Long's Peak

Later in the summer of 1976, Sarah asked if I wanted to hike to the top of Long's Peak with Paul Bender. He was looking for a hiking companion, and I'd already been to the top of Mt. Elbert so I seemed like a good candidate. Paul knew Sarah through classes at Boulder High. Also, the Benders were somewhat neighbors, since they lived on Stanford Avenue.

Paul picked me up at 8:30 and we arrived at the trailhead at 9:30. It was later than Paul had hoped to be on the trail. It was common for thunderstorms to develop in the afternoon on summer days, and he did not want to be on the peak much after noon.

We were planning to take the popular Keyhole route. There is a different route that goes up the East Face, but it is more of a technical climb. Early climbers had installed ropes or cables on the East Face, but we chose the longer, easier route. We took the lower trail at a pretty good pace. But by the time we got to the boulder field, I was trailing behind Paul. Paul stayed in sight until he got to the keyhole. Then, he disappeared onto the south face of the mountain.

Green Mountain and Bear Mountain
from Long's Peak

I paused for a bit at the rock shelter. It was constructed entirely of rock, and was big enough for about one person to stand in. A marmot came out from the rocks below to investigate. But I'd learned from another marmot that they don't like people food, so I finished my rest and went on.

Mt. Audubon and Arapahoe Peaks

Forest Canyon and the Never Summer Range

Once past the keyhole, it's only a short distance to the top. I let Paul know I'd arrived and then proceeded to take in the panoramic view from the summit. We spent about 15 minutes there and headed down. It was a glorious day, so we could have stayed longer. But I guess Paul wanted to set some sort of personal record. We had reached the summit around 1:30 and got back to the car around 3:30. I'm guessing that's a pretty good time.

July 4, 1976

Having referred to it in my story about July 3-4, 1977, I guess I owe you the store of July 4, 1976.

Beth Woolley was in the viola section in the junior high and high school orchestra (and a much better violist than I), so I got to know the Woolleys that way. Jane was a year ahead, so even if she hadn't been the better player, she probably deserved first chair due to seniority. I got to turn a lot of pages sitting second chair, and she would occasionally slap the sheet into place with the back of her bow to let me know that I had been a bit tardy. Beth was a serious person.

She had a younger sister Jane who seemed much more fun-loving. Jane was a grade behind me, and I forget now how we became acquainted. Anyway, she had a friend Cheryl Crone. And toward the end of my sunior year at Boulder High, I figured out that Cheryl had a crush on me. I liked to spend time with Jane, and I suppose Jane (as the good friend) acted as a kind of facilitator. Jane would call me up and suggest a hike or a movie and I would gladly accept. And when I arrived, Cheryl would be there, and we would all have a jolly good time together.

So it happened that after a hike one weekend in late June, I was standing in the Woolley's kitchen with Cheryl and Jane, and I mentioned my intention of climbing to the top of Bear Mountain on the 4th to camp and watch the fireworks. So Jane asked if she and Cheryl could come along and I said, "Sure." And Jane asked her mother if she could climb Bear Mountain and camp out with me on the 4th and her mother said, "Sure." And Cheryl called her mother and asked if she could climb Bear Mountain with Jane and me on the 4th and camp out over night, and her mother said, "Sure." I do not have the slightest idea what those mothers were thinking.

But, mothers handily aside, that was the plan and that's what we did. We assembled our camping gear and lots of caloric if not nutritious snacks. And some time in the late afternoon on the 4th, we headed off toward Bear Mountain. In those days, I could get to the summit of Bear Mountain in about 2 hours, but I allowed 4 hours, since I suspected that not everyone was as athletic as I. 

It was pretty close to dark by the time we reached the summit. We did not have time to cook dinner or pitch our tents, so we ate some snacks and sat down on the rocks to wait for the show to begin. Perhaps it bears mentioning that we were the only ones there, in case Bear Mountain has since become a popular fireworks viewing spot. But on that bicentennial occasion it was just us.

Every city along the front range was putting on it's best show, and we got the best show of all because we could see every one: Lyons, Longmont, Boulder, Brighton, Westminster, Arvada, Denver, Broomfield, Golden, Louisville, Lafayette, Lakewood and Thornton. We counted 13 separate fireworks displays. It was almost too much to take in, visually. And it was fine thing to have the company of two young women at that.

After the fireworks died down, we moved off the summit and had our dinner. I think we had brought along some sausages to roast. As we were approaching the summit, I had noticed a hollow filled with ferns, and that looked like a nice place for a tent. So I helped the girls pitch their tent there and then set up mine a bit higher up the slope. It was a relatively warm and windless night, so it was easy to sleep.

The next morning I clambered down, and we had breakfast together. Then we packed up our gear and hiked back home. And that was that.

The Trail Ridge Loop

On the 3rd of July, 1977, I decided to ride my bike up to Estes Park and see how far I could get. I'd ridden up to Estes Park before, but those were day-trips. I got a rather late start on that day, so it was clear that I intended to sleep out overnight somewhere.

It was evening by the time I reached the entrance to the National Park at Beaver Meadows. I continued on toward Moraine Junction and started up Trail Ridge Road. About the time I reached Many Parks Curve, I was pretty tired, so I just lay down in the ditch and slept. One or two cars went by, but mostly I had the place to myself.

Dawn over Estes Park

At first light the next morning, I got on the bike and continued riding. It was a bit chilly and I had only my green duck jacket, so I wanted to get the blood pumping. Soon enough, I was warmed up. I stopped to take a few pictures of Estes Park at dawn. I climbed another 1000 feet and took pictures back across the valley to show the road I had climbed.

Traffic started to pick up after it got light. There were many cars in the parking lot at the Visitor's Center at Milner Pass when I got there. It was probably about 8 in the morning. I refilled my water bottle there and continued.

It's a long coast down to Grand Lake, I and I was keeping up with the cars until I got to the head of the Kawauneeche Valley. I had to pedal to reach Grand Lake, but it was still quite early as I passed Grand Lake and Shadow Mountain Reservoir. I imagined it would be nice to stop in one of the restaurants along the Lake Granby for breakfast, but I didn't have the money for that so I kept riding.

As I continued south from Lake Granby, I heard a noise behind me that sounded like thunder. Then it resolved into something more like a herd of stampeding elephants. Finally, it turned out the be the unmuffled exhaust pipes of a dozen or so Harley-Davidson motorcycles, catching up with me at a pretty good clip. They zoomed on by and went thundering off into the distance. I was sure to wave as they passed -- a kindred spirit, deliberately overlooking the obvious differences: no engine, no leather, some hearing left....

A few miles up the road, I passed all of the motorcycles. One of them had gotten a flat tire, and the rest had stopped while the tire was fixed. I waved as I passed. Before long, I was passed again. This time, the motorcyclists waved enthusiastically as they passed. And off they thundered into the distance. When I got to Tabernash, I again passed the motorcycles. They had stopped for food and gas there.

Between Tabernash and Fraser, the motorcycles passed again. After that I did not see them again. In early afternoon, I stopped at a campground and ate lunch. Then, I lay down on the picnic table and snoozed for about an hour. I wanted to get back to Boulder the same day if possible, so I did pressed myself to get back on the bike and continue.

It was probably around 3:30 that I reached the top of Berthoud Pass. From there, it's pretty much all downhill to Golden. Well, what should greet my eyes as I headed east on US 6 below the junction with US 40, but a line of traffic moving at a crawl in the Interstate. I imagined that all these people were trying to get back home so they could watch the fireworks that evening. I also imagined that many would not make it. I took great pleasure in riding past at 15 to 18mph and making much better time than they were. 

Once I got to US6 below Idaho Springs, the traffic on that road was moving. I guess that few people know about the bypass or were willing to trade four lanes for two -- for all the good those lanes were doing them. It was probably about 6:30 when I reached Golden. I had on an earlier occasion ridden from Golden to Boulder in one hour, but not after riding over two mountain passes. It probably took me more like two hours to go those last miles. I remember quite clearly flopping into bed at 8:30 in the evening, only to be awakened by the fireworks an hour later.

That was a 4th of July every bit as memorable as the previous year's.

Golden Gate Canyon State Park

I was invited (by whom I do not now remember) to go camping in the state park. It was car-camping and the children were much younger than me, so there was not much for me to do.

Thorodin Mountain

On my many bike rides up Coal Creek Canyon and along the southern stretches of CO 119, I had admired Thorodin Mountain and Tremont Mountain, and thought I could climb one or both. There used to be a fire lookout on top of Thorodin Mountain, so I chose that one first. The day started with a misty rain that calmed to a heavy fog as I climed higher, so I navigated by following the ridge and using my internal compass. All of my hiking was cross-country. 

Aspen in early summer

On the lower slopes of Thorodin Mountain, I stopped in a stand of aspen and recorded the verdure of early summer.

I continued to climb, and after some time came to a level spot on the top of the ridge. As I continued north toward where I expected the fire tower to be, I came upon an extraordinary sight: In front of me was a piece of a tree -- about the size of a 2x4 and ten feet long. The wood was not greyed with age or faded. It must have come to rest there only recently.

A chunk of wood, blown out
of a tree by lightning.

I glanced around and spotted a tree about 20 feet away with a bright scar on its trunk. I quickly came to the conclusion that the tree had been hit by lightning. The jolt had caused water in the trunk to evaporate, blowing a chunk of wood out of its side. I took a photo to record the scene, with the wood shard in the foreground and the "donor" tree in the background. In a twist on the old conundrum, "If a tree gets struck by lightning in a forest, and no people are around to see it ... they are all pretty lucky." Ruling out the lightning bolt itself, you can put a lower bound on the amount of energy released by the tree as it parted with a 10 lb chunk of itself that landed 20 feet away. You can bet it made some sound!

Meadows in the Park

I walked on until I came to the base of the fire tower. I don't think I bothered climbing it, as there would have been no better view from the top. I turned around and headed southwest toward Tremont Mountain. To get there, I had to cross the road that passes through the middle of the park. The fog had lifted a bit my midday, so I was able to locate the road with ease. Perhaps I stopped in at the campsite for lunch. I remember walking along it for some distance to the west, to more easily reach the lower slopes of Tremont Mountain.

Then, it was cross-country hiking again. I don't remember much from my afternoon hike, not even whether I reached the summit. It would have been remarkable, for example, if I'd gotten caught out in the dark or sprained my ankle or whatnot. Often, boring is just fine.

Berthoud Pass

In the summer of 1974, Jeff Carter, Lise and I concocted a plan (well in truth it was mostly my idea) to ride a bus up to the top of Berthoud Pass and then follow the ridge north to James Peak. Then, we would head east along the ridge and end up at St. Mary's Glacier Lodge where Jeff's mother would pick us up. This plan was a bit sketchy, since I had not selected suitable camping spots, nor had I ever been to St. Mary's Glacier Lodge. However, armed as I was with a topo map, I was pretty sure I could get us from Point A to Point B, especially since our Point A is about 2000 feet higher than our destination.

One of Jeff's parents dropped us off at the bus station in the morning. Berthoud Pass is a flag stop, and according to the schedule, we would be there at 11:15 in the morning -- plenty of time to hike in, find a suitable camping spot, have dinner and bed down for the night. That was the plan.

Almost immediately after we boarded the bus, we were called back off. The bus was full, and being a thru bus to Salt Lake City, it made more sense to have the second bus just go as far as Berthoud Pass and then head back to Denver. This observation is made with the benefit of retrospect. Nothing was explained to us at the time, beyond that fact that another bus was being called up to carry us as far as the pass. 

A Scenicruiser Bus

So we waited. And waited. And waited. About the time we were going to call Jeff's parents to come pick us up, the bus finally arrived. We had spent the entire morning at the bus station, so it was past noon before we were under way. On the bus, it was just the three of us and our gear and the bus driver.

I like to watch where we are going. Since we had our choice of any seats on the bus, I sat in the front-most passenger seat. From there I could, among other things, read the speedometer. I was concerned about the time, and it did not help that climbing the grade out of Golden, the empty bus could not do any better than 15mph. We were being passed by everything on the road. (Probably even the occasional Volkswagen Microbus.)

It was close to 3pm when we alit from the bus, donned our backpacks and started angling north across the slopes toward Mt. Flora, the first peak above the pass. My idea was that we would cross over the first ridge and then drop down on the east side of the ridge, into a bowl that would provide good camping. I had studied the map, but my estimation of distance was not very refined. As the clouds started to gather over the Continental Divide and much of the light of the sun was slowly blocked out, Lise would ask how much further we needed to go. To which I replied, honestly believing that the next change in slope would reveal a bowl below us, "Oh, it's just over the next ridge." This got to be a kind of joke-by-repetition in Lise's rendition of the story.

Then, the inevitable afternoon thunder shower hit. We were completely exposed on that broad slope above timberline. All we could do was hug the ground and hope that we were not hit by lightning. When Jeff stood up to put on a poncho, we both yelled at him to get down. After a very long half an hour, the lightning went off to the east, but the rain continued. We got out the tent and huddled underneath it while the rain passed.

We decided to eat our dinner there before moving on, I remember we heated up the can of Dinty Moore beef stew that Jeff had brought along over my trusty grasshopper stove. Having some food inside restored our spirits, and we were able to press on.

Mt. Eva after a thunder shower

About the time we came around the flank of Mt. Flora, the sky cleared to the west and the sun lit up the slopes of Mt. Eva, bathing it in a golden light. The moisture in the air from the passing storm made the mountain appear softer than usual. And after our harrowing experience earlier, it seemed like a vision of the gates of Oz. We had also gained the crest of the ridge and started down into the bowl between Mt. Flora and Witter Peak. At that point, we only needed to descend the first approximately level spot to camp.

Witter Peak at last light

Before we descended further, I snapped a picture of Witter Peak on the far side of the bowl. The last rays of the sun were highlighting its craggy face. We were fortunate that the slope we were on was not so steep. We were able to find a spot and pitch our tent before it became fully dark.

I slept well, but as usual was out of the sack early. I think we had something simple like granola for breakfast, but I made a hot drink to warm us all up. The mosquitos were getting thick even before we finished, so we packed up rapidly and hit the trail.

Witter Peak from our campsite

The next frame on the roll (not shown) gives a view of the high mountains to the north through the gap south of Mt. Eva. I must have climbed back up toward the ridge before breakfast to take the shot. The frame after that (left) shows the face of Witter Peak in the morning sun. It took that as a record of where we camped.

Mt. Bancroft

At this point, I don't remember how we proceeded. The original plan was to follow the crest of the ridge. And studying the map, we would have gone far out of our way if we had followed the roads downhill. It's most likely that we climbed out of the bowl and went over or around Mt. Eva to Parry Peak and then across the face of Mt. Bancroft.  I remember hitting the road below Loch Lomond before actually seeing the lake. Looking at the map suggests that we followed the ridge southeast of Mt. Bancroft and ended up intersecting the forest road just below the lake.

Loch Lomond

However it was that we ended up at Loch Lomond, the map still showed that it was going to be easier to cross the ridge to get to St. Mary's Lake than to follow the road downhill and then double back. So we climbed out of the valley heading north, and  gradually turned east as we gained the top of the ridge. Hiking was very easy on that shoulder of James Peak. James Peak has a distinctive pyramid shape, and is visible from many places near Denver. As it was also the inspiration for the trip, I wanted to catch a good picture of it as we walked toward St. Mary's. I waited until its shape was fully in the frame and then took its portrait.

St. Mary's Glacier and Lake

James Peak

In the high school Art and Architecture course, we watched The American Image (a film) at the beginning of the year. From that time I was very interested in the paintings of Frederick Church, as well as others from the Hudson River School. Some time later, as I was studying his works in the Denver Art Museum, I happened upon a plein-aire study he had done of James Peak. By comparing the two images in my mind, I could see that Frederick Church had set up his easel only a hundred feet or so from where I had captured my image of James Peak.

A short distance from there, we encountered the upper edges of St. Mary's Glacier. To reach the lodge at the bottom, we skiied on our boots until it got too steep. Then, we walked over to the edge and soon reached the road. We followed the road to the lodge and used the payphone there to call Jeff's mother and asked to be picked up. 

I don't remember any of the ride back, but I do remember the long wait for her to arrive. I'm quite sure we did not camp another night, so we had done all of that hiking in one day.

Acknowledgement: Scenicruiser Image by David Wilson, courtesy of Creative Commons [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Continental_Trailways_bus_at_MSI_in_Chicago,_1968.jpg]. The bus shown is somewhat older than the one we rode, 1968 vs. 1974.