After a few weeks back in Chicago, it was time for a road trip. I headed to Louisville to meet with my partners for the trip, D & T. Passing the
Big Banana Car was the highlight of the uneventful drive. We met at T's, loaded my Forester with all our gear and started the long drive around six. It was odd being a passenger in my own car, but I was glad other people were driving. Did you know there is a
National Churchill Museum in Missouri? Neither did I until this drive.
Eventually, we made it to Denver and crawled the last couple of miles to our exit, since I-70 was closed for a non-flood-related construction project. We went to
Snooze for breakfast, along with a good chunk of Denver, given the 90-minute wait. Afterward, we headed to Sloan's Lake Park to relax in our hammocks. Well, T and I did. D learned the straps are sold separately, so his hammock served as a blanket until we hit the REI later that night.
It rained on Sunday, so we got our climb on indoors before setting up camp at the KOA south of Colorado Springs. The nearby creek was much, much higher than it was when R and I were there in June, thanks to the once every hundred years rain the area had the previous week, and we were warned at checkin that there was a slight possibility we'd have to evacuate if the creek flooded. (It was ten feet below flood level at that point.) With the idea of maybe needing to leave quickly in mind, we decided to sleep in our hammocks, as our tent pad was was under a roof.
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| The creek near our campsite after a once every hundred years rain. |
On Monday morning, we woke up to good news and bad news. The good news was the river didn't flood. The bad news was
there was blowing misty rain all night that ended up getting our
hammocks and the outside of sleeping bags wet. Given that it was still raining, we opted to go out to eat instead
of getting groceries to cook as originally planned. T took us to a truck stop café he used to go to
when he lived in Colorado, then we drove to Shelf Road in search of dry
rock. We found it and went to Cactus Cliff for a couple of climbs including an
impressive lead by T on Black Slabbeth. We called it a day
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| Leading Alexi |
early so we had
time to verify where we needed to go to hike the Barr trail the next
day, get a couple items that we realized we might need in case of
wet/cold weather at the summit and buy groceries for dinner. We took
advantage of the
Kamper Kitchen to make rigatoni with chicken, broccoli
and mozzarella. The challenge was my cookware is fine for one or two
people, but not three. We got some aluminum baking pans at the store and
those worked great. After polishing off our meal and cleaning up, it was off to bed, since we needed to be up early the next day.
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| Pre-hike dinner |
We got up at 4:30 so we had time to get breakfast, drive to the
trailhead and get on the Barr Trail by 6:30. We made it to the
parking lot early after breakfasting at The Dunkin and were on the
trail by 6:15, hiking by headlamp. Only 12.6 miles and roughly 8000
feet in elevation gain to go! We made pretty good time over the
first half, arriving at
Barr
Camp (6.5 miles, 10,200 feet elevation) within three hours.
We took a break at the camp to eat some snacks and enjoy a cup of
coffee brewed by the
new
camp caretakers Renee and Anthony. We were joined at the camp
by a couple who decided they would hike Pike's Peak for their
anniversary. After about a 45 minute rest, we continued up the
mountain.
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| Somewhere between Barr Camp and treeline |
It all went pretty decently for me, albeit not as quickly
as T and D, until we hit the tree line (roughly 9 miles from the start and 12000
feet elevation). It was a beautiful sunny day, which was nice for
pictures but not so nice for hiking in. The first part of the trail
above tree line was this pebbly sandy mess that was not fun to climb
in. I was just grateful that
two steps forward, two steps back song by Paula Abdul and that dude didn't start going through my head,
although that was a pretty accurate description of the hiking. Then
we lost the trail for a bit (not my fault for a change, since I was
bringing up the rear) but found it, and soon the sandy pebbly stuff
ended. Not that this seemed to help my hiking, as I continued to
move more slowly as I fantasized about a bottle of gatorade, since I
really could have used one at that point. Having decided that it
just wasn't going to get any easier (in fact, it was just going to
get harder the higher we got) I slogged on with my water and snacks.
Eventually, though, the altitude and heat got to me and I had to
stop for a bit. Napping in what little shade there was helped with
the heat and tiredness, but not with the nausea. Ugh! At this point,
we were about 1.5miles (and over 1000 feet in elevation) from the
top, so we decided to continue, figuring worse case T and D would
carry me out. With about 1.1 miles (and 800 feet elevation) to go, I
got my second wind after I puked. Unfortunately, the second wind
only lasted about a quarter of a mile, and we resumed a shuffle
to the summit, but at least it was nausea free! We finally made it
to the top around 3:30. Yay! I had been looking forward to eating
the famous Pike's Peak donuts, but could only manage to eat half of
one :-( Boo to altitude sickness. Our next step was to figure out
how we were going to get back down. We hoped to get on the last
train, but if that failed, we were going to have to hitch a
ride with someone who drove to the top. The anniversary couple made
it to the top about a half hour after us and had cleverly purchased
their tickets in advance, so they were good. The conductor squeezed
us on and we made it down. The guy next to me on the train told me he once completed the
Texas Water Safari, a 260 mile canoe race, which sounds both nuts and intriguing. We polished off a lot of pizza for dinner and enjoyed cannoli for dessert. Mmm.
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| We made it! |
On Wednesday morning, we packed up and drove to our next destination. We took the scenic route, but not as scenic as planned, since some roads were closed. Our first stop was
Paradise Cove. Although it was too cold to take advantage of the swimming hole, it was still a nice place to hang out for a bit.
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| Paradise Cove |
We drove to Breckenridge for a late
lunch and I was stoked that my burger was served with tater tots. Mmm. Our next stop was
Golden Gate Canyon State Park, our campsite (at roughly 9000 feet) for the next couple of nights. The highlight of the evening was eating ice cream by the campfire. Brilliant! (The ice cream was Ben & Jerry's Cheesecake Brownie. Mmmm.)
It started raining around 6:30 in the morning, so no one rushed out of bed early. Eventually it stopped and we got up, made breakfast and headed toward Boulder to climb at
Movement, since outdoor climbing in the Boulder area wasn't an option due to the flood. It was a bit of a challenge to get to there, because the most direct roads were still closed, but we eventually made it. As far as Movement goes - wow! After many climbs, we headed to Morrison to grab dinner before the the Furthur concert at
Red Rocks, my first, T's 13th. Most amusing moment of the concert was seeing a guy that looked like a deadhead version of my brother.
D was the first one to get up on Friday and was kind enough to start a fire - now that's a nice greeting in the morning. We broke camp and headed into Golden for lunch then went to the High Wire crags at Clear Creek Canyon for an afternoon of climbing. After we climbed Nickels and Dimes, I seconded T on the 3-pitch People's Choice. Awesome lead by T, especially the third pitch. Once we did two raps back to the ground, we all went up the first pitch of People's Choice and then carefully hiked the class four trail back to the road via headlamp. After a filling dinner at
Woody's, we set up our tents for our last night in Colorado and crashed out.
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| T near the end of the third pitch. |
We didn't want to waste time on our last day, so we got up, packed our stuff, grabbed breakfast and got on the road to the Catslab crag. D put up the first route, thinking he was on the 5.9+ Mungajerry , but he was on the 5.10a Rumpleteaser. Given how most things rated 5.9+ climb, it probably wasn't that big of a difference. It was a fun route with great movement and I'm glad we got on it. (A slab I like? It happens on occasion.) Our second climb of the day, and last one of the trip, was the fun 5.7 Skimbleskanks. After a great week, it was time to get back in the car and make the long drive back to Louisville and Chicago.
