Road Trip Retrospective

Well, I'm back home again after finishing off an exceptionally fine trip out west. Here is how the latter portion of my little vacation transpired.

After taking the day off after hiking Mt. Antero, I made an early start and hiked up Mt. Sherman. It was a much tamer hike, in terms of length and elevation gain, but was a whole lot of fun. From near Fairplay, CO, I had to drive about 12 miles in on a rock road that got pretty rough in the last stretch. My little car did just fine, but I had to go pretty slow at times to avoid high centering. I hiked up in the dark, all by myself, and had a great time spinning stories in my head to go with all the shadowy old mining buildings that lay alongside the trail. The stories were along the lines of Tolkien's descriptions of Mordor and goblins' mountain strongholds, imagery from Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series of books, and a good dose of prose of the ilk of Robert E. Howard. I had the top to myself for sunrise, and didn't meet any other hikers until most of the way back to my car. Hiking down in the light was interesting, because now I could see all those vaguely foreboding shadows uncloaked in the light of day.


After finishing the hike, I drove the rough road back out and headed up to the Guanella Pass. I camped about 4 miles from the summit, and made an early start on Friday to summit both Mt. Bierstadt and Mt. Evans in the same day. Near the final pitch to the summit of Bierstadt, I encountered the first of a good number of mountain goats.

From the top of Bierstadt, I could not only see the summit of Evans, but also the entire length of the connecting ridge that I would have to traverse to get there. The ridge is named the Sawtooth, which is a very apropos appellation, given its jagged profile from the east or west.


I had the hike totally to myself all the way up to the top of Bierstadt, across the Sawtooth, and almost all the way to the sanitized final trail up Mt. Evans. There were lots of people on top of Mt. Evans, but that is because the highest paved road in the U.S. carries folks to within 100 vertical feet of the summit in their automotive wombs.

To get back to my car, I had to reverse course all the way back across the western ridge of Mt. Evans and then down a very steep gully that penetrated the band of cliffs just to the north of the Sawtooth. That bit of trail really got my dogs to barking, but the rest of the trail was quite level, though a bit swampy and overgrown with thickets of willows. Nearly every boulder or set of rocks in this area had a marmot sitting up top, surveying his neighborhood and neighbors.

From Guanella Pass, I drove down to Denver and watched a nearly continuous stream of traffic headed the other direction for the holiday weekend. I had a really nice visit with some much beloved family members in the Denver area, and was probably so well fed that I regained whatever weight I might have lost in the previous week’s exertions. After leaving there, I stopped and had a nice, though brief, visit with a long-time friend from college days in Hays, America. If I were less self-secure, I’d probably have walked away from that visit with a serious case of TV envy… Anyhow, the next morning I had to depart, and made a stop at the Cozy Inn in Salina, and got a dozen little burgers for a late breakfast and lunch. Instead of taking the usual route home on the same interstate and highways, I cut cross-country on smaller roads, and went past the town house and farm where my grandparents lived and worked. It had been some time since I’d been up there, and it was interesting driving those familiar roads on which I commuted and ran grain trucks for a number of summers in high school and college. Everything seemed really wet, and I was intermittently rained on most of the way home from Hays. The really lovely, and much needed, road trip came full-circle as I pulled back in our lane road and unloaded my venerable steed, which finally hit 70k miles in Castle Rock, CO after over 15 years of faithful service.

So, now I am changing gears and getting on with the preparation for the next big journey. I definitely feel recharged and invigorated after getting out and seeing a nice swath of the world, a world that will look, feel, smell, and sound demonstrably different from the environs I’ll inhabit for the coming 13 months. What will be next after another year at Pole? I have no idea. I have no idea, and I’m fine with that.

“All major changes are like death…you can’t see to the other side until you are there.”
~Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park

The Day After

Well, today I'm laying low and just hanging out at the campground. It's actually getting a bit cloudy, so hopefully it doesn't portend significant rain for later. Anyhow, I'm licking my wounds after a pretty tough hike up and down Mt. Antero yesterday. I hit the trail at 1:20am yesterday morning, and was on top by 6:15am, right before sunrise.



So, to back things up a bit spatially, and present them in reverse chronological order (since I walked up in the dark), this is roughly how it went getting to the top. At about tree line the summit was finally in view.

After following a winding and very rough jeep road up some big switchbacks, I finally got to the point where vehicles turn back.

Immediately behind me in the picture above is the following view, which greets people headed to the top. I wonder how many of those folks, who strap on 2,000+ pounds of gear to get themselves up here (i.e. a vehicle), instead of the 20-something pounds I carried and wore, turn around when they see the final ridge and summit pitch.

The final summit pitch was very loose granite talus, which shifted underfoot with almost ever step. The dearth of air to breathe at this altitude, compared to the relatively copious atmosphere at the bottom, doesn't aid the endeavor.

Once back down at the road to St. Elmo, a nifty little "ghost town", I eased my weary bones into my faithful steed El Civ, and motored (at the speed limit, of course) back to the campground and something to eat.


I'll be making an early, early start tomorrow morning to drive the 50 miles to the trail head for Mt. Sherman, which is up near Fairplay, CO. I hopefully will be able to get to the higher parking area, which will make for a hike of about one third the length and half the vertical gain of Mt. Antero's 15 miles round trip and 5,200 vertical feet gained. I'll assess how I feel after this hike, and will make the call on doing Mt. Evans and Bierstadt Mountain on Friday at that point. Hopefully rain can keep clear of the forecast for another few days. Anyhow, I'm flexible with this itinerary, so whatever will be, will be.

Shortly before I started this trip, somebody made a comment about why I would want to haul myself on top of all these big rock piles. All I have to say, is you have to experience it for yourself to understand. There is a great sense of finite accomplishment in summiting a mountain. I got myself to that mark on the map under my own power. I achieved a pinnacle, an accomplishment that is and will forever be. You usually learn quite a lot about yourself in the process, too.

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.
~Edmund Hillary

From a picnic table by a mountain creek

OK, I'm on battery power, so will be as informative and laconic as possible. The road trip is going great. First off was a nice visit with some of my extended family in western KS. I then drove on to Clayton Lake State Park in NM and saw some dinosaur tracks in the stone layer of the spillway. Very cool place, and oh-so tranquil. I just slept on my picnic table instead of using my tent.

The next day I drove over to Capulin Volcano Nat. Monument, and drove up its slopes and hiked around the crater. The cone stands roughly 2,000 feet above the surrounding high plains, just to give the following picture some perspective. You can see the road wrapping up the side of the volcano.

I then carried on over some great mountain roads to Taos and met a very good friend I made during my previous stint at Pole. He rode in on a motorcycle that had an engine that handily out-displaced my Civic's 1.6-liter monster in line-4. Anyhow, we went out to Wild Rivers Recreational Area, and practically had the whole park to ourselves. We hiked down to the confluence of the Red and Rio Grande rivers (shown below), and the canyons were just absolutely lovely.

The next day I left Taos early, and went to Antonito, CO and rode the Toltec & Chama Scenic Railroad. I was definitely way younger than the average age of the riders in general, but it was gorgeous scenery and a first for me to ride on a train pulled by a coal-powered steam engine. The cinders got a little old after a while, but otherwise it was great, as was the all-you-can-eat lunch. I had some older lady ask how a "little guy" like me could put away so much food. Oh ye of little faith!

Back in Antonito, after the train ride, I geeked out over the house used as Indiana Jones' boyhood home in "The Last Crusade". You can rent it out, and it's even up for sale. Now, it might not be as cool as seeing the building in Petra, Jordan used as the temple housing the Holy Grail, but it still was cool to see another place from the movies.

I will say, that up until I tried to take the photo of my fedora on the mailbox, my fedora was pretty much pristine. Well, maybe it was the spirit of the movies or just an errant gust of wind, but my hat took a tumble and found its first bit of dirt and dust as it tumbled across the front lawn. I'll consider it an auspicious sign of adventures to come.

I'm in Nathrop, CO camping tonight, and will leave not too long after midnight to start the 15-mile hike up and down Mt. Antero tomorrow. The trail head is within about 15 miles of my tent, so it shouldn't take too long to get there. I'll post more as I can, and access to AC power avails. This trip is proving exactly the right balm to prepare me for this next chapter on the Ice.

If you have given up your heart for the Tower, Roland, you have already lost. A heartless creature is a loveless creature, and a loveless creature is a beast. To be a beast is perhaps bearable, although the man who has become one will surely pay hell’s own price in the end, but if you should gain your object? What if you should, heartless, storm the Dark Tower and win it? What could you do except degenerate from beast to monster? To gain one’s object as a beast would only be bitterly comic, like giving a magnifying glass to an elephaunt. But to gain one’s object as a monster…To pay hell is one thing. But do you want to own it?
~The Drawing of the Three, Stephen King

The Blacktop Beckons

OK, due to some unclear reason, my trip to Stanford isn't happening, so I'm now in the final stages of putting together my road trip out west. I'll initially be heading to Clayton Lake State Park in New Mexico this Thursday, and will be putting the finishing touches on getting my gear together over the next couple days. I'm really looking forward to a little vacation here before getting back to the everyday work schedule at Pole. I'll be going through some familiar places and seeing some equally familiar faces along the way, but there are some new adventures I've got on the itinerary, as well as all those unforeseen adventures that lurk en route.

I got aggressive about planning this not only because the training trip was called off, but also because it sounds like there is a distinct possibility that my deployment date might be creeping forward as well. I will have a decent buffer of time to work with when I get home, should the deployment be moved earlier, so should still be able to get all my packing and shipping and farewells done in good order. Regardless of all that, this trip should be a whole lot of fun. Yes, I will post here as I can manage along the way. At least one campground I'll stay at will have wifi. Such roughing it!

There are two dogs inside me. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog most of the time. Which dog usually wins? The one I feed the most.
~Native American saying

East coast recap

Well, I returned quite late on Friday night after a nice visit to see some erstwhile colleagues at NASA Goddard and a couple flights back to Kansas. My next trip will be next week, though I have no details about the travel itinerary as of yet. Anyhow, here are a few pics from my trip to the east coast.

"The Green" at Dartmouth College; I felt quite the "prole" while walking around in Hanover. I also think that place must have the highest rate of Volvo drivers that I've ever encountered. It didn't matter much, though. The country is really gorgeous in that part of the world, no matter how far out of my normal social stratification I might have felt.

On Thursday, on my way back to Maryland from Delaware, I stopped first at New Castle, DE. It has enough age to not quite feel like most of the U.S., and almost has a tinge of the Old World to it. I just wandered around the streets for a while in the rain after parking near the old courthouse.


A short way down the Delaware River, I stopped at Delaware City and took the ferry to Fort Delaware (sure creative with the names there, huh?) out on Pea Patch Island. This old fort never saw any battle, but was used as a POW camp for interned CSA soldiers. I'm just amazed that it hasn't sunk into the river, given how soggy the island and the fort itself are. The granite facade was nifty, but I wonder how well that would have even held up to bombardment with artillery contemporary to its time of construction (1859).



I'll be heading west for the next trip, which will be a lot more succinct (I assume) than this past trip. I don't think there will likely be much of a chance to play sightseer, but will work with whatever time I am afforded.

“You can’t stop a man from wishin’.”
~Hogan (Clint Eastwood), Two Mules for Sister Sara

More from the road

Well, I'm now in Delaware, my 31st state visited, and will shortly be heading over to U Del. for a full day of training on a cosmic ray experiment that will be coming to Pole this coming (austral) summer season. Yesterday I was at U. Maryland, and got to see my old neighborhood after a quarter century's time away. Nobody has fixed the traffic problems here, so I had the usual reaction to the place. {insert expletives here} My connecting flight in New York was delayed 4 hours Monday night, so I wasn't able to hit the hay until 3:30 in the morning on Tuesday. But, I managed to keep my wits together to participate in the training (I assume) and drive myself up I-95 to Newark, DE in the afternoon. Despite having a bookstore right next to the hotel, I opted to just crash early and hard once I made it to my hotel room. I'm feeling pretty good this morning, after breakfast, and will hopefully have no problems getting myself over to the campus.

So, I guess some highlights thus far have been seeing all those forested hill-mountains up in New Hampshire, seeing the tops of the Empire State and Chrysler (is it still called that?) buildings in NYC, visiting the old 'hood in Maryland, driving through the harbor tunnel in Baltimore with a pack of guys riding sport bikes revving their engines really loudly, and driving over the huge Susquehanna River on my way to Delaware.

It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad’Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson.
~Frank Herbert

Road Work

Well, I've been a bit preoccupied this past week getting details ironed out for a training trip on the east coast. I'm visiting three universities in New Hampshire, Maryland, and Delaware that I will be working with supporting science projects they have at the Pole. I had to get up at 3:30 this morning to start the trip, and am currently craving food in New Hampshire.

It's my first time in NH, and I rather enjoyed the drive up I-89. To say there are a few trees here would be quite an understatement. I kept a weather eye for moose in the boggy places visible from the roads, but no luck had I spotting Bullwinkle.

Anyhow, tomorrow I will allegedly be training with some science folks at Dartmouth College. In the afternoon I have to hoof it back to the airport in Manchester and fly to my old friend Baltimore Washington International (via NYC). If I get a chance to do anything remotely interesting I'll let you know.

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.
You're on your own.
And you know what you know.
You are the guy who'll decide where to go.
~Dr. Seuss