An alpine odyssey

I have a few more stories from our recent camping trip to western Colorado that I'll be interspersing with my regular posts over the coming week or so.

After we stayed at our spectacular campsite with tremendous views of the San Juan Mountains for a few days, it was time to move on. Because riding in a vehicle on a bouncy 4wd road is terrible for my back, we made a plan that involved me riding a gorgeous singletrack route from our campsite to a relatively nearby paved road.

I knew that the distance and climbing were well within my capabilities but there was one hitch. K couldn't run that far with me, and the runners in the family had a very long run planned, which was too arduous for K. So, I exercised K before starting my odyssey.

To give K some fun and exercise, I rode my mountain bike with her to a nearby alpine lake. K frolicked and swam until she was sated. Then, we rode some singletrack back to camp. We stopped for a few parting photos of the amazing wildflowers in that area.

I thought that these might be my last Columbines of the season but I was wrong.

When we arrived back in camp, I left K with the Runner and R. They would drive the long way around to meet me at the paved road. I bid them adieu with one last soulful look at our wonderful campsite. We will return to it, no doubt.

Then, I confidently headed off on the Colorado Trail. Almost immediately, I was confused by the lack of trail signs on a trail that normally is extremely well marked. I kept riding, trying to make good time. Soon, the trail descended steeply to a creek and then paralleled it. I was starting to question whether I was on the right route. I perused my map and turned on my GPS. 

Then, I realized that I'd made a classic KB mistake. I am a terrible navigator, and I tend to bull-headedly storm off in the direction that I think is correct while ignoring the evidence that I might be going the wrong way. It takes me far too long to realize that I've gone the wrong way.

I turned around and climbed out of the abyss that I'd descended into. I was climbing hard, breathing heavily, and feeling my burning quads. Eventually, I found the Colorado Trail. I looked at my cycling computer, and I realized that I'd burned an hour trying to find the trail. I also realized that, by the time I added up the time I'd spent riding with K, the time spent lost, and the projected time for the ride ahead of me, this was going to be a very long ride for my fragile spine. It was too late to find the pack and ask for a ride (and there was no cell phone reception) so I started on my journey with trepidation.

The other problem was that I was going to be at least an hour later than the Runner expected. I thought that he'd be worried so I started hammering on my pedals, trying to make up lost time. At first, I felt pretty good and kept up a brisk speed.

The beauty around me distracted me from the fact that I was not being smart. I was riding in the red zone at the *start* of a very long ride. If I'd been thinking, I would've realized that I was going to pay for my high intensity riding later.

After starting on open meadows and climbing a small pass, I descended into a jumble of canyons and creeks. Close to the creeks, wildflowers wowed me. The isolation was total. I hadn't seen another person or even the trace of one all day.

I emerged from the jumble of canyons and was faced with a long climb up a high pass, about 12,500' high. I started grinding my lowest gear up the pass. From the view in the photo below, it appears that the pass is in between the two peaks and just over the crest in the green meadow. With that vision, I believed that I could ride the whole way, without doing any hike-a-bike.

I turned myself inside out, burning energy, to pedal to the spot where I thought that the pass was. You can imagine my dismay when I discovered that the pass was actually far beyond the crest in the photo above. I tried to keep pedaling but finally allowed myself to collapse into the bed of wildflowers, completely spent.

As I lay there, I named the pass "Endless Pass".

I took a long break feeling completely wrung out. I'd been riding far too hard for such a long journey, and now I was bonking. I turned my backpack inside out searching for calories. I inhaled every morsel of food that it contained and had a long cold drink.

Replenished, I continued the climb, but now at a more reasonable pace. I reminded myself that the Runner is not the panicking type and probably would not be very worried about my lateness. Soon, the actual pass appeared above me!

The view to the other side was magical. It felt like the kingdom of alpine tundra extended forever. I am in heaven when I'm on the tundra.

While I took a break to enjoy the view, Marvin the marmot entertained me. He was remarkably unafraid of me. I had a whole conversation with this animal, telling him about getting lost, riding too hard, and still having many miles to go before I reached my destination. He seemed sympathetic until he realized that I had no food to share with him. Then, he disappeared under a rock.

I continued onward at my new, more reasonable pace, passing a snowfield and seeing the sinuous path of my trail in the distance. I wished that K could be there to swim in the alpine lakes that I was passing.

I descended through a forest of wildflowers, believing that the rest of the ride would be pretty easy. Somehow, I visualized an all downhill coast to the van from this point. I was so wrong.

I stopped taking photos for a while as I followed the trail that was cut into the side of a long mountain ridge with side-gulches and creeks flowing down the ridge and intersecting the trail. I struggled with the steep descent into each of those gulches and then the lung-searing climb out of each one.

And, I've got to admit that my back was hurting, a lot. A reasonable quantity of bike riding is really good for my spine. That day's ride was simply too much.

Soon, I spotted a pair of lakes in the distance that I thought were close to the trailhead. I pulled out my 2-way radio to see if I could reach the Runner. Woo hoo - I heard his voice reply to me, meaning that I couldn't be too far from the van. I confidently told him that I was descending into the trailhead and would see him soon.

Alas, "soon" wasn't really very soon. I had a few more gulches to dive into and climb out of. A half hour later, I finally rolled up to the van, completely spent and with a blood sugar level of approximately zero.

I ate everything that I could lay my hands on - a Ben and Jerry's ice cream bar, a yogurt, plums, peaches, tortilla chips, cookies. You get the picture. I was like a hungry bear set loose in a well-stocked kitchen. All that food barely touched my energy deficit.

I think that there was a lesson learned somewhere in that day but I'm not sure what it was. "Bring more food than you think that you need" is the most likely candidate. Regardless, I now look back on it as a grand adventure, wending my way through bucolic mountain meadows with wildflowers blooming so thickly that a hummingbird would have trouble deciding which one to drink from.

Perhaps the biggest lesson is not to be afraid to embark on these adventures, for I always end up loving them!