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.