High Adventure #1

I was in Explorer Post 360 sponsored by IBM in Niwot Colorado. Our 1976 High Adventure was a backpacking trip along the Collegiate Peaks Range. Phil Smith was the leader and I believe Tom Schneider was the assistant. The trip included an ascent of Mt. Elbert (the highest peak in Colorado). Some of the scouts had climbed Mt. Massive to the north as a shakedown trip two weeks earlier, but I missed that outing.

We started by driving from Boulder up to Twin Lakes.  It must have been a Saturday. I rode with Richard Hufford and Jim Sanford in Richard's 1959 Willys 2WD Utility Wagon.  The adventure was well under way as we headed up I-70 toward the Eisenhower Tunnel.  We kept smelling an odor like "fried chicken" which was probably sulfuric acid that had boiled out of the battery as we drove.
The truck may have broken down eventually, because I recall being deposited with Gretchen Bookman on the mudflats above the Twin Lakes while Phil Smith drove off to tend to some logistical matter. The mosquitos were upon us within seconds, so I set up the two-person tent I'd brought along and we dove in.

Mt. Elbert from Twin Lakes

Some time later, I noticed there was a guy sitting next to a camper nearby cleaning fish.  A breeze had come up in the early evening and the bugs weren't as bad, so I went over and offered to help.  While we cleaned the fish together, he explained that he had seen the Fish and Wildlife truck out earlier in the day, stocking the lake. He figured correctly that it was the ideal place to reel in a few naive trout. He had a dozen -- all just barely over the legal size limit for harvest.
After we finished, he took 3 and offered the rest to me. He explained his wife did not like fish, so they were just for him.  I had no cooking utensils, but that was no problem.  He disappeared into the camper and came out moments later with a skillet, spatula and enough shortening to fry the fish.  Sweet deal.

Back in the tent, I set up my grasshopper stove and cooked the fish.  Cooking inside a nylon tent is not recommended, but it seemed like the thing to do at the time: the mosquitos were still pretty thick.  Gretchen and I ate all we could, and then saved the leftovers for breakfast. When I returned the skillet, the beneficent camper gave me aluminum foil to wrap them up.  A short time later, the rest of the crew arrived and we drove to the restaurant at the east end of the lake for dinner.

Mt. Massive from Mt. Elbert

The plan for the next day was our ascent of Mt. Elbert.  We had wanted to get an early start, but it was about 8:30 when we got on the trail. The trail rises from the lake, going almost due north along the face of the mountain.  At the top of that draw, it turns west and goes up the ridge to the peak.  Above timberline, there wasn't much of a trail anyway.  It was an open slope at about a 45 degree angle -- a continuous heavy climb.  We stopped a couple of times, and had lunch before reaching the summit.

R to L: Phil Smith (standing); Jim Sanford;
Gretchen Bookman; Tom Schneider; Richard
Hufford (in hat); Kiyoshi Akima (with camera);
Mark Chance (in red parka)

Once there, I was enthralled by the view.  For a 180 degree sweep from north through west to the south, there were snow-capped peaks and dark valleys stretching away to the horizon.  Mt. Massive commanded the view to the north.  And between that peak and Mt. Elbert there is a deep valley that curves around the base of Mt. Elbert to the west.  The two peaks are like gatekeepers; past those, there is a broad valley encompassing some 10 square miles. I remember it as a magical place I would like to visit some time.

Looking northwest from Mt. Elbert

The back side of Mt. Elbert is about 25' of a steep rock shelf and then a sheer 1000' drop. I decided that if I ever wanted to "end it all", all I had to do was to climb Mt. Elbert and take a flying leap into oblivion.  But then, on reaching the summit and drinking in such beauty, I could never follow through.
I used my durable Argus C3 to capture some of the view. Though mere photos cannot convey its full grandeur, they still transport me back to that place.

Halfmoon Creek
below Mt. Elbert

The weather was unusually dry and clear.  We were not hurried off the peak by one of the early-afternoon lightning storms that are so common. However, we still wanted to down before dark.  The ascent was 8 miles with a 5000 ft elevation gain.  So we still had to slog another 8 miles and lose all that altitude.  In a way, the descent is tougher than the ascent: All of the energy released going down is dissipated in one's quadriceps. We were all very sore by the time we got back to the Twin Lakes. Going up, it had been hard for me to keep up with the guys all jostling to be in front. On the return, I was the second or third to make it back to camp.

Gretchen did not go on the week-long trip; she had just come up for the Mt. Elbert ascent. Her father came up and collected her after the hike.  That must have been Sunday. Phil's wife Vada did not climb Mt. Elbert, but was along on the rest of the trip.

The next day, we hiked over the pass between Mt. Hope and Quail Mountain.  I remember long climb and especially the long downhill trek. Our camp that third night was in a broad glade near a small pond.  We had not descended all the way to the bottom of the valley.
I don't remember if we attempted Mt. Oxford, but I remember for certain that we climbed Mt. Harvard. That peak left an impression on me since near the summit there was a marmot that I came upon that was licking the lichens off the rock. I offered the marmot a walnut, which I thought would be a real treat. But the marmot refused the walnut and went back to licking lichens.

My impression of that part of the trip was that we stayed close to the top of the ridge.  We camped out above timberline. The next day (which I guess to be Wednesday), we had planned to hike up the west ridge of Mt. Yale. It seemed to be only a short distance away.  But it rained most of the day so we stayed in our tents. A game that we played for a short while involved one person pretending to be an IBM 5100 computer and another giving it commands or programs to execute.  The "computer" didn't do very well in this exercise, so interest waned quickly.

The weather improved the next day, but we skipped Mt. Yale and descended into the valley. We did a lot of hiking along dirt roads and through open forests of lodgepole pine. It was pretty hot and dusty.  That night or the next, we camped about halfway between that valley and the next. There wasn't much of a place to pitch our tents, so we just nestled them among the rocks on the face of the slope where we stopped.

After the last day of hiking, we ended up at the Mt. Princeton Hot Springs Pool. It was about an hour before closing. While we were there, some local boys tried to pull off the top of Vada's suit, and she let it be known she was not pleased. The scouts effectively chased the locals out of the pool.
Just before we left, I found a gold ring on the bottom of the pool. It had a square piece of tiger's eye carved in the shape of a head. No one was behind the counter, so I thought it better to leave a note and keep the ring.  Nobody ever claimed it, so I kept it as a memento of the trip. We (the boys, at least) spent the last night camped out in the back yard of Vada's parents' house in Salida.

Driving back through Denver the next day, there were heavy thundershowers that caused some flooding near the junction with I-70. As we drove up on the viaduct near the Broncos stadium, I saw cars below, stalled out in water that was more than a foot deep.

I remember getting back home and not recognizing the kitchen.  We had installed blue fleur-de-lis wallpaper the weekend before my trip, and I hadn't gotten used to it being there. So when I got home, the scene disagreed with my memory.

Recollections from so long ago are just little moments, stitched together using maps and some reasoning about what must have happened when. For one thing, I must have run out of film, because I have lots of pictures from Mt. Elbert but none from the rest of the adventure. 

One disjointed moment was when Jim offered to trade me M&M's for some of the salted soybeans in my trail mix. I didn't really care for them, so I was surprised by the offer. And that's what stuck. I don't recall any of the meals we had on the trail. It was different with the fish since they were an unexpected gift. I don't remember if there was any kind of a view from Mt. Harvard, but the top of Mt. Elbert is truly awe-inspiring. Many people climb it so they can say they climbed the tallest peak in Colorado, but it's worth it just for the view.