{"id":455,"date":"2016-06-10T05:05:58","date_gmt":"2016-06-10T05:05:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/?p=455"},"modified":"2017-02-23T16:50:10","modified_gmt":"2017-02-23T16:50:10","slug":"lots-of-mountain-climbing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/2016\/06\/10\/lots-of-mountain-climbing\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday, June 10 Lots of Mountain Climbing"},"content":{"rendered":"

SUMMARY: <\/strong>Well, we did a lot of mountain climbing today\u2014some by trail and some by mistake. We misread our maps this morning and thought a nearby mountain was Mt. Hope. The trail goes right up and over Mt. Hope, but we were down in forest and snow and didn’t realize we were looking at the wrong<\/span> mountain.<\/p>\n

So we bushwhacked and climbed up to the top\u00a0and looked everywhere for the trail. Finally I caught sight of a couple of lakes below, found us on the map\u00a0and said, “Oh no\u2014this isn’t<\/span> Mt. Hope!”\u00a0 By then\u00a0we had\u00a0been at it for\u00a0almost 5 hours because the mountains here are basically like big rockpiles with large snowfields. Very slow going.<\/p>\n

During those 5 hours, Bill & I lost track of each other for about an hour. That was seriously scary! But finally we found the right<\/span> Mt. Hope, climbed it, walked the Divide, and discovered that the side trail that was supposed to take us down to Creede, our next resupply, was impassable due to snow.<\/p>\n

So, we went back to bushwhacking, a long, long way. We are camped by a creek tonight\u2014probably won’t reach Creede until late tomorrow.<\/p>\n

DETAILS:<\/strong>\u00a0 Well, we sure got in a lot of climbing today–some by mistake and some by trail!\u00a0 We woke up to a very cold morning, but whew, our shoes were not frozen.\u00a0 We thought we knew where we were, and we thought that a mountain nearby was Mt. Hope, where the trail was.\u00a0 But we were SO wrong!\u00a0 In reality, Mt. Hope was still quite a ways away, on the other side of a big ridge and several lakes.\u00a0 Yesterday the trail wandered around so much and was so often under snow, that we’d actually lost track of it and now instead of being just below it (we thought), we were far away from it.<\/p>\n

Thinking that “the trail is right up there”, we started bushwhacking up the mountain.\u00a0 The problem is that the mountains here seem to be basically big rock piles and the rocks are big enough to make the going very slow. I am slow on rocks, anyway, and Fixit was having a hard time because last night he did not sleep much.\u00a0 He said he was having trouble breathing while lying down and had to prop himself up with his pack.<\/p>\n

Finally we got to the top and there was no trail.\u00a0 We looked and looked (for a total of FIVE HOURS) trying to find it.\u00a0 During that time we made a serious mistake.\u00a0 We decided to split up, but stay within shouting distance of each other as we searched for trail.\u00a0 Not smart!\u00a0 Not only did we not find the trail, but we even lost each other.\u00a0 For over an hour, I did not know where Fixit was and he could not find me.\u00a0 We were in very rough country with snow and forests and rocky mountainsides.\u00a0 Turns out we were both shouting for each other, but did not hear each other at all.\u00a0 I climbed up to the top of a ridge and looked around for some sign of Fixit, and that’s when I spotted a couple of lakes down below.\u00a0 I found them on my map, and now I knew where I was, and I also knew we were WAY off track.\u00a0 I\u00a0stood there shouting and yelling for Fixit, with no response.\u00a0 I did a lot of praying, too, and finally\u00a0 I decided to come down off the ridge slowly, yelling a lot.\u00a0 It seemed like forever till finally, down below, I spotted Fixit climbing up towards me.\u00a0 To say we were glad to see each other would be an understatement!\u00a0 We vowed never ever again would we split up to look for trail unless we could SEE each other!\u00a0 I told Fixit that we were NOT on Mt. Hope, but I now knew where it was.<\/p>\n

So we ended up doing some scary snow traverses and a bunch of rockwalking to get back on track with where we were supposed to be and FINALLY came the last big climb up to about 12,800 feet and back to the trail.\u00a0 Whew, were we tired!\u00a0 But hooray, there actually wasn’t much snow on the trail, and the views were totally magnificent.\u00a0 We both wore\u00a0 our down jackets AND rain jackets, trying to stay warm in the bitter cold wind sweeping across the ridges.\u00a0 But it was so glorious just seeing where we were and the epic-style scenery.\u00a0 We are right up on top of the Divide, and it’s mountain peaks, snow, rocks, and brown grass as far as the eye can see.\u00a0 The snow is melting fast, and almost all the bare ground is very wet.\u00a0 Best of all, we have trail to follow, and we can even see the side trails when they come in.<\/p>\n

But a thunderstorm was moving in, and we were way up high and very exposed.\u00a0 Ack, not good!\u00a0 Our policy in these situations is to say, “OK, Lord, You know where we are…please send the lightning off somewhere else, like onto some rock where there is nobody around.”\u00a0 At one point, because Fixit was having a hard time (he was so tired from lack of sleep), I ended up getting ahead of him on the trail.\u00a0 When I realized this, I stopped to wait, and as soon as I spotted him, I held up one of my trek poles and waved.\u00a0 And then a seriously scary thing happened–I felt a strong buzzing sensation in\u00a0the trek pole I was holding up and I figured it was turning into an antenna that might attract the next lightning strike.\u00a0 Yikes!\u00a0\u00a0 I\u00a0 quickly dropped\u00a0the pole\u00a0to the ground and ran away from it.\u00a0 No lightning came, and Fixit caught up, so I went back, picked up the pole, and proceeded on.\u00a0 But I was scared.<\/p>\n

The trail took us around a big sweeping bend, and finally we\u00a0spotted the Sawtooth Trail up ahead, which is where the shortcut to Creede begins.\u00a0 It was totally under snow, and on a very steep mountainside.\u00a0 We looked at it and said, “Forget the trail–we’ll just walk down from over here, where we are.”\u00a0 That was the beginning of a long bushwhack down, first on steep snow (but not as steep as the official trail), and then through woods, with lots of climbing over logs and obstacles.\u00a0 It was hard.\u00a0There was no sign of anyone having come this way, but looking at the maps we figured we were still OK and reasonably near the trail.<\/p>\n

At 7 pm we came to a flat spot that was actually DRY ground, near a creek, and we just plain crashed.\u00a0 We were so tired.\u00a0 I was concerned about our food situation–would we have enough to make it to Creede, at this rate?\u00a0 And it looks like we will maybe\u00a0spend the night\u00a0in Creede, because of it being Sunday and the post office not open.\u00a0 Our original plan was to just do a pit stop.\u00a0 But we are very grateful to the Lord for helping us during the 5 hour “where is the trail” and the even worse, “Where is Fixit?\u00a0 Where is 3rd Monty?” episode.\u00a0 That was scarier even than the potential lightning strike up on the Divide.\u00a0 All I could do was thank Him and then go to sleep.\u00a0 Tiiiiiiiiired!<\/p>\n

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SUMMARY: Well, we did a lot of mountain climbing today\u2014some by trail and some by mistake. We misread our maps this morning and thought a nearby mountain was Mt. Hope. The trail goes right up and over Mt. Hope, but we were down in forest and snow and didn’t realize we were looking at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colorado"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":797,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions\/797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}