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.