Friday:
- Rendezvous in Salina at about 9pm, head west.
- Arrive in Denver around 6 or 7am.
- Head to Georgetown, find the campsite, set up camp, do some hiking.
- Summit Gray's and Torrey's Peaks (two 14ers)
- Drive home.
This is how it actually went down:
Friday:
- Rendezvous in Salina about midnight, head west.
- Actually head north, because we miss the I-70 exit, and drive north on 81 for about an hour and a half.
- Almost hit a deer.
- Arrive in Denver at about 11am, it's pouring down rain, snowing and in the 30's above 10,000 feet. So much for camping and hiking.
- Wander around Denver, desperately searching for things to do for free in pouring rain, and for places to stay that night.
- Rain lets up, we explore downtown Denver, particularly the Golden Triangle and the 16th Street Mall (that thing is HUGE).
- Find out that Dani's cousin lives in Denver, stay with him and his friend for the night, watch Olympics, play Wii and Guitar Hero.
- Get up, drive up Guanella Pass, planning to summit Mount Evans via Mt. Bierstadt trail.
- Reach the trailhead, everything is covered in snow and slush. We lack waterproof boots. No go.
- Head back to Mt. Evans ranger station to inquire about dry trails in the area, but...
- Car breaks down. Mind you, it's Sunday. No shops are open. Call AAA. They are awesome and find a place to fix our car on Sunday.
- Cram the three of us into the tow truck cab, get the car fixed in Bergen Park. Slackline while we wait for the car to get fixed.
- Drive back to Mount Evans, find a campsite at Echo Lake, set up camp.
- Start a fire, but it never really gets going. We fan it for about two hours, burn completely through the logs, but it never gets hot. Luckily all the fanning kept us warm.
- Sleep in, pack up, take the Mt. Evans road to Summit Lake, plan to hike 2 miles to the summit via Mt. Spalding. Everything is still covered in snow and slush, but we are fed up and decide to just go for it.
- Make it about 1/4 the way to the top of Mt. Spalding, but the snow makes it extremely slippery and treacherous. We turn back.
- Pack up, put on dry clothes, head home.
Despite the fact that absolutely nothing went according to plan, I think it's safe to say that we all had a blast. I know a lot of people who, if their vacation plans had gone as badly awry as ours, would have been absolutely miserable. But while we had some moments of despair, most of the time we just went with the flow and tried to make the most of the situation. We had two days in Colorado, and there's no way we were going to let it go to waste.
Some of my favorite moments of the trip:
- Eating breakfast at a truck stop diner on I-70.
- Shannon practicing violin outside the ranger station while we waited for the tow truck.
- Riding in the tow truck, talking with the driver. She was one of the kindest, most down-to-earth people I've met.
- Admiring the intense beauty of Echo Lake (and many other places in the mountains).
- Fanning the campfire with a level of ferocity that has rarely been seen.
- Waking up at 10,000 feet in the rocky mountains with the sun projecting tree branch shadows onto the tent.
- Feeling hardcore after climbing only 250 feet up from Summit Lake, because we were the only people crazy enough to try it that day.
- Dani laughing uncontrollably at Shannon on the car ride home.
1 comment:
In reference to Favorite Moment #6:
That was the most beautiful thing to which I have ever awoken.
In reference to above post:
That is the most convoluted sentence I have ever contrived in order to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition. I know...I just don't like doing it.
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