Climbing Grays and Torreys Peaks

Wow, it's been ten days since my last post. Mostly because I haven't done anything particularly exciting recently.  I have finished the second coat of green paint on the visible sides of the cabin, and started working on the trim. I'll post pictures as soon as I get some more trim paint on. The cabin actually looks pretty good in bright green with brown trim.

I've been studying a lot for my Outdoor Emergency Education class, too. I've read about musculoskeletal injuries and how to treat/splint them over the past two weeks. Pretty interesting stuff. I have to read about soft tissue injuries this week, which I'm not looking forward to, because the pictures in the book are gruesome.

I've also been getting ready for winter. the nights are getting colder, and the average temperature inside the cabin when I wake up is around 60°F. I haven't turned on any of the gas heaters, yet, so I've been making fires in the evenings to warm the house up. I don't have nearly enough wood stored, so I've spent a couple days hiking up behind the cabin and cutting down recent beetle killed trees and chopping them up for firewood. A single tree doesn't seem to make as much firewood as I'd thought, so I've still got quite a bit more work to do before I have enough wood to last through the winter.

So, climbing Mt. Elbert got the bug in me. I climbed two more 14ers this morning, Grays and Torreys Peaks. I was the first person to hit the trail, at six am this morning, when it was just light enough to not need a headlamp. The trail up to Grays is a little under four miles long with  about 3000' of vertical gain. Another three quarters of a mile, down along a saddle and back up 600', and I was on top of Torrey's Peak, all by 10 am. I had each peak to myself for a few minutes, which is apparently fairly rare. Though, I did see several other groups of hikers along the way, and met a few people at the top of Torreys.
Grays peak is on the left, the big rounded one, and Torreys is on the right. Despite how it looks from here, Grays is three feet taller at 14,270'

There was a goat in the middle of the trail between the two peaks I had to detour around. He must be used to the attention, 'cause he stayed pretty still while I took a bunch of pictures of him.

flickr has the rest of the pictures from the trip.
EveryTrail has the trip path and geotagged pictures.

Climbing Mt. Elbert

Tuesday afternoon, I got a message about an opportunity to climb a 14er, one of Colorado's many mountains that is at least 14,000 feet tall. Needless to say, I jumped at the chance. The plan was to climb Mt. Elbert, which at 14,433 ft is the tallest mountain in Colorado, and the second highest in the lower 48 states.

Our group of five (plus one German shepherd) met at a campsite near the trailhead at around 10pm Wednesday night. We set up our tents and made a fire, but soon went to sleep, in anticipation of our 5.40 am wake up call. We were a bit sluggish in the morning, and didn't make it to the trailhead 'til 7.00 am, about the same time that the sun started lighting up the top half of the mountain.


The first couple of hours were on a good trail through the woods, a nice, albeit all uphill, hike.


We hit the tree line around 9.00 am.


From there, it was another three hours to the top. It was mostly easy trail hiking, but the last mile (with 1000 vertical feet to go) had some steep loose rock sections that made the going a bit slower.


After five hours, 4.5 miles, and 4,500 ft of vertical gain, we finally made it to the top. We couldn't have asked for better weather for the climb. Clear blue skies, low winds, and temperatures ranging from the upper 30s to lower 60s made for a great day (though, my face got a bit sun burned). Even at the summit (where I had my celebratory PB&J), the wind was very light.


We hung out on the summit for a few minutes, then started the journey back down. It took us less than three hours to make the return trip. For me, going down was worse than the trip up. That's when I started to feel it in my quads. Most of the way up, I felt great, aside from the normal increased breathing rate and pulse that accompanies uphill hiking. I don't think I really started to feel the altitude until we got to around 13,500 ft, which I attribute to the fact that I live at 9,200 feet.

Overall, I had a great experience and couldn't have asked for a better group to climb my first 14er with. Everyone was very supportive and laid back during the climb. Even Isis (the German shepherd) helped by checking on each one of us constantly, and warning the leaders of any stragglers (this was her third 14er). There are a lot more good pictures on flickr. A plot of our track, with geotagged pictures is on everytrail (I haven't figured out how to embed them well, yet). I'm already planning my next 14er...

Few Jeep Upgrades

The past week I've been mostly studying for my OEC course, so haven't been too productive as far as the cabin goes. I've been reading a ton about anatomy and basic vitals for class on Saturday. Brings me back to the days of Injury Biomechanics. I have goten a few things for the Jeep, though. I ordered quick fists (which seem to have tons of great uses) over a month ago, but just got around to buying an ax and installing them. I've also ordered new quick disconnects for the front, but they haven't come in yet.

Clean up

I've been back in the mountains for a few days now and started cleaning things up around the cabin. The driveway was full of trash and construction debris. I bagged up the trash and cut up all the old wood (construction scraps and old wood removed from the cabin) and stacked it for firewood. The weather is still really nice here, but I'm collecting as much as I can now to prepare for the long, cold months ahead.


I spent yesterday cleaning up the inside of the cabin a little. I'm still not fully moved in and have boxes everywhere. It's slowly getting organized, though. I also built a picnic table yesterday using some of the old wood that came off the cabin. I think some of it might be over 100 years old. Some of it is old rough cut that still has rounded sides with the bark still on it. It turned out pretty well and seems pretty stable.


I haven't had much time for adventures recently, cause I've been studying for my OEC class in all my free time. I have a text book that I have to read and understand all of. I can't remember the last time I read a text book cover to cover. There is a lot of good information, though. I just finished a chapter about outdoor emergency survival, which was pretty interesting.

Back to the Mountains

I was back in Kentucky for a little over a month, and just got back to the mountains. Needless to say, I'm glad to be back, though of course I miss my family and friends. I was a little nervous to see how the Jeep and cabin had faired over the past month, but the Jeep was just the way I left it, and started right up. I guess we got plenty of rain while I was gone, cause the front lawn looked like a jungle. Some of the grass was two feet tall. I took on the task of mowing it today, which was a royal pain with a tiny electric mower that kept jamming with wet grass. The wild flowers I planted either didn't make it, or haven't bloomed, yet. I can't tell if the stuff growing where I planted the flowers are weeds, grass, or flowers, so I'm afraid to pull anything out.


Since it's been so long since I posted, I'll just give a brief summary of what I did while I was in Kentucky. I went to Nathan White and Kelly's wedding, which was a blast. I also worked two-a-days for high school soccer, which meant I had to get up at 6.30 every morning for a week. Other than that, I mostly hung out with friends, which was definitely good. You kind of take that for granted until you lose it all together (as in, move 1200 miles away from all your friends).

Right before I came back, I went on a fishing trip to Canada with my family. We stayed in a cabin on Mosher Lake, which can only be accessed by float plane. I love fly in fishing trips because everything is so peaceful. It's completely off the grid, with almost no connection to the outside world (there is a CB radio to contact the outfitter for emergencies). It makes living in the mountains seem like a cake walk. The fishing was alright, but I didn't catch anything huge (a few medium sized walleye and northern pike).

Flickr for more Canada pictures.

I'm taking an Outdoor Emergency Care course (just started yesterday), which should be pretty interesting and useful out here. I may try to get on the volunteer ski patrol at Loveland this winter, which OEC certification is required for. That'll give me something else to do and may come in handy out here.