Backcountry

The week after midweek, the Shadow crew was split in half and we were sent backcountry to do very outreaching trail maintenance and also patrol, AKA bust campers for doing any non-kosher things during the 4th of July. My backcountry group--consisting of Tommy, Connor and a forest service guy named Troy--however, didn't have to bust anyone for illicit behavior. As a matter of fact, we barely saw ANYONE we were sent so far into the boonies. Our trail was also, somehow, uphill both ways. While I was initially kind of stoked to carry around all my stuff in a 70 pound pack (and I'm serious. I WAS pumped) after mile 6 of trudging uphill on the first day the novelty had thoroughly worn off. We finally stopped at this mountain lake which was awesome and beautiful and also icy frosty freezing nippy searing cold.

We then found a campsite where I pulled out my tent to set it up. To my great surprise, I found the only supporting tent pole had broken somehow and, even when taped, it's greatest possible erected position looked like this.

But we had three other tents among the four of us so all was well.


I also have this little nibblet of backcountry adventure that was for the Rocky Mountain Conservancy blog:

Day 3 of backcountry. We’ve been hiking for 8 hours and are now following a very rough, obscure portion of the trail with intermittent avalanche snow patches. We keep getting turned around and then spending 30 minutes of bush-wacking to re-find the trail. Our goal for the night is to get to a narrow spiny ridge about 1,000 vertical feet up to our right, but it’s late and the flat patch of grassiness we put our stuff down in to refill on water looks like a very inviting camp spot.

After a vote, we decide to just push it up the last ridge. I’m in kind of a numb haze, just putting one foot in front of the other and I start to wonder who ever thought it would be a good idea to climb a mountain in general. But then I start really thinking about it, and you know what? I like when the trail isn’t totally clear, searching for the carens like a high-stakes easter egg hunt. It makes you more engaged: the frustration of being lost, but then when you finally spot a slash mark on a distant tree there’s this sense of reward; a rejuvenating burst that pushes you up the next climb.


I also think there’s a balance between living in the moment, yet having enough time to reflect, and somehow, miraculously, backpacking allows you to do that. The pounding of my heart and crunch of trail under hiking boots create a personal soundtrack that lulls me into a world of complete synchronization. My pack straps bite into my shoulders, my feet are sore and soaked, the cross-cut I’m carrying has this weird wave jiggle going on with every step, but it almost makes the moment feel more vivid, more real. Everything is raw. The trail is raw. The work is raw. The sharp, jagged horizon of mountains chiseled against the distant gray sky is raw.


There aren’t very many adventures that are this inherently physical. We are climbing up the side of a mountain to stand on top–it’s the most literal representation of a goal.

And when we finally push over the ridge, everything is mountains, as far as we can see. Soft, tree speckled foothills, building into enormous rocky summits on to the spiny purple-blue haze of distant ranges. It’s kind of the ultimate reward; a high feeling of extreme purpose, of teamwork. 

And then we camp right on the ridge and I felt like I might roll right off the cliff all night but it’s so fresh and clean and beautiful that it doesn’t even matter.

MIDWEEK/MOAB

Last Sunday we speedily smashed everything for a week at Estes and a weekend in the desert into Lewis and Tommy’s cars and trucked back across trail ridge for midweek. It was a joyful reunion, with all 6 crews bubbling with stories to exchange and new adventures to be had. Monday of midweek involved an all-crew workday where we pretty much hauled logs out of a pile and hucked them off a cliff in order to reclaim the “natural looking” habitat.

We then had a large snowball fight; quickly discovering who had played baseball or softball in high school and then running away very fast.

 (photos courtesy Geoff)

The next two days we embarked on some extremely engaging seminars about the geology of glaciers and wildflowers. For the two seminars I attended, we trekked up trail ridge and wandered around learning about how glaciers shaped the lays of the land and looking at really cool tundra flowers. There’s this one kind called ‘old man’s beard’ that grows for 30 YEARS before blooming! And then, it up and dies. Talk about a goal-oriented lifestyle…

Thursday we filled out some evaluations real quickish and then packed everything up for an epic road trip to Moab Utah with a grand 24 out of the 36 RMCC members. We stopped in Loveland, CO to combine 3 cars of people and stuff into one party barge of a van, and then made the 8 hour drive down to southern Utah where we camped under the stars by the side of a river. The next two days were AWESOME. In order to avoid National Park entry fees, we would get up around 5:30-6ish and book it out of our campsites to get to the park before the opening 7am. The first day we went to Arches National Park where we were greeted by roughly ten bajillion tourists. We had the classy “drive in your car until you see and arch and then get out and walk the 30 feet to take a picture” approach for most of the day. 

We then hiked to this one arch called “Double-O” and climbed on top of it only to be screamed at by some grouchy onlookers that there was a “500 DOLLAR FINE FOR EVERY ONE OF YOU IF YA’LL GET SEEN” “oh, and P.S. WE HAVE YOU ON CAMERA!!” Oopie. We then attempted to quickly de-summit the arch but on the scramble down my Nalgene slithered out of my fingers and plummeted 125 ft before EXPLODING on the boulders below. It literally sounded like a bomb had been dropped from the Double-O Arch. The incident did not help our attempted inconspicuous decent and could have very possibly been the fatal end of a small child or dog.

The next day we adventured in canyonlands. We started off the day with a very HOT desert hike and then descended into the majestic land of canyons. It. Was. Seriously. Cool. The temp drops by about 30 degrees, and you walk in soft sand at the bottom of these perfect slots with sheer 50+ ft walls jutting up smoothly either side. It’s surreal. A kick-the-can/hide-and-go-seek playground. 

We spent the afternoon exploring and chimneyed up into this secret caveish corner where we found the “squeeze”—a slot that got thinner as you went down until you got sandwhich-jammed between the walls and had a moment’s panic where you were sure you’d be stuck until your corpse crumbled to dust. But we always got out. And then went back in to try again.

The next day, one of our van members came down with a feverish illness, which was not very fun walking around in the 80 million degree desert so we decided to trek back. The Shadow Crew, however, still had a lengthy 4 days of vacation left, so we headed to Leadville to tackle the notorious Massive 14er which had stuffed us during our last attempt to summit. This time, the trail was mostly clear of snow and we summited that bad boy in 3 hrs 45mins. It was so clear, fresh, and beautiful at the top—during the whole hike we’d been shrouded by this thick, almost drinkable, fog but when we got around 14,000 we popped above the clouds and the sun was rising—it felt like we’d climbed into a scene from Avatar. 

I love that moment when you finally hit the summit of the mountain and you know you're standing on the tallest peak in the area. It's kind of a feeling of superiority and conquest...I am above; I see all.

SAW CLASS

The crew is now grade A Chainsaw sawyer certified with minimal casualties! We spent an extremely exciting 2 days in a classroom learning EVERYTHING about the saw. Inside and out. All the little quirks and surprises and somewhat valuable information on how not to die. We were shown a sufficient amount of bloody mangled limbs of careless saw wielders. I’m not sure if it was to terrify us into being wary of the tool or if the instructors just enjoyed our disgusted horror.

The next two days were spent in the field, flexing our saw fingers. I only had one mishap where I accidentally knocked the orange piece of plastic that was holding my backcut open during the wedging process and suddenly there was 800 pounds of pine falling on my face. Thankfully I had cut a stellar escape route and was able dash out in time. The entire shadow crew passed with flying colors. I’m looking forward to our future chainsaw adventures.

Mt. Blanca slash Great Sand Dunes slash Mt. Massive adventure combo

This past weekend, we headed 4 and a half hours south, just outside of Alamosa, to try our luck at climbing the14er mountain, Blanca—the fourth highest in Colorado at 14,345 ft. 

 (Blanca is kind of hidden here. This was where we camped--Blanca is the top right peak in the back... shrouded by clouds)

Twas my first 14er and whoo-nellayyy...I thought I was in pretty decent shape, but when I got above 13,000 ft, it felt like I was breathing through a coffee straw! And then trying to scramble up a boulder field.

We pulled into the trailhead around 12:30am and didn’t set up no tents or nothin, but just flopped onto the sandy ground and crashed until 2:45am when Lewis’s phone sung us awake. Then Josia, Lewis, Connor, and I—the 4 of us Shadowers—and Ben and Ginevra—2 members from the Rawah crew—started up the 7 mile uphill approach to the base of the mountain. There’s something so satisfying about being awake and hiking at 3am. You feel sort of superior to all other human beings; as if you’re part of a rebellion against the norm of night-sleeping by breaking the cycle with a revolutionary night-mountain climb.

We reached Como Lake in the crater between Blanca, Little Bear, and Ellingwood, as the sun was rising. Mountain lakes are literally liquid ice. Let me tell you, that water felt like when you chew a bunch of mint gum and then chug a freezing glass of milk—when I went to test little Como, it inflicted the same zinging chill. Resultantly, no swimming was done, but the lake was so flat in contrast with the mountains towering up on all sides; it created this aesthetic balance of calm and jagged that was extremely beautiful and pleasing. 

Then we hit the true mountain switchbacks, which soon morphed into climbing straight up on a vertical boulder field—Shelby’s oxygen levels becoming more and more depleted as she fell further and further behind.

At some point during this scrambling period, I made the decision that I would undergo red-blood cell doping before attempting any higher peaks. Miraculously, we eventually made it to the top and dined on a gourmet meal of summer sausage and Gouda cheese. Nothing has ever tasted better than that salty combo of deliciousness.

Shadow Crew on the Summit!

 Here are Ben and Ginevra, completely unfazed by the climb, sitting cool as two carefree cucumbers on top of Blanca...nbd.

The trip back down was much nicer and included a long raincoat butt-slide down a very steep portion that took a significant amount of time to scale. The trail was a little exposed, which I realized more fully on the descent, as I was in a slight delirium while desperately clawing my way to the summit. 

On the way back down the approach we discovered that it was easier to just let your feet fly rather than carefully step down the rocks, and spent 2-3ish miles just sprinting at top speed. This might have been my highlight of the hike. It felt like I was a character in a video game, bouncing off boulders and zooming over ravines. I’m surprised nobody split their face open or got concussed. We made it back around 4:30pm and headed to Alamosa to meet up with the rest of the RMCC crews and splurge at a decadent Mexican buffet.

That night, we camped back at the trailhead with all the crews and also nearly ran into a large herd of escaped cows—which, by the way, if mooed at will moo back! The next day, we said goodbye to everyone else and headed over to the Great Sand Dunes national park where we were attacked by a sand storm. Flying sand is wild. It sears off your skin like a little demon. But that didn’t stop our duning adventures.

 I also tackled a REAL LIVE TUMBLEWEED during its flight down the side of a dune.

We then visited the local liquid-ice waterfall and climbed up the river to the falls. It vividly reminded me of a 60 degree colder Kadunce.

Our next plan of shenanigans was to climb Mt. Massive, another 14er, on our way back through Leadville. However, a snowstorm began on the drive and by the time we reached Leaville, the temp had dropped to a balmy 31 degrees. Happy June! After much indecision and wandering around the local grocery store wondering what would be the warmest/fastest food we could cram in our bodies, we decided to purchase 5 toasty rotisserie chickens and go for it anyways. We headed to the trailhead around 11pm, which turned out to be a real offroader and were eventually stopped by the extreme terrain around 12:15. Lewis’s car is a real trooper. We set up tents in the snow wearing sandals and then put on the warmest clothes we’d brought—AKA tights and a thin longsleeve. 

It. Was. Cold— dropping into the 20s, and when we woke up at 3:45am to start Massive, there was some solid snow on the ground.

But it was beautiful. The snow-laced trees glittered in the rising sun like they only do the morning after a snowfall and the mountains bore a frosty white icing among boulder sprinkles.

What we didn’t really anticipate though, was that you can’t really see trail under snow, and about 45 minutes in we were definitely wandering in untraveled territory. We’d find the path and then lose it and then find if for like 20 seconds but then lose it again. Eventually we were tramping through that kind of snow that you can kind of stay on top of but then your foot sinks down up to your hip and you fall on your face and it’s extremely disheartening, so we just started heading straight up the mountain hoping we would stumble upon the trail or at least spot a friendly rock caren.

It was a blast. I love those off-trail adventures. You don’t really know where you’re going or how long it will take, but it feels more real. I’m calling the shots instead of doggedly following an established path.

However, we finally came to a point where the terrain was extremely sketch and the wind was also picking up and toes and fingers were solidly frozen so we reluctantly turned around.

So, Massive turned out to be a massive fail. A massively beautiful fail. But we’re going back…just wait you mountain, you. Shadow’s bringing the heat. 

Photo Cred to Josia and Connor!

A day in the Shadow Mountain life:

7:35 Shelby rolls out of bed

7:55 The crew moseys on over to the main forest service building, approx. ¼ mile stroll.

8:00 Work starts.

8:15 Work actually starts.

8:20 Sharpen/pull together tools

8:30 The 6 RMCC crew members pile into the hefty, white, huganto, stick-shift, Duley pick-up and caravan to the designated day-of-work trailhead with 2-4 other forest service peeps.

9-9:30 (Depending on how long of a journey it is to the trail or how long is spent getting gas/essential coffee supplies at the ‘Kum&Go’) The crew completes the ‘Tailgate Safety” talk and we trek off into the woods with our cross-cut saws, Pulaskis, hazel hoes, McClauds, felling axes, pick mattocks, toothpicks, butterknives, or whatever your weapon of choice may be. 

9:30-12:30 Drains are dug. Trees are cleared. Hazard trees are sawed. Terrain is leveled. Trails are transformed.  

12:30-1…ish we take our half-hour lunch. 

1-3:40-4ish: Finish up. Tramp back to the car. Travel back to Shadow mtn base.

5-5:30ish: Clean up at camp. Put away tools. Dump garbage logs if necessary.

5:30 FREE WILLY!!!

On Cooking

Besides the hardwork, new friends, and spectacular, breathtaking, tear-inducing mountainous landscape, one of the most eye-opening aspects of being here is cooking for myself. I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I have honestly never had to full time shop and cook for myself, so without the Tuscarora family meals or the all-you-can-eat St. Olaf cafeteria, I was thoroughly lost the first time I stepped into the Safeway grocery store in Estes Park. After blindly stumbling around for awhile, I came out with some bread, peanut butter, yogurt, almonds, apples, and chocolate chips. And that is what I lived on for the first week. I got extremely exhausted of eating peanut butter sandwiches and gooey blobs of almonds and melted chocolate chips. So the next time we went shopping, I significantly classed things up, purchasing eggs, soup, and even onions!

Only three weeks of cooking for myself and I have already learned some valuable life lessons.

1.     The dinner-cooking ordeal takes AT LEAST an hour. Do not start at 10pm.

2.     Potatoes and ketchup are staple foods. Hands down.

3.     Sautéed onions make everything tastier, make you look like a masterful chef, and make the kitchen smell delicious.

4.     Thaw chicken before cooking it otherwise it ends up burnt and frozen at the same time.

5.     Tortillas=versatile and effective for all your sandwich/burrito needs.

6.     I really hate buying raw meat. The juicy chunks in their strange plastic packaging just make me uncomfortable. I don’t know why. 

7.   Burnt grilled cheese where the cheese isn’t melted yet but the bread is a toasty carbon crisp is a BAD TIME. ALWAYS cook it on medium you impatient fool!

Wednesday/Thursday/Friday 5/27-29

Wednesday=first day of work. We start work at 8 which means in Forest Service time we don’t get going until at least 8:45. On Friday we waited around until 9:45 before they shipped us off to work on a campground with the Americore chitlins. But normally the work is pretty hard.

Our first assigned task was to decommission a classy 1970s trailer in order to save the flatbed metal frame and make a forest service trailer for hauling trees, saws, cats, candy, or other useful things. 

Our first lesson of our first assigned task was ‘how to successfully break and enter an RV using a crow bar’ taught by Aiden and Rich, a 42 year old Forest service dude nicknamed ‘Saw-Dog’ for his fiendish cutting abilities; Apparently seeing Saw-Dog wield his chainsaw is a life-changing experience. He starts his day with 5 cups of coffee and doesn’t slow down for anything…ever.

I have never shamelessly smashed so many smash-able things with a sledgehammer before, and let me tell you, it is a truly satisfying experience. The sound of breaking glass fueled my swinging frenzy as we pounded the poor gutted trailer into a rotten, wet, insulation-y pulp.

By Thursday afternoon, the entire shebang was gone. Hard to believe this metal frame once hosted someone’s at-one-point-cozy RV home. Twas no match for the Shadow Mountain crew.

Friday, we worked at the St. Louis campground with our new Americore buddies. We spent the day digging out these giant cement cinder-block things that had been previously used to anchor in logs because apparently unruly campers will take them to use as firewood, despite all the BILLIONS of down trees around the grounds. Then we laid down log borders around all the campsites and freshened up the place with some pungent mulch. It also rained. All. Day. Long. Twas a grand time.

Tuesday 5/27

Today we departed home sweet Chamberlain House to travel to new home sweet Shadow Mountain. We somehow, miraculously, managed to pack all our gear and boots and tents and clothes and shoes and Frisbees and other random junk into Tommy’s trooper pick-up truck and Lewis’s lil car, and embarked on an epic 1.5-hour journey across the famous Trail Ridge road. Trail Ridge truly is a trail on a ridge. Actually it is more like a highway with near-vertical climbs and careening downhill switchbacks that create gut-wrenching G-forces nearly equivalent to Valleyfair’s Wild-Thing. 

I have not personally looked up this fun fact, but someone told me it’s the highest continuous road in the country. Before witnessing this magnificent road first-hand, I had the ambitious goal of roller skiing all 38 miles of the ‘Ridge’, however, I can see no possible way for a roller-skiier screaming down those switchbacks at mock-7 velocity to stop, or even slow down, and I think my wheels may heat up and melt before I make the complete descent. I am still on the lookout for a roller-ski braking parachute invention, so if you come across anything promising, please let me know. 

Shadow Mountain is beautiful with a capital B and super capital E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L. 

The crew lives in 2 houses, complete with electricity, running water, and 70s style lead paint. Gary the maintenance man made us sign agreements stating we wouldn’t ‘lick’ the walls “no matter how tasty they look”. Gary is a very unusual man. Tommy nicknamed him G-staaaannkkk in accordance to the unusual odor that tends to get left behind wherever he goes. He does not approve of visitors. He also claims the radon in the basement “won’t kill ya, but’ll jus’ give ya some cancerish thang if ya live hur long ernough.” 

It's a great place. Seriously.

saturday 5/24

So, for the past 3 days my voice has been sounding more and more like I am an emphysemic chain smoker who has just topped out at 3 packs a day. To give you an idea of my inability to form coherent words—two days ago when we stopped at Qdoba this was my attempt to order from the Poor Burrito Maker:

Poor Burrito Maker (PBM): happy, cheesy, service industry smile “Hello, what can I get for you today?”

Me: I Decide I want to order a wheat tortilla “Hhhheeeeehhhh, I……wheeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaa”

PBM: looks slightly concerned “Sorry….what was that?”

Me: Try again “Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaa-……Wheeee-Wheee” face starts to turn red with visible strain

PBM: now slightly alarmed “Uuuhh….I didn’t quite catch that?”

Me: still determined to place my order “WHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!” people start to stare

Aiden (my crew leader): “Sorry. She wants a wheat tortilla.”

Example #2: I attempt to call one of my group members from my writing class to ask about our final research paper and he HANGS UP, telling me I have the wrong number!

I have not attempted to make any phone calls since.

Anyways, This morning, my voice was completely gone, and I mean nothing— not even a squeak of sound would come out. I tried to say good morning to someone and sounded roughly like a goose crossed with a gasping fish.

I was in a very depressed mood, continually having to repress sarcastic comments, or attempting to say them and then having people look at me like I may have a screw loose somewhere, so I decided the best place for me to be that morning was the library. I walked into the library just angry; it is not my norm to be silent, and I was worried people would think differently of me because I wasn’t talking as much or sounded like a wheezing cat when I tried. But then, as I was trudging upstairs, I passed this sign:

And I just stood there for a second staring, mouth half-agape, the other library goers quizzically stepping around this strange girl camped out in the middle of the stairwell. It occurred to me that maybe this whole loss of voice is maybe a good thing. I’ve never really realized how important voice is in my life. Voice, meaning not just the way I talk, but the way I listen too. Maybe, by being forced to lower my voice, I can raise my mind, and really listen to what's going on in other people's lives. I'm not normally a quiet person, and not having a voice forces me to see where other people will lead the conversation. And also makes me really work those 'nonverbal communicators' like...smiling... and widening my eyes really big to try and make up for my lack of input.

So, I adopted a new outlook on the whole voice situation. And then we went on a really fun hike to a Bear, Dream, and Emerald lakes and trudged up a mountain and slid down on our rainjackets.

 

Emily smartly consulting the map after our plan to trek blindly into the woods failed

 

Dream Lake