, returned, asked me to shut of the engine and step out of the car.
As it was St. Patrick's day, I was hoping for a roadside sobriety test,
breathalizer, and to be sent on our way. Instead, I found myself face to
face with a 4'10 K9 cop, who looked more like a dog than his four-legged
partner. "So you're driving from Denver,
huh?" So we watched as the dog sniffed our car,
eager to please his stumpy master. Officer Little Person went
through our gear, our gas station candy trash, and I watched with no small
amount of satisfaction as he dug through my very wet, very smelly
underwear in the trunk. From what I have seen on the COPS tv show
(dog goes crazy when they smells drugs), this benign pooch was
disapointed. The moustached midget put his dog away and approached us.
"Well, I know my dog, and my dog knows his
smells, and although he was signaling to the trunk, I went through your
stuff and didn't find anything." And so we arrived back in Minneapolis around
6am, I went home to sleep and Eli went back to work. At
11am, we drove to the rental agency to drop off the car. The very same
agency that advertises "unlimited miles" to mall of america tourists in
the small chance they would want to drive to Duluth, or do whatever Mall
tourists do. The agent asked me how many miles were on the car. I told
him, he looked at the computer, looked up at me and said, "You put 2000
MILES on that car in THREE days?" I replied, "Yep!" He shook his head, I
started to explain, and he said, "Just go." So now I am recovered from the climb and
have learned a lot. I am more responsible, actually, then I was when I
left. I realize now that I should have attended to a few details that I
didn't, and will not make the same mistakes twice, just as any adult would
do. But I do have a court date coming up next month, and McNattin is
scheduling another road trip out west. Minimum three guys and two nights.
I'd rather not take off a full day of work if I joined them, but we really
should acclimate and hey, it's the responsible thing to
do.
I was cruising fast eastbound on highway 80 heading through the
middle of Nebraska, listening to a Jimmy Buffet CD when it occured to me -
I am now an adult. The songs of Buffet I used to love like Margaritaville
and Volcano do not do it for me anymore. Instead I am touched
by the middle-aged targeted songs like A Pirate Looks At Forty, The Last
Mango In Paris, and One Particular Harbor.
"Just outside, actually, we
were climbing a mountain."
"Didja make it to the top?"
"Not quite,
as I was telling him, we were-"
"Officer Shwartz is a little suspicious
of your story. Do you know that this is a major drug trafficing
route?"
"No sir, but I can imagine what your next question is going to
be, so feel free to check our car or do what you have to do."
"Alright,
do you have any crack in your car?"
"No Sir."
"Do you have any
marijuana in your car?"
"No Sir, no drugs of any- "
"Do you have any
cocaine in your car?"
*resisting a sigh* "No sir."
"Do you have any
aphetamines in your car?"
"No sir" "Do you have any guns or weapons in
your car?"
"No sir" "May I check the car, including your
trunk?"
"Yes sir."
As for Officier Shwartz, he turned off his Good
Cop routine and turned into Bad Cop (ie Big Jerk) within a matter of
seconds. I understood their suspicion, didn't mind the inconvienance
at first, and tried to maintain a positive attitude. Office Shwartz
had other ideas, and when he directed Eli and I to stand
shivering in a ditch for 15 minutes, did not seem too sympathetic.
In fact, he enjoyed it. Another backup officer arrived on the
scene, no doubt to help carry the stash back to the station, and I
realized that these guys were aboslutely convinced that we were guilty.
Then he took a sarcastic tone: "But
maybe, fellas, the air in Denver is a little thin, and just maybe you
forgot something..."
I interrupted him, "Sir, please do whatever you
need to do to be confident that we do not have drugs in the car."
He
held up his hands and muttered something. Officer Shwartz dismissed the
Little Jerk and the other cop, gave me a speeding ticket, and sent me
on my way. I thought the unwritten law with cops was that if you put
an innocent motorist through a big hassle, you let them off of any
nitpicky stuff you had originally pulled them over for. Obviously,
this is not the case in Lincoln, NE. I was speeding, I deserved the
ticket, but would have appreciated at least a "thank you for your
cooperation" or "sorry for the trouble" when we did not happen to be drug
kingpins, but tired outdoorspeople eager to get home.