Cliff Hangers

Now I don’t know how many people have ever woken up inside of a national park, but I would recommend putting it on the bucket list. Up in the mountains it had been a bit too chilly for me. Out there on the edge of the canyon I woke in weather that I felt comfortable going around in a t-shirt with. (That’s really saying something for a guy who needs four layers to go out in 32° weather.) It was a beautiful sight to see and hear in the morning as well: the crashing of the river several hundred feet below with great dark rock rising out of it.

I took the first hour of the day to admire the highly underappreciated canyon before heading on to complete my collection of the four National Parks in Colorado. This meant driving for another four and a half hours down to Mesa Verde National Park. This drive included a winding road that was one of the best drives I have ever taken. If my memory serves me correctly (which, quite honestly, is a long shot—I hardly ever trust my memory myself, so I would encourage you to approach it with the same trepidation) it was Colorado Highway 92. The curves were beautiful hairpins with hills ascending and descending. I got to really slam through all of the gears in my little Honda CR-V. This is a rarity because I am already up into fifth gear by 35 miles per hour. Honestly, there is hardly any horsepower in that little engine. Still love it though.

After the 4.5 hours of driving I managed to pull into the park around 3:30, but I had no idea how huge the park was. It was a 30 mile drive in to get to the hike that I wanted to go on. That was about an hour of driving just to get to the trailhead. Not to mention that I was only 40 miles from hitting 400 miles on my tank, which is much further than I’ve gone on a single take before, but I was not about to turn around and go back five miles down the road to fill up my tank. That would take even more time, and all the sky around the park was already looking dark and ominous. In I drove, taking advantage of every downhill—riding it with my foot on the clutch—which made my approach to some of the hair pin turns a bit faster than they should have been in an SUV. Still, I made it alive and that is all that matters.

Usually Mesa Verde is one of the more crowded parks, so I was expecting a huge crowd of people, but instead there was hardly anyone there when I arrived. One of the park rangers told me that things die down during August for some bizarre reason. Because apparently it all picks back up again in September when a whole bunch of tourist groups start coming by in bus loads. But in August things are slow. So I got two National Parks almost all too myself, at least there were no other people on the trail with me so I got to take my time reading the signs and learning about the different parts of the architecture. Most people think of the cliff dwellings when they hear about Mesa Verde National Park, but before the natives ever lived on the face of the cliffs they just lived on the top of the mesas. Which is what I saw first. The best part are the Kivas.

I can’t help but imagine Native Americans tripping out on something while holding religious rituals inside of these earthen pits. The interesting thing is that they were most common during the older generations and later generations just filled them in, sometimes even using them to dump trash in. There’s one way to really rebel against the faith of your fathers.

After touring the ruins on top of the mesa I went to check out the cliff dwellings, and honestly that is where the real excitement lies.

Look at those places! Who gets it in their head that just living on top of flat ground doesn’t sound exciting anymore. They were probably all sitting in the Kiva passing the peace pipe and one guy just said, “Ever see those holes in the cliffs around here?”

“Yeah man, those look pretty cool.”

“Wouldn’t it be awesome to put one of these Kivas in one of those holes?”

“Dude, that would be sweet! It would be like underground, but also above ground, and then there would be this epic drop right outside of the door. And then only cool people who can climb like bosses could get in there.”

“Totally! We should definitely do that man. Then we wouldn’t have to have around all the old and sick people and the women and children while we were hanging out and smoking the peace pipe.”

And then they made the kiva and then the women, children, and sick people started just busting up the party and then they just decided, “Heck, if everyone is going to keep on coming down here to bug us we might as well build the entire town into the cliff.” There, that is my story of how and why the cliff dwellings came to be. There were no wars or anything like that, just a few guys trying to get some guy time, failing, and then everyone moving in because they all thought it was pretty cool.

Personally I would not have been one of the cool people who would be capable of making it to the Kiva. Good ol’ Darwin would have snatched me out of that gene pool in a second. I preferred snapping pictures from afar. And after my pictures I managed to get my car back out of the park and to the gas pump without the fuel light coming on. Then I continued driving until I got into Durango and pulled my car over into a Walmart parking lot where I slept the night after spoiling myself and buying some doughnuts, a sandwich, and a Lunchable. That is getting spoiled when compared to just eating packets of salmon or tuna along with a can of beans occasionally.

Next morning I woke up with a text from my Mom telling me that my little sister needed to see me update my blog, so I went and spent the morning getting a blog post written and pictures uploaded at the public library (the Durango library is a bumpin' place) before going and taking a ten-mile hike. This hike started at a random pull off on the side of the road. I saw a sign that said trailhead, and the way I am with constantly craving a hike I decided to pull over and give it a look. Turned out it was supposed to be a mountain biking trail, but I went hiking on it any way. Something tells me that mountain bikers hate having people just hiking on the trails—just an extra obstacle you have to watch out for and all. Still, I didn’t much care, it was a beautiful day that was just begging me to go hiking during it. And so I wandered around for about 4 hours. Found some good lookout points too.

It was a huge system of trails, which made the sign at the foot of the trail a liar, because it claimed that it was just a single loop, but the map up the trail a ways said quite differently. The red is the route I ended up taking.

After the hike it was back to more driving. Right as the sun was setting I ended up just pulling up a random road that claimed to be National Forest access. I found a nice overlook where I could watch the sunset and then I kicked back and smoked a very nice cigar while the sun fell behind the mountains. It was the perfect end to the evening, and almost an end to all of my adventures by myself. The next day I would just end up driving home, but not before waking up and finding giant elk hoof prints going around my car. Apparently something about my car got it’s attention, or maybe I was just snoring way too loud and it showed up to see if it could shut me up. Whatever the case, those were definitely some giant hoof prints.

And so my lonesome wanderings came to an end. Stay tuned for the post going up tomorrow about the beginning of the wanderings of the 3 Men on the Bummel.

Land of the Gods

Just in case anyone was wondering, waking up wet cold and achy in the front seat of a car is not the way you want to start off the day right before you go and hike a couple fourteeners. And of course less than an hour before I began hiking at the Missouri Gulch trailhead that was the exact state I found myself in.

It took a little while to pack up the soaking wet tent and to reorganize my car so that I would be able to find everything in it, but eventually I found myself with the car all packed up and standing at the foot of a trail that I was planning to summit three fourteeners on that very day.

The reader should know that I hate being cold. Absolutely hate it! I will be the biggest sissy and wear upwards of five layers in the winter just to keep from being cold. Add being wet into the mix and I usually then decide that it really looks like a great idea to stay inside underneath several blankets reading a book or binge watching whichever random TV show I happen to stumble across on Amazon. Well that morning I was cold and wet and facing the prospect of some major physical exertion. Thankfully if there is one thing that overpowers my hatred of physical discomfort it is my bullheadedness when faced with a difficult physical task. (Not mental task or something that will take more than a few days though, if faced with something like that I pick the couch almost immediately, as the incredible lack of completed homework assignments over the years can attest to.)

My hatred of being cold and wet is still present though. Instead of five layers I only had four (it was only August after all): T-shirt, Sweater, another sweater, and a heavy jacket. Not to mention the rain suit that I had in my pack just in case the clouds that were still lingering decided to tear asunder and let the rains (or—God please no—snow) drown me. I ran into a couple from New Mexico as I started up the trail. They were celebrating the husband’s fiftieth birthday. My goal for my fiftieth birthday is to be hiking a 14er, and they were even aiming to do all three. I don’t know if they managed to accomplish that goal because after a few minutes of chatting and hiking along with them I began to drastically out pace them. That whole bullheaded issue when it comes to physical tasks started kicking in.

I love hiking, just have to get that out there, any kind of hiking--BUT hiking a 14er puts just about every other kind of hike to shame. Any other hike I can just go out there and do. I can (and did on my little excursion) do a seven mile hike as a short little sunset hike. When you go to face a 14,000 plus foot mountain though you have to prepare mentally, physically, and (heck, why not throw it in) spiritually. Then there is the way the world changes as soon as you break tree line. The air is thin and invigorating, there is nothing standing between you and this vision of massive peaks standing all around.

This is the Land of the Gods. Those behemoth peaks are the image of divinity. The way they always have their very tops stuck in the clouds as if chatting with the heavens. When you reach the summit you get to join that conversation, and it is awe inspiring. No high compares with the high attained on the summit of a 14,000 plus foot mountain. I guess that is why it has become a bit excessive of a past-time. It’s hard to tell people to cut back though, because it really is something of a spiritual experience. It puts you at your limit in every way with a very real goal that is attained at the end of it.

The first summit I reached that day was that of Mt Belford (after passing two more individuals on the trail, both probably around their fifties as well), where I ran into three young guys from Denver who get a paid day off once a year to hike a fourteener. If I had gone into finance in school I would definitely work for that company. I can only remember one of their names, Cameron, but they were all three cool people, though they decided to start heading down after just attaining that one summit, and I felt like I had bigger fish to fry. At least they were able to snap a photo for me though.

The next peak to summit was Mt. Oxford. It was only about another two miles to reach its summit, but that two miles included dropping into a saddle and then hiking back out of it. The drop in was steep, and I just about ate it and rolled down the side of the mountain a couple times, but the ascent up to the summit of Mt Oxford was nowhere near as difficult. I mean, aside from the cold, oxygen free wind that whipped across the ridge and the reflection of the sun off of the snow that left my cheeks a beautiful bright red color for several days afterwards.

However, I did make it from the summit of Mt Belford to the summit of Mt Oxford in an hour, which was my goal in order to keep up the pace to bag Mt. Missouri as well before descending to the trail head. And my it was beautiful! Not to mention perfectly lonely. I had to set my camera to take the summit picture for me.

The hike back down to the base of the saddle was easy, like I was expecting. It was the ascent back up to the opposite ridge that scared me, and rightfully so. I reached the ridge fighting the urge to just collapse down on my hands and knees and start pulling myself down the side of the mountain. It was at this moment that I first began to question my initial decision to hike up Mt Missouri as well. According to the map I had to follow another trail that descended for about two miles before reaching the base of the 1.6 mile trail up to the summit of Mt Missouri. (For those that are not big fans of math that would be adding a total of 3.2 miles to my hike for the day, pushing it over 15 miles, and adding another nearly 2,000 feet of ascent.)

Pain as keen as what I was currently feeling in my thighs as well as the fact that my calves had almost locked up and cramped several times already is a sensation that is easy for me to recall, but now as I write this I still think I should have tried to get to that last summit. But I used the excuse that it was starting to snow (barely) and the encouragement of the group of four guys that I passed on the way down to the intersection of the trail, who all felt I should skip it. Now all I have is a picture of the peak that got away.

Something that is unfortunately one of my dominant traits is losing things. This whole trip seems to be in jeopardy every time I think of just how often I lose things, and that hike was no different. That map I was talking about that told be how many miles each part of the trail was… yeah, I lost it somewhere in the Land of the Gods, so I headed into Buena Vista to see if I could find a map to replace it (because I really did like that map, I had used it to find the trailhead and to hike up Mt Yale just a few weeks prior). After I found a couple maps that offered a half decent replacement I found myself reflecting upon the possibility of sleeping on my wet mattress pad that night and I just could not handle the idea. A friend of mine from Denver had moved out to the Aspen area a little while ago though, and the hike that I was considering to do the next day was in that area so I gave her a call. Thank the heavens, Rachel came to my rescue and let me crash on a warm dry couch that night. I will forever remain in her debt.

Once again I find myself rambling on, so I will have to call it for this post. I’ll have a couple others set to go up for the next couple days though, and tomorrow the rest of the crew will be joining me. Things are about to get epic people. Hold on to your hats! 

The Highs and Lows

At the behest of my little sister I have taken some time off of my solo Colorado ramblings to sit down and document at least a little of what I have seen and experienced so far. Just to give the reader a little survey as to how far I've gone and how much I have seen in the past four days:

• ·       Car Mileage: 814
• ·       Hiking Mileage: 27
• ·       Highest Elevation By Foot: 14,203’
• ·       Highest Elevation By Car: 12,096’
• ·       Lowest Elevation: 5,756’
• ·       Lowest Temperature: 19°F
• ·       Highest Temperature: 81°F

All of that was in just a single state, believe it or not. One of the beautiful things about Colorado. Well beautiful and at times frustrating. That’s the thing about Colorado—it definitely has the highs (pun only partially intended), but it also has the lows as well. That being said my trip has had some highs and lows as well, and I’ll let you in on the full spectrum.

First and foremost, you have to understand that I have had absolutely no idea as to what I was going to do the next day and sometimes the next hour during this entire excursion. So when I left my parents’ home in the Springs I thought that I would definitely like to hike some 14ers, but I knew I was leaving too late to do that on that particular day. Aside from that though I didn’t even have any distinct sites to see, so I decided to check out some of the ghost towns that were listed on a Colorado road trip my friend had sent me the link to.

The problem with this was that it was designed to start from Denver and so I had to actually make a decision myself. Como, Colorado was the closest. I went for it. Como is not near as ghostly as the website had made it out as being. There were residents’ vehicles all over, and while I was reading the plaque in front of the train station there were a couple workers walking in and out of the building just a few feet from me. So much for one of Colorado’s most abandoned places. Of course nowadays it’s hard to find anywhere in Colorado that doesn’t have people living there or visiting there with all the people moving into the state.

Still Como has some interesting history, and a very unique building. The round house

is one of the last remaining in Colorado that retains all of the original pieces from its construction in the 1800’s. The old train station is quaint and attractive as well

though my talents at taking selfies create a much less attractive image.

Next stop was St. Elmo-- a town that I was hoping would prove to be more ghostly than Como (it just felt weird driving onto a community’s road just to take pictures of their buildings, though I guess Parisians deal with that junk all the time… maybe that’s why they detest Americans so much…)

St. Elmo was indeed a much more abandoned town, though it has become a major stop along the Colorado touring route for many individuals. Because of this there are always tourists' cars parked along the main street. All the people coming through also means there is a place to purchase souvenirs and food at the first two buildings on the road. Thankfully the rest of the town is very much deserted, aside from one quaint little pink home that I suppose holds residents at least during part of the year due to the signage hanging around it.

The town of St. Elmo was once again closely dependent upon the railroad for its vitality, quite like Como, so when railroads because less needed the town dried up. However, due to the tourist interest in the town, there have been many efforts to keep the town in good condition. There is even some restoration construction going on now, because or course the town is old, as the sign observes.

There is a nice little foot traffic only road in front of some of the old homes as well that all seem to be kept in pretty good repair.

If you drop in, I’d suggest making a little donation by the information plaque so we can keep this town around as a ghostly museum of our past. If you want to know more feel free to read this little flier that sat in the window of the local hotel (no longer open of course).

On the way out of the town I felt in dire need of some hiking. St Elmo was nestled back in on the South West side of Mt Princeton, which had made me crazy in need of hiking as I drove past it. On the way out I found a random little trail and pulled off to go explore. It was a very short trail, the Cascade Creek Trail. At least the loop is very short, but the hike up to the waterfall adds a couple more miles so it becomes somewhat more exciting. No matter what the arid landscape with the creek running through it is beautiful to see.

I met a couple other hikers along the way—Carl and Manning—they had come up from Austin, Texas, though Carl had initially been a Coloradan at one point. I hiked up to the waterfall with them and chatted a bit. After several hours in the car alone it was nice to have some friendly conversation. The extra mile or so of hiking to the waterfall was definitely worth it.

Going to St Elmo had put me right near the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness, which was the area that I had a map of the surrounding 14ers for, including a trail that could bring me to the summits of three different peaks in a single day. I decided to drive to the trailhead and most likely just sleep in my car before taking on the peaks the next day. But when I got on the road that led to the trailhead I found numerous campsites littering the side of the road, and no sign saying that I needed to pay for them or anything! So I took my CR-V down a nice hill that would probably qualify as a trail for 4X4 vehicles. (Gotta love a high clearance, AWD, manual vehicle!). There I made myself some delicious dinner

set up my tent, and then laid out inside it and began to read just as the rain started to come down.

The rain freaked me out a little. I had no idea if my tent was waterproof, but it stayed dry inside so I decided to relax and let myself fall asleep.

Now if it had only rained for three or even three and a half hours it would have stayed perfectly dry inside the tent, but it rained for four and a half. At four hours I found myself waking up and I reached out to check the border of the tent to make sure no water had gotten in. It had. So I moved all of my stuff back into my car, leaving the tent up to be taken down the next day, and then I was too lazy to resituate my belongings in the car at 1:30 in the morning in order to sleep in the back so I slept very fitfully in the driver’s seat until the next morning.

And that was day one. This post is getting a bit long so I’ll fit in the rest of the happenings in another couple blog posts that I’ll get up on the 31^st and September 1^st. (Hope this is good enough for you for now Jade ;p)

The Car and the Challenge

Welcome to 3 Men on the Bummel (I completely stole this name from a book written by a little known English humorist who lived at the turn of the century) in which I will share the tales—both majestic and questionable—of the road trip that I and two of my closest friends will be taking over the next year across the 48 contiguous United States.

First and foremost: no, none of us are millionaires, independently wealthy, living off of trust funds, or being funded by parents or others in any way. I just have to get that out there because everyone seems to be jealous of my decision to just live on the road and usually their first excuse for not doing the same is because they are way too poor. I worked as a mover for the past three and a half years and had an income well below the poverty line—it hasn’t stopped me. Just saying. All it takes is a little will power to consistently save some money and some guts to be willing to give up the normal life, live out of a car, sleep in tents, eat foraged and hunted food combined with cheap canned beans and vegetables, and a desire for something new and different in life.

Now there are some certain tools that can make the prospect of a yearlong road trip without money for hotels a bit more appeasing, and one of those is the car you choose to take.

Forewarning: I am about to go on a rant as to how I believe my car is just about the most perfect road trip vehicle in existence. Despite this being the case I am in no way sponsored by Honda (but I feel like they should at least give me a little bit after what follows… Honda? You out there?) and in fact did not even have the vehicle gifted to me, I just love it.

Just look at it! Doesn’t it just look like a little puppy that is all ready to see you with its CB antenna sticking up into the air like a happy little tail? Okay, that was taking it too far. Sorry, I get a bit excited over it, but enough about the way it looks, that really means nothing as far as it being a perfect road trip tool goes. What does matter is the fact that it has All-Wheel Drive, which any Subaru owner will tell you is just about the best thing for driving around a car in the snowy mountains. But those Subaru’s never have a full-size spare tire on the back, and, well… I do! Haha you Subaru suckers! I’ve blown enough tires or had them punctured by stray pieces of metal or nails to know that sometimes that tiny little doughnut spare is just not going to do for getting me to the nearest tire shop. If you have a full size spare along then you don’t even have to pause the adventures. You can get the tire fixed whenever you run into the next town that has a Discount Tire.

While we’re on the subject of spare tires might as well throw in this little addendum. Through all of my tire havoc I have always fortunately had tires from Discount Tire (once again, no sponsorship, though I think they might want to consider it too). Sure they cost a bit more, but then you get free rotations, air-checks, repairs, balancing, and (if you get the certificate) replacements from any of their several shops across the country. There is some pretty cool fine print to that certificate as well, if they do not have a tire shop conveniently close they will reimburse you whatever you end up having to spend on the replacement tire, and if it doesn’t match the set they’ll remount the originally purchased type of tire for completely free! Sorry, just geek-ing out about that a little. Anyone who has had as rough a time with tires as I have will get it.

So full size spares, not only are they incredible useful, but they also give one the opportunity for a little self-expression.

The artwork is entirely credited to my little sisters, and for those Sherlock Holmes fans out there, yes I know it should be 221 B Baker Street, just haven’t had the chance to add the 1.

Another great thing about the CR-V is the space that you get. Most all-wheel drive vehicles are sedans or hatchbacks, which can give a person space for luggage but there is no extra space for sleeping or for additional passengers. In the CR-V I can load everything I need to survive for a year and still be able to load in 2-3 passengers—and that’s with seat belts on. Not to mention the seats can all be folded completely flat, leaving space for a nice little sleeping area. Once again I had to add some personal touches.

Gotta love that Colorado Pride! The dragon on the left is perching on the Welsh flag, which is the country where about a quarter of my heritage comes from. When you’re an American mutt you pretty much get to open a catalogue of heritage and pick out the top three contenders to throw in with.

Having all of this space is usually equated with a drop in gas mileage, not at all the case with the CR-V. The engine is the same 2.2 liter straight 4 cylinder that you find in the EX and LX Honda Accords, which means that you get great gas mileage and have all of the horse power you need to pull you up the side of a mountain. For those of you that just fell asleep, that means cheaper to travel and you’re also not going to end up cruising on the side of the highway with the hazards flashing while everyone else races by.

Despite all of the amenities that come stock with a 2000 Honda CR-V there were a couple things that needed to be added, such as an am/fm radio receiver with Bluetooth and a CB radio. A CB radio is a radio that you can receive and broadcast on that is used by semi-drivers on a day to day basis. The CB stands for citizen band, because it runs on the radio wavelengths specifically reserved for the use of the public. That is what that big ol’ white antenna is attached to, and this is what the receiver looks like:

So I’ve got the most essential tool of all primed and ready to go along with a few thousand dollars saved up in the bank. Now all that remains is to listen to the wisdom of  Yoda:

I hit the road tomorrow for my own short little road trip before being joined by the other two guys come the first of September. The next post should be up within the next three days. I’m looking forward to having you all along for the ride.