A morning cup of joe, black liquid gold, helps us all feel up to snuff. We know where we are headed but we don’t know what the journey will entail, nor are we aware of the how the trip will end. To drive five hours to a place you’ve never been before and one you plan on hiking up into, to then stay two nights, it seemed daunting enough on the surface but what followed was as simple as pick a place, go to that place, live in that place, search for a small piece of pre-modern life. Home in the mountains with no one around and nothing to do but think and absorb the world around you. As Henry David Thoreau put it so eloquently In wildness is the preservation of the world. Or perhaps even more fitting for this journey are the words of John Muir, The mountains are calling and I must go.
Off we went, to destinations known but details unknown. I must admit my knowledge of the trail and place we were aimed toward was virtually nonexistent other than a few bits of anecdotal descriptions of the mountain range and some videos none of which were of the trail we’d finally settled on the night before. From our home in Denver to the trail just south of Ouray, Colorado was two hundred and ninety eight miles and just over five hours. From the northeast part of the state to the southwest, through high country plains surrounded by mountains, across a mighty swath of scrub desert alongside a twenty mile reservoir through a fertile desert river valley green in the center but brown and tan on the sides before climbing up into one of the most staggering rugged looking mountain ranges I’d ever seen. As we made our down we passed by the mountain we’d claimed the weekend before, Mt. Shavano. It is always surreal to drive past a behemoth towering above the valley you are in and know that you have conquered it, that you can look upon it’s rugged complexion and know exactly where it was you took a break or where you had that moment of clarity that you and the mountain were now one.
An upward climb out of the Arkansas River Valley on the road leading to Monarch Pass is one of my favorite drives in the state, beautiful views of the Sawatch range and of the valleys on either side of it. The pass is steep on either side of its eleven thousand foot summit and the way down on the western side shows a beautiful carpet of green, evergreens cover the area all the way down to the rolling green hills and meadows of the first part of the Gunnison River Valley, in the distance you can see the bottom of the Elk range and you can get a tiny glimpse of the San Juans if the sky is clear enough.
The farther west we went the more arid the climate became creating a wonderful juxtaposition between the valley floor, at first with a green marshland but what would eventually turn into a massive reservoir some twenty miles long. Cliffs to the north of us and in the distance small glimpses of the Elk range still coated in a white frosty blanket. Snow won’t fully disappear from these peaks until probably August. We crossed over the reservoir to the south rim and wound our way toward the western edge, the man made dam seemed small from this side but as the road crested a hill you could glimpse just how deep the canyon on the other side of it was, it’s river running steadily some six hundred feet below.
The road turned south and we began to climb out of the river valley and up through a steep walled canyon, the scrub desert gave way to rocky cliffs and evergreens. Cresting the top of a small mesa we could finally glimpse one of the northern most sections of the range we were headed toward, jagged snow capped peaks lay to our south giving us an idea of the rugged terrain which would be our home for the weekend. A strange dichotomy to the valley we now found ourselves in, giant rocky mesas surrounded by scrub desert lay to our north while meadows of rolling green hills that ran up to rocky snow capped peaks lay to our south, lush verdant grasses gently wafting in the breeze as cows grazed, slowly meandering from place to place, while we sat on a black ribbon of asphalt carving our way west across the valley floor. A wall topped with boulders sat to our right, towering above the road, covered in hundreds of shades of green, from burnt almost brown green to bright neon, the small bushes and trees not yet ready to bloom, dormant, yet to reveal their brilliant chartreuse. As we reached Cimarron the road started its slow meander down out of the valley and toward a tan desert stretching out as far as the eye could see. In the distance was the town of Montrose and to our north was Grand Mesa, a flat topped mountain that seemed to stretch on forever. As we looked south we could finally see the full northern rim of the San Juans, craggy and capped in snow, a wall of sharp peaks standing high above the hills below. They called to me, to us all, we needed to be there now. It was no longer a fanciful journey of random choices and spur of the moment ideas, in that moment with that view it became so much more, it was as if we were destined to explore these mountains.
Through Montrose and finally we turned south heading directly toward the snowy crags that called to us. The jagged snow speckled peaks grew larger in our windshield as we rolled along the arrow straight black top, scrub desert sprinkled with trees and farms. An ironic place, dry and arid yet fertile, a place to grow whatever you want smack in the middle of harsh desert. Hop farms stretched along the road to our left, green grass to our right, horses and cows grazed. Out of the scrub desert and into a brilliant emerald valley which stretched out in front of us up toward the rugged peaks covered in snow and rock. Red streaks broke up the green where rocky cliffs disallowed growth. A million dollar highway indeed. Views like this, you could charge any amount of money and it’d be worth it.
Ouray is referred to as the Switzerland of America and my companions who knew of the beauty of the Swiss alps and the quaint towns which line their verdant valleys quickly agreed with that assessment. Our destination lay just south of town, the highway began to climb in a series of switchbacks and the view to the north was breathtaking. Red rocks covered in dark green pines, spruce and firs, a waterfall on a tall cliff to the east falling almost in slow motion and powered by the spring run off. Nestled against the mountain on the other side of a perfectly carved tunnel was the parking lot for our trailhead. Far above the valley floor but far below the gnarly spires and peaks above. We’d reached our destination but the journey hadn’t yet begun.
We crossed the road in front of the tunnel to reach the trailhead and began to climb back toward where we had parked. The trail zigzags up the western side of the tunnel and then crosses directly over it before turning into large switchbacks at first surrounded by trees and consisting of dirt and gravel paths but giving way to exposed hillside to the west and large rocky slabs to the east as the trail turns to a path covered entirely in millions of pieces of what looked like slate but were a mixture of grey, orange and red clearly containing some form of iron or other metallic compound that was oxidizing, broken off the slabs and which cracked and broke underfoot as if we were walking on shards of dull glass with an almost metallic crunch coming from each step. We rose up the side of this mountain steep and fast, climbing from the trailhead perched around eighty-five hundred feet to the end of the switchbacks high above the canyon below at a height of ninety-six hundred feet almost a thousand feet above the raging runoff driven torrent below.
Spring runoff has carved steep gullies all throughout the canyon around us and the water was raging, pummeling it’s way down the face of cliffs and through narrow troughs meeting the main river before cascading down over more cliffs as it wound its way through valleys and canyons farther down stream. It was a land of waterfalls, of steep slab walls, thousand foot drops and trees clinging to the sides of boulders, the margins for error seemed minimal on a trail not much wider than my shoulders in spots. A constant roar was the soundtrack through this scarped gorge of grey slab walls chunks of which could be seen in the form of great boulders littering the stream below. After the switchbacks the trail almost turned into a narrow goat path carved into the cliffs, not so narrow as to spark great fear from exposure but narrow enough to remind you of how high up you are and how far of a fall it would be. Every so often the river below would jump in elevation and get closer to us than it had been, as far down as maybe a thousand feet as close in spots as a hundred or so, large waterfalls showered over the lower reaches in these instances. Water is a mighty force, such power and skill but also patience to carve these gullies and canyons so deep. Onward we trudged up and up and up winding around the northern wall of the gorge, we came across a few hikers enjoying a break and a breathtaking view before we finally made it to a few old and decrepit structures, old out buildings and derelict parts of machinery from the mines this trail was originally built for. At the biggest of these sat an older gentleman with three border collies all friendly beasts glad to see other hikers and excited to follow us on up the trail before their owner whistled at them to come back. Just about a half mile further we reached the entrance to the old mine.
We stopped for a bit and observed the dark, dank hole in the mountain side. I stared into it, this pitch black eye of oblivion, I could not see more than maybe six feet inside it and when one of my companions hollered into it you could not hear an echo. It absorbed all light and sound and if I told you I would not enter that jet black hole for less than a million dollars I’d be lying. It would take far more than that for me to even entertain the idea. Further up the trail a bit we came to a small section maybe a span of twenty or so feet that had been cleared of its washout protection by a rather large boulder at some point in the recent past. Where the inch thick pieces of steel rebar had once held some form of retaining wall was now just dirt and rocks sloping down to the creek now merely thirty or so feet below, the lengths of rebar bent over beyond ninety degrees and as I traced the path with my eyes down to the water I saw the culprit sat dead center in the stream a boulder the size of a tiny home laying up against another boulder slightly smaller in size. My companions crossed the span, the first of them with his gear the second left his bag with me and the two of them carved some foot holds to make the traverse easier for passerby. I did not help in this task, my fear of heights having paralyzed me about halfway across it just moments earlier, I took the time to regain my courage and refocus my mind. Their efforts to somewhat rebuild the trail had worked marvelously and it became much easier to cross. We carried on back on well maintained trail until finally we came across a spur of the creek which we would have to ford. It wasn’t a very wide stream nor very deep but where the trail seemed to cross would not work so we meandered up its shores for a bit before finding a pair of downed logs spanning a small gap. We crossed mostly without incident and made our way back to and up the trail. We carried on a ways before spotting the perfect campsite, a little recess down below the trail next to a large arrowhead shaped boulder a few hundred feet from the main creek. A fire ring down hill from the camp gave us the idea that the area had been used before and might make a great base camp for the weekend. We kept it in mind but continued on up the trail into a beautiful green meadow at the base of a steep grass covered hill, at the far end was a large stand of aspen trees their leaves finally starting to bloom in a light green. Beneath them were a few small boulders where we decided to sit down for lunch and to discuss where to set up camp. We carried on up the trail for a bit before deciding that our first idea for camp was probably best which my aching feet would’ve definitely agreed with and we made our way back down to the large boulder near the river.
As one of us started setting up his tent the other two of us used the opportunity to test the paths up the boulder, it had been too long since I had put my hands to holds in hopes of climbing something and I hadn’t ever really done it out in the wild so I was eager to test the large house sized rock that sat right next to where we would pop our tents. A five sided pyramid of rough lichen covered stone, one side looked very much like an arrowhead the other sides less so, it featured routes in varying degrees of difficulty on all sides and provided a nice activity to wind down with after the long hike. After the first of us popped his tent I began stetting mine up, we tried setting them as close to each other as possible so as to insulate ourselves from any wind we would endure. With the housing part of camp set up we climbed the arrowhead again with my two compatriots both reaching the top from opposite sides whilst I stood below watching.
As the sun started dipping lower we set about getting a fire going, firewood had been left in neat bundles just across from the stone fire ring and it proved decent enough. Sat around the fire we enjoyed our dinner for the evening, for me a rehydrated meal of red beans and rice paired nicely with a few handfuls of cashews and a few pieces of beef jerky, washed down with a German style Pilsner from Upslope Brewing, it may as well have been a king’s feast. Smoke billowed out from our small encampment shrouded in trees wafting slowly up and out over the raging spring torrent to the south and up to the high peaks above us. Compatriots, companions, brothers in arms, we sat around the campfire that night enjoying the company of each other and the cold crispness of our aluminum clad refreshment. A few swills of tequila from a flask passed around the circle and tales of life, love, laughs and all the in between were tossed back and forth. In the amber glow of the flames we explored our own histories, lamented our failures but championed our successes, we grew as we found the common ground between our lives as humans. I enjoyed a cigar as the twilight grew darker still and the temperatures started to dip lower and lower. We decided it was probably best to make our way to the tents for the night, so we grabbed our food and trash, stuffed it all in our dry bags and headed up to the aspens at the far side of the meadow to string them up away from whatever curious creatures may happen through that night.
I have yet to experience a normal sleep while camping, I seem to either be comfortable but too aware of the sounds around me or dead to the noises but sleeping on sharp stones, however with the glacial waters bullying their way down the valley and roaring just to our south I found it incredibly easy to drift off, although I woke up to turn this way or that fairly often, I found no trouble in drifting back to dreamland shortly thereafter.
I awoke for good shortly after seven that morning and after one of my companions had finished retrieving our dry bags and completing his morning maneuvers we made breakfast and coffee. My breakfast was a couple of pop tarts and some beef jerky, my coffee was brewed with glacial runoff from the stream, boiled so as to kill any foreign objects and although my brew wasn’t the best I’ve done the water with which I had brewed it gave it such a crystal clear taste, if we’d have had to spend several days in this lush forest I doubt we’d have needed any other drink. After breakfast we gathered a small amount of snacks and gear before heading up trail to try and summit one of the thirteen thousand foot peaks at the end of it. After the meadow the trail started climbing again from our campsite which stood at just over ten thousand feet in elevation we rose to another derelict mine encampment perched at eleven thousand feet. We observed the rusted chunks of metal that used to be mining equipment and the semi-collapsed old bunk house. It was hard to date the structure but a few ceramic isolators attached to the outside indicated that it may have had electricity or at least perhaps a telegraph line at some point.
There were still a few bunks left inside as well as a wood stove, meager housing for heartier souls than I can even imagine. I long to see places like this, relics of a bygone age, to peer backwards in time to when we really could be disconnected. I don’t long for isolation, but I like to remind myself that people lived in an age where being able to contact each other at a moment’s notice wasn’t a thing to be taken for granted. When warmth and shelter, food and drink weren’t so readily available. I’m sure the people that worked and lived here weren’t treated as kings and I’m sure they are forgotten in the annals of history, their names, faces gone away, their memories buried over the past hundred and fifty years like pebbles carried down stream and out to sea. Gold, silver, lead and various other precious metals and minerals were dug out from under the peaks that topped this steep gorge and I’m sure the folk that dug it out rarely saw the majority of the fortunes.
Higher up and farther down the trail the once steep and narrow gulch widened and turned into a high valley, the river being fed from several tributaries running down from the large swathes of snow on the faces of peaks above us. We reached a point where the trail crossed the stream again only this time there was no real way to cross and we didn’t linger on the idea of attempting to ford what were surely waters of a dangerously low temperature and of indiscernible depth. So we made our way up the hillside following game trails through the dormant meadows and alpine forests. Marshy at times but mostly dried out from the sun we climbed higher and higher until we reached a point somewhere between twelve thousand and thirteen thousand feet where we decided it would make no sense to continue upward as the game trails disappeared in a boulder field. We sat down and enjoyed a midday snack perched high above the valley, to our east we could see Engineer Pass carved across the face of a snow speckled peak, that is where our trail was to end were it not for the lack of river crossing and the thick blanket of snow that had yet to thaw. Back down we headed, down the route we had travelled up, until we reached the trail by the river once again and headed back to camp.
I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect time to hike in this staggeringly beautiful place, waterfalls were found all over and even though the upper regions had yet to shed their winter brown for their summer green it was a place abound with life. Birds singing their songs of love, small woodland creatures scurrying beneath the trees foraging for nuts and berries, we even spied a few mule deer grazing high up the slope above the meadow near our camp. Later that evening we saw a young Elk as well grazing at the feet of the aspens.
We slowly wound our way back down into the canyon, past the decaying mine remnants, through stands of firs, pine and spruce, of aspens with their pale almost cream colored bark, brown alpine grasses turned to green as we reached lower elevations, crossing small streams and tributaries feeding the larger torrent down below. By now my feet had seen about ten miles of rough uneven terrain and even though my new boots were mostly comfortable they weren’t quite broken in and my heels had developed half dollar sized blisters where the stiff heel structure had rubbed them raw. We made it back to camp and I immediately took off my boots and socks to let them breath a bit. While my friends explored the area around and continued to find new routes up the arrowhead I laid down in my tent and read one of the two books I had brought. Into The Wild by John Krakauer, a very interesting true story about a man named Chris McCandless who disappeared into the Alaskan wilderness in the early nineties after bumming across the country searching for a life beyond the consumerism and materialism that had jaded him. He tragically perished pursuing a self sustained life in the last frontier.
That afternoon brought snow showers, small flakes but coming down relatively heavy, fear began to creep into my mind. I wondered aloud if perhaps the snow coming down was going to present problems returning to civilization but my companions, although cognizant of the possibility, quickly posited the idea that the snow was light and would most likely blow through fast enough that nothing would stick. I remained skeptical but their optimism proved true and shortly after four in the afternoon the clouds gave way to blue skies and the sun once again warmed our bodies through the gaps in the trees. We enjoyed each other’s company standing and sitting around the fire for quite some time taking in as much of this disconnected life as we could on what was our last night in the wilderness. Dinner that night was a can of baked beans and the last of my cashews, my compatriots were glad they didn’t have to share a tent with me after the copious amount of beans I had ingested, I joked that I was trying to recreate that infamous scene from Blazing Saddles. Laughter filled the gorge and our spirits were high as the sun dipped ever lower bathing the campsite in twilight. Once again we grabbed our food and trash and walked it up to the meadow and the aspens, there high on the hill we glimpsed a young elk with no antlers but dark almost reddish brown in the twilight, it quickly galloped off into the trees as we strung the bags high off the ground. We returned to camp and lay down to sleep one last time. The night was cold and my sleep was far from perfect but as I drifted in and out dreamland I had a few moments to reflect on the past two days. Although I longed for my warm, soft bed, thought often of the soft embrace of a lover, I found inside my mind there was a calm, that would I have needed to stay in that wilderness it would have been no worry.
Morning came and we quickly put up camp, retrieved our dry bags and made sure as to leave as little evidence anyone had been there as we could and made our way back down the trail. Chipper was the mood that morning as we hiked back down the gorge the sun bathing the peaks ahead of us but not yet reaching our backs. The washout wasn’t as daunting of a span as it had been two days prior and the views on the way back down were somehow even more grandiose. We made it back to the car in what felt like no time at all and my companions made coffee as I sat in the passenger seat absorbing the fresh morning air and conversing with them. Back in cell service I was reconnected to the world, texts were sent, images posted to social media, back in the modern world. We loaded up the car and made our way back down, first into Ouray then on down into the lush valley beyond, stopping at a gas station for a restroom break and so I could change into clean clothes. My blisters had gotten bigger and I did my best to clean and cover them before putting on my more comfortable shoes and socks and settling in for a beautiful drive first up to the far side of the western slope to meet I70 in Grand Junction then back east across Colorado. I’d never been past Copper Mountain on I70 so all of this terrain was new to me. Beautiful cliffs on the backside of the Grand Mesa, a flat topped desert plateau north of town in Grand Junction, the mighty Colorado river rushing west toward the Pacific, stunning Glenwood Canyon with its high flat topped escarpments, through Vail Pass who’s highest reaches had been recently dusted with snow all the way back home.
I am always reminded of how minuscule we are in the grand scheme of things whenever I go on these minor expeditions. The mines that once dug out untold riches were left broken and scattered by the elements, in only a hundred and fifty years time they had mostly disappeared. How long would it take for the scars of the land to heal if humankind just vanished one day? The fortitude and strength of our forebears and those of us even today is great, I’m not trying to discount that but when compared to the mighty forces this of this brilliant blue and green marble floating through the void they seem almost nonexistent.
Never take for granted that you are a part of this world, that the forests, deserts, grasslands, oceans, mountains and all the in between are a part of us all.
The Wandering Toto
– 2020
The Wandering Toto 