“Now there’s a real mountain man” said the middle-aged* guy
without (as far as I could tell) a hint of mockery.
Despite having lived in the foothills of the
Rockies for over 10 years, it’s not often I’m mistaken for Grizzly Adams so at
first, I wasn’t sure what he meant.
Turned out he was expressing admiration for my walking stick. Not yet having made the switch to these
new-fangled trekking poles, I’m still rocking it old school with a shoulder
high hickory staff. Apparently this
marked me out as an experienced hiker. A
veteran amongst all these rookies. Hard
core.
His companions were suitably
impressed.I wasn’t too sure myself but then it wasn’t yet 6am. And at that time of day, I’m rarely at my
most impressive. Even worse, having
slept in the back of my truck at the trailhead, I’d awoken to discover my bag
contained coffee and a stove, but no cooking pots. Which meant I was starting the day without
caffeine and that’s never a good thing.It wasn’t an auspicious start to my first real-live attempt
at a 14’er**
Mind you, if I was that big an animal, I probably wouldn’t
be tackling Gray’s Peak in the first place.
Drive an hour or so along the freeway from Denver, then bump up 3
(admittedly steep) miles and you’re at the trailhead. Add a wide, well-trodden and easy to follow
trail, this particular 14’er is a classic “beginners peak”. Throw in the bonus of another 14’er, Torrey’s
Peak just a short dip away and it’s one of the most popular trails in
Colorado. We’re not exactly talking
Wilderness Experience here.
In fact,
there were at an estimate, several dozen other hikers setting off up the trail
in the pre-dawn light.Any serious hiker would have scoffed at such an endeavor. Not so very long ago, I would have scoffed at such an endeavor. Back in the day, I was an experienced hill
walker and with my disproportionately long legs, could leave most other
trekkers in the dust.
But, in my time as
a Colorado resident, I had yet to venture above 12,500 feet and as well, let’s
face facts here, I’m not as young as I was back in the day, so I wasn’t
entirely sure how my old carcass would cope.
I have the fond notion that when I do have my first heart attack, it
would be nice if other people were around.
Anyway, real mountain man or not, I resisted the urge to set
off at a fast pace, knowing I had some 3,600 feet (1,200 meters) of altitude
gain ahead of me. Possibly as a result
of this, I found the going not too bad.
In the beginning at least. The
thing about climbing mountains is you need to go up. And the further up you go, the harder it is
to breathe. After an hour or so, I was
extremely glad to have my trusty mountain man walking stick along with me. Not only did it help as a lever to push
myself up some of the higher step ups, it gave me something on which to lean
while desperately trying to suck oxygen into my lungs.
To be fair, I seemed to be doing better than most others
around me. I was passing more people
than passed me, and of the latter group, I usually overtook them later while
they were resting. Not that I was racing
you understand, not me. Not a
competitive bone in my body. That didn’t
stop me feeling a bit smug though.
Although there were 2 young guys who cruised past me on the final,
steepest stretch of the climb at a point when I was wondering just beginning to
wonder if this bloody mountain even had a top.
Without a trace of breathlessness, they were chatting about the Tour de
France and I didn’t even have the energy to correct their misapprehension that
Mark Cavendish won it this year.
I was still ruminating on the injustice of this when hey ho,
would you look at that. Here’s the
summit and you know what? I didn’t
really feel all that tired. After all
this time I’d finally made it to the top of a 14’er.
Only took me 3 hours too so after a look around, and asking
a fellow peak bagger to take the obligatory hero shot, I headed down the trail
to knock off Torrey’s seeing I was up here.
The two young guys passed me on the way down, chatting about Ultimate
Cage Fighting this time but I don’t know enough about that to tell you if they
were correct or not.
What I do know is that the 600 or so vertical feet (275m) to
the summit of Torrey’s Peak was a darn site harder than the equivalent stretch
of Gray’s. It could be that I was
tiring…well, yeah I was definitely tiring but my fellow hikers seemed for the
most part, to be struggling too. I certainly
wasn’t the only one stopping to “admire the view”.But the top arrived eventually, as tops generally do if you
just keep going. And the view was every
bit as spectacular. And the sense of
achievement just as great. The 2 young
guys were still at the top when I arrived and as it turned out, were very
personable. From Indianapolis
apparently, where they don’t even have hills so I had to admire that.
Off down the hill then and as is so often the way, I found
this to be more tiring than the hike up.
It was way further than I expected too and while it only took me a
couple of hours, which doesn’t sound all that long but I was bone weary by the
time I finally made it to the trailhead.
Still, I’d made it to the top of not 1, but 2 of Colorado’s 14’ers. My heart hadn’t given out and really, I
hadn’t found it to be anywhere near as hard as I had feared. So I was feeling pretty good about myself.
Better yet, my 2 young friends were still in the parking lot,
sitting on the tailgate of a truck.
They’d changed into matching t-shirts and the legend emblazoned across
their chests cheered me even further.“Marines”
So yeah, I’m OK with them being faster than me.
* The definition for this is a moving target but it generally
means “Older than me”.
** Colorado has 54
mountains above 14,000 feet (4,268 Meters), affectionately known 14’ers.
