Greetings Comrades! Thanks for tuning back in!
7777 total miles driven this trip, and we are seemingly only halfway through! Actually, the trip read 7778, but give me an inch and I’ll take a mile…
Where does that place us currently? On the opposite corner of the continental U.S. Seattle Washington! About as far from Tampa as we can get and still be in the lower 48. Which, we are still stuck in, thanks COVID!
(edit on this took a bit, we’re in Oregon now!)
There is a lot of content to go through, we do apologize for the lack of updates but constantly moving and without access to internet means we get stockpiled with pictures, videos and events, it’s hard to cover them all.
When I last updated, we were leaving the Midwest for the Rocky Mountains, with a small (not so small as it turns out) problem. The central plain states. I had been through them before, so I kind of knew what to expect, but we ran into the slightly unexpected…
We left Madison Wisconsin after snagging the (2nd) ‘best’ cheese curds in the state, and crossed the Mississippi River into Iowa and starting making some good time.
I wouldn’t normally focus on the negative of a given state, but they didn’t give us much else to focus on, Iowa sucked. It smelled like poop and there was literally nothing else to see except for corn and windmills. Food (notably corn and its byproducts) has to come from somewhere I suppose and it is obvious that Iowa is productive in this manner. However, we fell into a trap along US-20…
We’ve had a rule about no driving at night, it usually avoids a lot of problems but I broke that rule hoping to make time, and we paid the price. It had been nothing but corn and 65MPH for quite a while and I had (in error) settled in around the 70 MPH mark. Well, as this very predictable situation plays out, the speed dropped to 55 for about 1/2 of a mile in front of a truck stop and went back to 65. I missed this slight change, and we had a not-so-pleasent encounter with Ida county Sheriffs. I won’t go into the gritty details of the couple of hours that followed but needless to say, it ended with Harmony (Van) being ransacked and trashed and myself in cuffs being booked. This is still a pending case so that is where I will leave the details but I got bailed out, and we tried to find a place to put our life back together. (Edit, i’ve decided to wait until we’ve reached a conclusion on the case before I send this update to press!)
(edit #2, seems like it will be a while before we have an update so… meh.)
We left Iowa with a fair amount of haste and crossed over the Missouri River into Nebraska. It is very obvious at this point we were in beef country. The corn faded and gave way to arid pasture land and this would be the rest of our drive until the front range of the Rockies. Nebraska had a couple surprising gems. The first being Toadstool geological park. It is named as such because the rocks that form the gorge between the mountains are made of a mixture of granite and sandstone. The harder stone forms the ‘caps’ of these mushroom shaped formations and the softer sandstone is easily eroded away from the wind. It created some very stunning looking features and it was tucked so far away from any main highways that the utter silence of the place was a unique experience in-itself. We spent the afternoon skipping about with doggo and decided to spend the night. Bright and early we were off and headed for Chimney Rock! A monument that should be familiar with all of those Oregon Trail enthusiasts, it serves as a point marker and ‘Entry’ into the wild-west. We did a small hike up to the base to get our pictures, and we proceeded for the great state of Colorado.
Crossing down from the north left a fair amount to be desired, and the haze from the western wildfires covered the first leg of our trip into Denver. Dry, flat, featureless… I was told the mountains rise up like a steel wall, but we had no such experience, I’ll toss it up to timing.
By the time we arrived in Denver it was dark, we did a couple minor things down-town, some of which are illegal in the state of Iowa, so I will not be mentioning here.
An inventory of samplings of local products, including a very expensive Bison steak, and we slept at a scenic pull-off to sleep before taking to the curvy mountain roads.
We woke up with a fair bit of excitement, the mountains did exist! It had been so long with featureless terrain that the peaks of the front range was a thrilling change of pace. We pulled over and cooked breakfast with the Jackery at a scenic pull-off overlooking the Mosquito Range. ‘Why is it called that?’ We asked… Well, apparently the mountains were owned by a mining company and the owner, who I guess was pretty inventive (not), was struggling to name his company. Sitting late one night at his table with the documents laid out, a mosquito landed on the empty name spot, and well… now Colorado has a Mosquito Range.
We were Durango bound for a family visit, but due to a plan on a whim (which always ends well) we were headed into quite the adventure. While in Colorado I was quite determined to at least claim one 14’er (mountain summits that are above 14,000 ft) with a minor amount of reading I determined that a hike into the San Juan range, up into the Chicago Basin would permit me a base camp with access to 4 different peaks to choose from. Mount Eolus, North Eolus, Sunlight Peak and Mount Windom. To do all 4 in the same day is known as the Grand Slam… an accomplishment that my ego thought might be do-able. I am in confident physical condition and WAS quite assured in my mental fortitude to handle the task. Well, I learned some hard lessons along the way.
Mt. Windom was the only peak that was rated Class II (difficult) which means nothing more than some good poles, is all you need for the summit, the rest required a bit more experience and even some rope (Sunlight was rated Class IV). So I set my sights on Windom, and we started into the Basin.
Now, I had originally read the best way into the basin was via a train that ran from Durango to a stop that would put you within a day’s hike of the basin, but due to COVID, the train was not running this season, and we had to hike in from the road. I originally quoted my brave partner that it was only 8 miles until the basin but realized my error after around the 7-mile marker that we were only half way and it was the length of the first trail that I misread, and it would be another 8 miles on a second trail…. With an elevation climb of just over 2700 ft. We followed the Animas river up and up until we couldn’t up anymore and emerged into the stunning basin at just about 11,000 ft, greeted by some Elk that went scattering. We quickly made camp as the sun had already begun to disappear.
The three of us ended up staying a couple of days in the basin and I proceeded to tackle at least one of the 4 peaks surrounding us. The hike up to the Twin Lakes basin was steep and stunning, but also not for the faint of heart. I was quickly learning the hard way that all 4 peaks were rated ‘Considerable’ for their exposure rating, which is the openness to sheer drops and wind. Twin Lakes was an additional 1900-2000ish from the Basin itself, and I had quite the view of the surrounding valley.
A large goat family was spending the afternoon by the glacier lakes that make up the top of the Twin Lakes area and I had a couple paths before me. With some help with directions from a fellow hiker, I found myself on the last couple legs of my climb to Mt Windom. Which is where it took a turn for fearsome and my ego quickly gave way to almost paralyzing fear. Mt Windom and Sunlight share a ‘saddle’ that needed ‘scrambled’ up to. Which means steep boulders that made up a 300ft sheer wall up to the saddle. The saddle was fairly steep on both sides and with about 4 inches of snow but it was fairly manageable compared to the previous step. I followed it until I got to the last leg of the trip, the scramble up to the peak. Which, while kind of frightening, I was only exposed to the saddle side, so the 40-50ft (which would have still proven fatal) didn’t seem AS intimidating as the previous 300ft leg, that almost did me in mentally.
The top plateau of the peak was fairly flat and without snow, although I did not go far. I stayed long enough to cower down and get my phone out for a shit picture and quickly proceeded back the way I came. It is worth noting that going down is infinitely more frightening than going up, as you have to face the sheerness of your irresponsible choices that got you into this mess head-on. Going up you can look into the side of the mountain you are climbing and zone out of the steep behind you.
No such luxury this direction and the first 300 ft scramble presented itself with a vengeance and wouldn’t you guess it? I lost the trail of boulders down. I had to slowly, and almost on my ass, go down a series of rocks looking straight into the 300ft drop ahead of me. It was at this point I admittedly had a moment. Never have I really had an issue with heights. I’ve done these kinds of things before. The Himalayan and Alps ranges under my belt, I felt ok with myself and my relationship with sheer drops.
But I got paralyzed. I sat for a couple of minutes unable to move and was quite visibly shaken, which if you have to rely on the steadiness of your feet for survival, is a bit unnerving. After a couple of minutes unable to move my inner Paul Areides (Dune, ‘Fear is the mind killer’) guided me slow step by slow step until I was able to find the trail markers again and I could continue my trip back to solid ground.
I think I lost more than I gained on that mountain. I had no epiphany, nor was the view that much more amazing than Twin Lakes. What I did get was a substantial fear of heights that persisted for the rest of the trip and even slightly as I write this. It was a good check for my ego, and a reminder to read up a bit more on the adventures that I shove myself (and those close to me) into.
The return to the parking lot was a long slog back but at least it was mostly downhill! We were about 1 day from the car when we started to get service, which is where we also got some unfathomably bad news. A near and dear friend of ours was shot and killed in his home the night previous. It was news that was hard to accept but the serenity and silence of the surrounding wilderness gave us a little time to process before back on the road. Asa Semp was a sunbeam and fire of a personality, and he will be sorely missed by so many people.
We returned to Durango a bit tired, dirty and emotionally rocked but none-the-worse for wear. We cleaned up and headed back to Denver to stay with a friend for a couple of days.
It’s been almost a week or two now since we emerged from the Chicago basin but this post is already running on the ‘long-winded’ side. So! I will wrap here. Look forward to the next post and I’ll be covering our trips into Yellowstone National Park, Glacier National Park, the wasteland of southern Wyoming, stunning Montana and through the panhandle of Idaho to our current location in the ‘Emerald City’ (Seattle). Pike Place Market, Original Starbucks and the Space Needle! Oh, My!!!1one!1