"vacation"

we didn't think we would get much of a vacation this year since 99% of our budget is sitting in the middle of our house in the form of a kitchen remodel.  but when a man named kyle calls with his vacation plans, it's hard to sit on the sidelines and watch.  you just never know what is going to pop up and we were in from the get-go.  since the blogger website is not super user friendly, we'll have one post in pictures, and one in words.  (sorry folks, i'm a little slow on the technology side).  

kyle (k) and paulette (p) have almost completed all of the 54 colorado 14'ers.  they only had a handful left to do.  thing is this time around-- they needed someone who was:

a)  crazy

b)  had a car

we fit the bill.  

the plan:  

hike culebra (the most southernmost 14'er, 9 miles from NM)

hike up to lake como and do the blanca group (camping)

then if we got that done-- we could go do MORE!  (camping)

now i'm just going to go say upfront that i was never raised to be a camper type of person so this was quite a stretch for me, but i did try to do my best.

night one:  we drive to san luis, the oldest town in colorado (founded 1851) and meet up with k, p, and k's dad.  we were thankful for some hotel floor space.

if you've never done culebra, i don't blame you.  it's on private property and you pay $100/head to hike this.  i know, it sounds crazy, but if you want to do them all, you do it.  surprisingly, we enjoyed this mountain.  the foot traffic is low and the mountain is in pristine condition.  the property owners actually encourage you NOT to walk in a line and spread out in order to preserve it as much as possible.  

k & p pop into our car and we are off to lake como road.  this is one of the toughest jeep roads in the US, so we didn't get far in the commander.  let me just say that this is a crappy hike in-- all 6.5 miles of it.  it's very rocky road and when you're packing in (packs around 40lbs), it get LONG, quickly.  fortunately we were able to strike great cloudy, misty weather.  if it was sunny, it would have been extra brutal.

we set up camp at dusk and as soon as we're in our tents it starts raining.  and it rains, and it rains, and rains.  finally around noon on the next day we come out of hibernation and  i'm a bit stir crazy.  after carefully calculating the weather, we decide to go hike around a bit.  we end up conquering 2 peaks (blanca & ellingwood) and we're back on schedule.  (note:  you should never attempt to hike a 14'er this late in the afternoon.  typically you should be OFF the summit by noon)

then it's a cold night.  i got about 2 hrs of sleep, shivering.  part of it was nerves for the next day's hike (it's a toughie) and part of it was just coldness-- it was in the 30s.  you're wearing all your clothes, stocking hat, 3 layers of mosquito spray and are kind of hating life at that point.  we are up and hiking again by 5 to conquer little bear, named colorado's toughest 14er.  it's miserable.  and scary.  and after climbing class 4 rock in the middle of a waterfall i'm cold, wet and cranky.  did i mention cranky?  dallas has this great attribute of keeping his cool in stressful situations.  i'm exactly the opposite.  i made it to about 13,700 and sat on the rock until everyone summit-ted and came back.  i made it thru the hardest part and for me that was good enough.  we come back to camp and decide to head back to the car.  another 6.5 miserable miles.  it was extra bad since i had some nice altitude edema.  my face, legs and feet blew up.  sausage toes suck when you step on little rocks going downhill.  

by now it's wednesday night.  and you'd think in alamosa it would be easy to find a hotel room.  we struck out 5 times before finally finding a room.  the next morning we are off to leadville, over independence pass and off to a little place called aspen, where the beer flows like wine.  the weather looks just good enough to do another peak.  so we trek the 8 miles into our next campsite to do snowmass.  we don't get started until 8:30p and start our trek into the woods to find an intermediate camp spot.  we are walking down the path and are able to answer the age old rhetorical question:  does a bear s*** in the woods?  (sorry mom).  the answer?  YES.  we saw a very fresh pile of berry poo in the middle of the trail.  and then we saw a nice camping spot, but there were some nice bear prints in that too.  we kept going past that--quickly.  4 miles in we find a spot, stick our tent up and as soon as we're in it starts sprinkling again.  

thurs we are up and at it again, packing in the last 4 miles.  we get camp set up, do a small hike and then get stuck in our tent for an afternoon rainstorm.  

friday we get up and hike snowmass.  holy moley.  it was not what we expected.  it was a GIANT rockfest.  by this time we are sick of rocks.  it was climbing up scree.  and you think... it will get better.  and then you get to the next section and think, it will get better.... but it never does.  we get back to the tent and get socked in with more rain--enough to come into the tent, get everything wet and miserable.  we're still able to pack it out and hit a hotel in glenwood before getting home today.  

what i've found out:

i'm very good at the following:

1)   route finding

2)  weather prediction

3)  recovering rather quickly from complete breakdowns on the side of a mountain

4)  eating large amounts of crappy food while camping (the only time i ever get to eat poptarts and other horrible, fattening stuff)

what i'm not good at:

1)  tolerating mosquitos

2)  keeping my cool

3)  camping cooking

4)  being covered in sunscreen and mosquito spray

all in all, it was a great week.  we got 50 miles of hiking (29 of this with large packs) and 19,000 ft of vertical climbing

we are hungry, exhausted and full of extra red blood cells!