Day 5, June 22, 2014
Andrea’s Accident
As we drove down the road from the Huerfano trailhead, I was asking my mom about Andrea, but she didn’t know any details, other than she had seen a deer and run off the road. I was depressed about the whole situation.
The support crew job is very hard. There is a lot of time where you have nothing to do, but then there are times when you have several different jobs, and you may be tired, and then have to drive 4 hours in the night.
I had always asked the crew to make sure they got plenty of sleep. James was always joking around with me that he was competing with me because of all the sleep deprivation and mileage he was getting just from supporting me. I wished he would take me seriously though and sleep whenever he could. I had also asked, although maybe James missed that meeting, everyone not to drive too fast, especially at night. For one thing, it is hard for me to sleep if I am getting bounced around the back of a vehicle or if I am slammed against the side of the van while trying to sleep as my mom performs a 2G turn at high speed. But I was concerned about deer, as I have hit two of them, and about the drivers just being tired. I was never impressed with the stories of CaveDog’s crew driving him around at high speed, I just didn’t think it was necessary to put other people at risk for something like the 14er record.
It turns out that neither speed nor sleepiness was a factor in Andrea’s accident. She had just driven down the road a little ways to get a cell phone signal so she could update our 14er blog. And on the way back she swerved to avoid a deer and ran straight into a pole. Fortunately the pole stopped her, because behind the pole there was a house and if she had run into the house this could have been a true disaster.
Covered in blood, she didn’t really remember much of what happened after the crash, except she was able to tell the residents of the house that the crew was just up the road, so the family was able to find James and Will.
We saw the emergency lights on the road, and stopped at the scene of the accident. James came up and told us the details, and told us to keep going, and that he and Will would take care of Andrea, who they were going to force, against her will, to go to the hospital. However they were going to drive her to Denver so it was going to take some time.
It seemed ironic that Andrea was going to the hospital. It seems like before the attempt began if you were betting on who would end up in the hospital that I would be the odds on favorite!
Unfortunately, James only had liability insurance for his 4Runner, the vehicle that Andrea had been driving, and it was a total loss. I felt responsible, because if it weren’t for me Andrea wouldn’t have injured herself, and James would still have a car. And that car had saved the day on the Lake Como road earlier in the day. At least it had a good sendoff! After the record I decided to try to help James recover some of his cost by giving him the dirt bike.
I felt terrible for Andrea, but she was OK and wanted me to continue, and at this point there was nothing I could do to help. So we said our goodbyes and mom started the long drive to Pikes Peak.
Pikes Peak.
I fell asleep on the drive to Pikes. We chose a slightly longer route through Walsenburg that took us to I-25, because it would be easier to sleep on a nice straight road. Unfortunately I woke up after only sleeping for about an hour and just laid awake in the back of the van. It is so frustrating to be so tired, and to need sleep so badly, but not be able to go to sleep.
I felt the transition from pavement to dirt road and knew we must be on the turnoff to the Crag’s Campground Trailhead, and that we only had a few minutes of drive time remaining. I was feeling very stiff and grumpy, and was rude to my mother. She parked in the lower part of the parking lot at about 3:40 am, but I wanted her to park in the upper part of the lot which would save me about 10 steps or so. I tried to explain to her where the trail was but she just wouldn’t listen. I felt bad about getting short tempered with her over something so minor and just let it go. It is amazing what she will put up with. One thing about these sort of adventures is that you lose your ability to filter your thoughts. Anyone who remains your friend after putting up with you on something like this is a true friend.
At the trailhead one of Homie’s friends was waiting for us in his car with his dad. Wes Thurman had also joined Homie for part of his 14er record attempt, and had found out when I would be at the Crags Campground trailhead. We said hello, and he left us alone to get packed up. Soon my pack was ready, I said goodbye, and Wes and I headed up the trail with our headlamps blazing at about 4:00 am.
It was great to have the Crags trail to hike on. It was an easy trail all the way to the summit. One of the few errors I think CaveDog made was avoiding Pikes at this point in his schedule because he wanted to climb Pikes in the day when he could use the road. That saved him about 1000 feet of elevation, but cost a half a day to drive to Pikes and back near the end of his record setting attempt. By doing Pikes now via the Crags trailhead the hike time would be longer, but I figured I would save a few hours of transition/driving time.
I was definitely slower than Wes, who could have run circles around me all the way to the summit. Several times I doubled over in coughing fits, due to the annoying lung infection. Still, combined with the sleep I had in the van, and with having someone to talk to, I didn’t have any trouble staying awake, and when the sun came up it I felt great. Once our route joined up with the road, we even jogged along it for a short distance. It was still too early in the morning for cars so we had the road all to ourselves. On the road we were treated to a spectacular view of the sun rising in the east.
We made the summit around 6:25 am, and immediately turned around. We jogged occasionally, although I was still feeling my knees and now an ankle was getting sore. The original plan was to have James hike my downhill bike up to 11,000 feet on the trail (bikes are allowed on that trail) and leave it there. However, I didn’t know if he would be back yet, so I didn’t know if the bike would be there or not. As we descended we started seeing people coming up…lots of them…hoards of them! For the first time it seemed like a normal, crowded 14er hike. As we rounded one corner there must have been a group of 50 people or so, and rather than stop we cut through the trees into a grassy meadow.
Then I realized we were below 11,000 feet. This was good because I had satisfied the requirements of the 3000 foot rule, and technically Wes was now my slave and could carry my pack. However it was bad because the very section where we missed the trail was where the downhill bike would have been waiting. Just to make sure it wasn’t up there, Wes ran back up the trail to 11,300 feet. It wasn’t there, and on the way down I was very annoyed that I didn’t have my bike on this smooth, beautiful trail (well, it did have a few rock gardens).
I didn’t know it, but Will had taken Andrea to the hospital in Denver, and James had gone home to Aspen to get some supplies and some sleep. So all the time I spent worrying about the bike was a waste of time. We continued down as I grumpily contemplated how much faster I would have gone with my bike.
When we crossed a stream and to my surprise, I saw Birdie (nickname for my 2 year old daughter Scarlett) and Luke (my 4 year old) hiking up the trail with my wife Natalie and my mother, Calvin, and Axel. Birdie took one look and came running with her arms open, and I ran to her and picked her up and threw her in the air. Just like that all my worries were forgotten as I happily hugged and kiss my kids. It was my emotional highlight of the entire trip. I put Birdie on my shoulders and we all hiked down to the trailhead together, which we reached at 8:25 am.
We happily regrouped at the trailhead. I talked to Natalie about my woes and she encouraged me and said I was doing great. She decided to join us on the drive to Buena Vista to help send me off on the next set of mountains.
Antero, Tabeguache, and Shavano: First Whiteout!
I slept for another hour and a half in the back of the van while my mom drove to the Baldwin Gulch Trailhead for Mt. Antero. This would be the first of 3 days in the Sawatch range. The Sawatch peaks are much less technical than the San Juans and Sangre De Cristo ranges, and are better suited to ultra trailrunners than someone like me.
I had played with several options for how I would approach the first day. First, since I would be gone for most of the rest of the day, it was a perfect time for my mom to take Calvin and Axel to the Mt. Princeton Hot Springs Resort. I figured it would take about 8 or 9 hours for Antero, Shavano, and Tabeguache, and because the resort it right next to Mt. Princeton, I figured the crew wouldn’t even have to move. I could stop by on my way up Princeton. I usually prefer going south to north on the 3 peaks, because in that direction there is more uphill, which is better for my knees. However, with the dirt bike I had the ability to get to 11,000 feet quickly up the Baldwin Gulch road towards Antero, and then I was hoping for a nice descent down the Angel of Shavano snowfield.
I also had a secret plan to have James move the dirt bike up to Brown’s Lake while I was hiking, allowing me to significantly shorten my descent. However this idea would only work if the Antero road was completely clear of snow. We decided that after I dropped off the bike, James would come up and see if he could make it on the road. If so Brown’s Lake would be the endpoint, otherwise I would drop all the way to the Shavano Trailhead.
We arrived at the lower Baldwin Gulch Trailhead at about 10:30 am, and James was there with the dirt bike. I ate, drank, packed, and fixed my feet. My mom wrapped my right knee with an ace bandage to help with the pain, and it seemed to work pretty well. When I was ready to go, I had to say goodbye to Natalie, Luke, and Bird who were heading back home.
I started up the 4 wheel drive road at about 10:50 am. The Baldwin Gulch road is actually a pretty rough road. Had it been something I faced on day 1, it probably would have roughed me up. However, considering that I had been manhandled on the Lake Como road yesterday, it seemed much easier. I flew up the trail at high speed. About 5 minutes up the road I noticed the smell of gasoline, and then I noticed that the gas cap was not screwed in. Gasoline was all over my coat, pants, and gloves. James must not have screwed it in properly when he refilled the tank. I checked and fortunately it looked like I still had a full tank, and screwed the cap back on.
I continued up the road, and didn’t even pause at the big river crossing. It was wide but not very deep. Then I motored on up the road until I was at the 3000 foot rule starting point. While I was taking off my gear I noticed yet again that the GPS altimeter seemed to be lagging, and it was slowly saying I was higher and higher even though I was stopped. Rather than turning around I just walked down about 50 feet or so, then I headed up the rocky 4 wheel drive road at 11:18 pm.
Near treeline, I met a family riding down the road on some ATVs. I stopped them and asked them if the road was clear of snow. They said they tried, but there was one snowfield they could not get past, and they didn’t think a motorcycle could make it either. So I sat down and sent James a satellite message to skip the Brown’s Lake plan and just pick me up at the Shavano Trailhead. I also asked the ATVers to tell him if they saw him hiking up the road.
If the road is clear of snow, you can take it all the way to about 13,500 feet and within a ½ mile of the Antero summit. However, as soon as the road veered left to begin switchbacks up Antero’s west side, I left it and followed a grassy ridge heading straight up the peak. For the first time I felt like I had truly found my mountain legs. I just put my head down and walked straight up the hill without pausing for anything. When I crossed the road for the last time, I headed straight up a steep rock field that was fairly loose and unpleasant, until I crested the sub peak near the top of the Antero road. It seemed that my route was much faster than the road would have been. Then I turned and followed the ridge up to the summit of Antero, it was 1:00 pm.
I had been rapidly gaining ground on some folks hiking up Antero, and they had just summited ahead of me. Apparently I motivated them because they did not want to get beat by “that guy”. Then they offered me some fireball whiskey. At first I declined, thinking that a strict interpretation of the rules might suggest that was illegal—you can’t receive support above 11,000 feet. But then I realized that was stupid, if anything the whiskey would slow me down. So I took a couple of swigs…It tasted so good, it was all I could think about in terms of alcoholic drinks for the next couple of days!
Taking a quick glance around us, I noticed that there were storms all over the place. Storms north, south, and west. Currently Antero was fine though. I snapped some pictures of my new friends, then headed back down and started the long cross country traverse to Tabeguache. I slid down a short snowfield, and continued back to the Antero road. Once on the road I started jogging, and it was feeling pretty good so I just kept on jogging. I followed the road as it swung back west around Antero, then took a left fork and continued jogging south.
I have tried a couple of routes between Antero and Tabegauche. Basically there are two choices: extra elevation, or muddy swamp. I decided to go with muddy swamp. However, to avoid getting too bogged down I decided to stay west and aim for the saddle between Tabeguache and North Carbonate Mountain, a high 13er.
After a one hour jog I made it to a low point in the traverse at about 11,880 feet, with a small but raging creek to cross. Fortunately there was a snow bridge that covered about half the distance of the creek, and from there I was able to leap across into a thick patch of willows. The willows were taller than normal willows, and I tripped and fell down in a position where I was trapped. I tried a couple of times to get up, only to fall right back down.
Once I worked through the willows I was pleasantly surprised that most of the terrain was dry, and most of the willows were easily avoided. Still there was a couple of hundred yards of muddy wet bog to jump around in, but all in all it could have been much worse. I was happy with the route, and this was a wet year. It could be much drier at other times I suppose.
Then I saw a snowfield that aimed just left of the Tabegauche-North Carbonate Saddle, and I decided to use it. First I had another tentative hiking pole vault across a stream, then I headed up the snow until it died out. Then wet grassy slopes to the ridge. On this descent a short, furious snowstorm passed through that caused me to get out my warm gear, and once I the ridge I just left on my jacket because the wind was blowing so hard and the sun was hiding behind storm clouds. I continued up the ridge until I reached the summit at 4:07 pm. I didn’t think much of the weather yet, and began the mile long traverse to Shavano, making use of some more snowfields that took me down to the Tabeguache-Shavano saddle. I have always enjoyed the traverse from the saddle up the ridge to Shavano’s summit. The ridge crest is a fun combination of grassy slopes and big granite rocks. Everything was going great until I was within a few hundred feet of the summit…
The wind had been pretty strong, and now Shavano and Tabeguache were being overtaken by one of the darks clouds that I had been luckily dodging all day. The clouds moved in and it started snowing, and the wind picked up. The wind was blowing so strong that the snow looked like it was blowing sideways. I made it to the summit at 4:45 pm. Thinking about the descent, I was faced with a dilemma. I could descend east immediately so my back was to the wind. The advantage was that I would drop down quickly and not have the cold snow blasting my face. The downside was that the rocks and grass were very slick. Another option was to head south and aim for the top of the Angel of Shavano snowfield, potentially a very quick way to get down. The downside is that I would have to continue ahead with my face in the wind and snow, and it would take longer to start descending, but the advantage was that I should be able to descend 1500 feet in a few minutes once on the snow.
I decided to go for the snow field (of course!). The wind was so intense it felt like hurricane force winds. I had to lean to my right into the wind in order to be able to stand up straight, and my hands and the exposed part of my face were frozen. I couldn’t see very well in the whiteout, but continued plodding along following the ridge south of the summit of Shavano. The wind only intensified as I dropped onto the long broad saddle between Shavano and the peak to its south. Finally I was able to turn left and put my back in the wind, and make it to the snowfield.
The snowfield had melted out like a golf ball, with pits all over the place, and it was very dirty. However, there was a path that people had been using to glissade on. Over the weeks, the path must have been used multiple times to compress the snow beneath it, and all the snow around it had melted out much more quickly. This resulted in what looked something like a raised bobsled track. I was looking for to this! I pulled out my ice ax and began to descend. At first it wasn’t very steep so I descended at a reasonable speed. Unlike a normal descent, where you use you ax to control your speed. This time all I was trying to do was stay on the track. So I would use the ax to try to make adjustments to keep me on the track as I slid down the hill. A few times I failed, veered off the track, and was rewarded with some hard snow in my rear end.
Then I made it to the steep part of the Angel of Shavano, and continued right down at high speed. When I finally came to a rest at the bottom, I stood up and noticed something was wrong. My pants were totally filled with snow, so I had to dance around to shake it all out. I had ripped a hole in the butt of my pants and the snow had filled up the pants as I careened down the hill. It had come down about 1000 feet in 8 minutes, I wish I could always descend that fast!
I was still in a pretty strong, consistent wind, but it was much tamer than it had been above. What I was more upset about was that now it was not snowing anymore. Instead it was raining! One thing about the snow, it may be cold, but at least you don’t get soaked…I continued straight down the path of least resistance, knowing that after descending about another 1000 feet I should join up with the standard route up Shavano. Soon I was in a forest, expecting to run into the main trail, but it didn’t come. Instead I found myself navigating around fallen trees. They were all over the place. I took a couple of hard falls on the slick forest floor, but just continued heading east. I was annoyed that it was taking so long to find the trail, so eventually I turned to the left, believing it was on that side. Fortunately, that was a good idea and I found the trail right at about 11,000 feet, and the rain finally stopped so that lifted my spirits.
Not one minute after I found the trail, I saw James coming up the trail. Well, that was perfect timing…however, we just barely avoided a disaster. If he had gone up the trail just a little further I wouldn’t have seen him since I was off the main trail. I might have gone down, made it to the trailhead, and then had no idea what happened to James. He might have waited for a long time before heading down. He didn’t seem to understand what a disaster we had narrowly averted. Sometimes you just get lucky!
According to the 3000 foot rule, it was now legal for James to carry my pack, so he took my pack and I followed him down the trail. He hadn’t noticed the storm above and made fun of me for how brutal I made it out to be…Oh how I wish he could have suffered with me! He was faster on the rocky trail, and I had to drop back a little bit. I was pretty beat up, wet, and cold, and that storm had turned my earlier enthusiasm into melancholy.
We ran into Homie near the trailhead, a surprise to me since I didn’t know he would still be around. (That meant if I had missed James, at least Homie would have been there to take me to the next mountain, but James would have been temporarily left behind). We reached the trailhead at about 6:15 pm. I climbed into Homie’s van, and because Homie had a microwave in his van, I was able to eat my first warm food in several days. That warm pizza tasted so good, I started to recover from how depressed I was after the storm.
Then I just laid down on the bed, and James started doctoring my knees, ankles, and feet while I fell asleep for another 45 minutes.
Mt. Princeton: The return of the sleep demons.
We arrived at the Frontier Ranch Trailhead (the bottom of the road) on Mt. Princeton at about 7:10 pm. I was happy to see Andrea again, although she looked pretty terrible. Here we were on day 5, I was supposed to be the person that looked all beat up!
At 7:25 pm, I picked up my fresh pack and climbed onto the motorcycle. I said goodbye to James, Andrea, Kim, and Homie and started up the road. This road is amazing smooth for a 14er road, and it was a fast ride up to 11,000 feet, although the spot my GPS indicated was the start was right on a long narrow section of road with nowhere to park, so it took a little bit of work to turn the bike around and park it in such a manner as to not block the road if someone else came driving down.
I started hiking at 7:41 pm. Homie told me about a faster way up to the trail than following the road, so I followed his instructions and indeed found a pretty decent way to save a few minutes on the hike up the hill. I had a pretty good idea that the sleep demons would be coming for me as soon as it was dark. So I drank a 5 hour energy, hoping it would give me enough energy to make it back down without getting too tired. Princeton is not my favorite mountain. Viewed from the east, it is an impressive looking mountain. But I have just never liked the trail. After a short jaunt on a trail that leaves the road and continues up a grassy slope, it turns into a rock field of unpleasant, sharp boulders that are loose, and most of the route contours across this terrain, it just is not very pleasant. It got dark just before I summited, and despite the energy drink I immediately felt the attack of the sleep demons.
It was a struggle to finish the peak, which I summited at 9:46 pm, and now in the dark I turned around and tried to descend. If you have read this far, you probably have an idea of what I will describe next. Blurred vision, walking like a drunk, having trouble staying balanced, I went through all of this as usual. I also tried stopping a couple of times to close my eyes for a few minutes. I started hallucinating that Axel was hiking with me, and I remember turning back to wait for him, yelling “AXEL!”, and wondering why he wasn’t there. Then I would realize where I was and continue down. Luckily I found the same short cut on the way down, and made it down to the motorcycle just after midnight. It had taken longer to descend than to go up.
I changed into my motorcycle clothes and carefully drove it down the road, taking it pretty slow because of my untrustworthy vision and slow reflexes. I pulled into the trailhead at about 12:38 pm, and desperately tried to turn away some food from James. I climbed in the van and fell asleep immediately. At this point I was really getting sick of solid food, in fact I would imagine while hiking down what I could say to James to make him stop making me eat so much food. At least I still like the taste of the sustained energy, I was confident I could get by on that powder alone. But that is one of the unheralded jobs of the support crew, having to force it down very ungrateful people like me…