Like every great adventure, things did not go as planned.
After a 6 hour drive and 1 hour ride on an old steam train through the San Juan National forest, we were dropped off at a concrete pad ready to backpack into the wilderness.
Not even two miles into the hike, we came face to face with a giant moose on the trail only a few yards away… Quickly, we got off the trail, remembering that we were the visitors, and slowly made our way as the moose turned to continue grazing.
We were chasing the sunlight as we wanted to get up to Chicago Basin and find a place to camp prior to dark. Luckily, we found an amazing spot closer to the 14er trailheads than we anticipated.
The next morning, we planned to be moving by 4am to see if we couldn’t do all the 14ers in one day. It was still dark and raining at 4am and the motivation meter was low. We did not get up until 5am.
It was dark. We were tired. We missed the turn off for the trail that we were supposed to take. My instincts told me something was off, but Andrew insisted on following the only trail we could find… which made total sense… because it was dark… and who knew there was a random turn off from the main trail. Somehow we ended up doing a knee deep river crossing on top of walking on a trial that was practically a creek for several miles. You can thank a rainy Colorado summer for that.
The best part? Unnecessary vert. We went up Columbine pass before checking the GPS to find that we were 4.5 miles out of the way. We watched the sunrise and hastily made our way back down.
It was 7:30am by that point and doing 2000 feet of elevation gain before climbing our intended 14ers was only slightly laughable. The sky was covered with clouds and I was very aware of timing and just waiting for the sky to show more signs of the impending storm. (Note: the picture below is from sunset the evening prior)
After crossing the knee deep river (for the second time) we met another hiker who gave us wide eyes once we told her we just wanted to climb Sunlight (class 4) because of weather and the now late start. She told us how a guy narrowly avoided breaking his back and falling to his death by slipping the day prior and how others had almost done the same.
We were like okay… maybe instead of doing slippery class 4 Sunlight and Windom peaks, we should just do Mt Elous.
Back to square one and off to Elous we go. Spirits were low… until everything changed when the sun finally broke through the clouds. I cannot describe the joy of being baptized by the morning light. Once the sun came out, it was like a new day and a new me. I suddenly took more interest in the beautiful waterfalls and wildlife all around us.
The sky was still gloomy and the trail was practically empty. The few people we saw were all heading down and said with exaggeration that they turned around at the “scary” catwalk on Mt. Elous. We were still going to check it out.
There was one last solo man heading down as we were heading up. We knew that we were going to be the only people on that mountain.
By the time we got to the ridge, we could choose to go up 200 feet to the summit of North Elous, or walk across the catwalk to Mt Elous. The catwalk was much more appealing.
Clouds were growing heavier and darker. We started the catwalk and it was exhilarating. There were thousand foot drops on each side. While halfway across, I pulled out a slice of pizza. I’ve been waiting for this moment.
Pizza on the catwalk seems light-hearted, but I take safety in the mountains very seriously. It was 11am, and I am a stickler about being below tree line by noon. Andrew still wanted to attempt the summit since we were so close. I did not think we could reasonably make it up and down before the weather rolled in and made the down climb more treacherous. At a certain point, it’s just not worth it.
I got this strong and eerie feeling that we needed to be going down the mountain at that very second and yelled for Andrew to turn around. He choose a more difficult route and was not on the trail… but didn’t realize it and was dangerously attempting it only thinking about speed due to the impending storm.
He turned around and met me on the catwalk. We glissaded down a couple of snow patches and slipped on some wet rocks until making it to the main boulder field. I couldn’t imagine down climbing from the summit in those conditions. The majority of deaths and accidents that occur in the mountains happen on the down climb.
Once in the boulder field, we heard a yell from the distance. There was that single man we saw previously in a very bad position on the side of a slippery mountain slab. He had gotten off track and fell off the edge of a cliff which landed him there!
He didn’t know how to get down, he was inexperienced, and he was terrified. We tried to tell him that the only way he could get down safely was by climbing up and traversing left to more textured terrain.
He didn’t move.
All he wanted was to “get down” and didn’t understand that “down” meant serious injury or death and “up” was the only way out of his bad situation. Andrew had to cross the boulder field and climb the wet slab to meet and direct him face to face. The man was in tears and kept whispering “I’m going to die.”
I directed them from my vantage point the best route. Andrew pep talked the guy through the movements he had to take. We got him safely to the boulder field. He was limping, his knee was all bloody. He was clearly in very bad shape and altitude sick.
He was now our responsibility, and he was so thankful. He kept telling us how he thought he was going to die up there and that he has three kids. We had come down from our summit attempt at the exact perfect moment to help save his life.
That was a God thing.
All in all, it was a grand adventure…and nothing wen’t as planned. The weather did finally give us a break for a pleasant hike out, and it was great to adventure with a good old friend who’ve I’ve known for ten years. I’d like to go back for longer than a weekend and bag those 14,000 foot peaks, hopefully without having to do another impromptu rescue.