All Season Biking

We were coming out of a right turn on the Green Bay Trail in Highland Park when I heard Gabe call out, "Timmy's down!" He had blown his front tire, which sent his new Ibex bike crashing onto its side. While Tim repaired the flat in the shade of a scraggly tree in someone's front yard, I ate an apple and raised the nonsensical matter of where the owner's pet cat would shit now that we were loitering in its favorite spot.

Tim's wreck was the second of the three that would occur on our circa 70 mile ride from the North Side to Lake Bluff and back. Earlier, Gabe fell at a stop sign when he failed to unclip from the pedals fast enough. A car full of teenage girls laughed as he got up and dusted himself off. The wrecks didn't cause injury or diminish the pleasures of biking on a temperate day in June.



After Tim worked the tire over the new tube, aired up the tube, and reattached the wheel, we continued pushing north on the Robert McClory Path, which runs parallel to the North Shore rail line and is free of motor vehicles for several miles between Highland Park and Lake Bluff. We pushed our speed over 20 miles per hour, with Tim drafting a few inches behind me.



An aptly named suburb, Lake Bluff sits on a bluff overlooking a private beach on Lake Michigan. The teenager who seemed to be responsible for keeping non-residents off the beach allowed us onto the road that descends to the lake. During the ride down, we realized the beach was private and decided to turn around. I attempted a u-turn, but the road was narrow and steep. My Bianchi Volpe fell on its side, which bent the rear fender into the wheel and bent one link of my chain.

Tim bikes with a toolbox worth of tools mounted to his bike. He used an 8 mm ratcheting spanner to adjust the fender so that it did not contact the wheel. The bent chain link was irreparable though. As we biked back to Highland Park, the drive train changed gears each time the bent link passed over the rear cassette. It was annoying and I had no power. In Highland Park, a bike shop replaced the chain while the three of us had pizza and beer. Refreshments were necessary because we had hardly eaten, but premature because we had 25 miles left to ride.

Instead of returning to Chicago via the Cook County Forest Preserve District, which was our outbound route, we decided to head southeast through Wilmette and Evanston. I felt a sense of homecoming as we crossed Howard Street and entered Chicago's far North Side.

A month later, in mid-July, Tim and I cranked out a century bike ride. We extended the route we had taken to Lake Bluff 15 miles to the north. We turned around a few hundred feet north of the state line in Kenosha County, Wisconsin. On the last few miles before the state line, the Green Bay Trail was bisected by roads a half dozen times. It was frustrating to slow down for traffic, but I appreciate the mere existence of a trail that allows you to bike several hundred miles, all the way from Chicago to Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Tim, Gabe, and I decided to do another long bike ride before Chicago's winter set in. On Saturday, November 8, four days after Barack Obama was elected to the presidency, we biked from the North Side to the president elect's neighborhood in Hyde Park, on the South Side. We got fairly raw conditions instead of the hoped-for temperature in the 50s. We fought headwinds on both legs of the ride. The temperature started in the low 40s and had fallen to the mid-30s by the turnaround point. The cloud cover was dense and grey.



Because of a long motion I was writing, I had been unable to work out during the week before the ride. So I set a brisk pace on the southbound jaunt along Chicago's lakefront. The last I had biked there was Labor Day weekend, when the crowds were thick. The grey weather the day of our ride kept people indoors. The wide open path was an invitation to push our speed as much as we wanted.





We turned off the lakefront at 51st Street and crossed Lake Shore Drive on a pedestrian bridge, where I took the only good photo that came out of the 27-exposure disposable camera that Gabe had procured at Walgreens at the start of the Lake Bluff ride five months earlier.


We planned to head west to the Obamas' block and then ride past their mansion. The Chicago Police Department and the Secret Service thwarted this plan. They had barricaded the Obamas' block at 50th and 51st Streets. I asked a police officer at 50th Street if we could ride down the block. "No," he replied without a trace of a smile.

We embarked on a fruitless quest to find a decent pub or cafe. We biked through and around University of Chicago's campus but found nothing. In terms of the architecture of the houses and apartment buildings, Hyde Park suits me more than any other neighborhood of Chicago. But the bars and cafes are far and few between, and I am at core a Northsider, so I could never live down there.

The search for a watering hole led us back to the lakefront and 55th Street. On the way, we stopped to take in Loredo Taft's massive sculpture, the Fountain of Time, in the Midway Plaisance. A man in a delivery pick-up truck stopped and asked for directions to an address on Woodlawn. We had no idea where it was. Gabe speculated that he was an undercover Secret Service agent sent to check us out because we had asked the CPD about biking down the Obamas' block. Later a man driving an SUV honked at us while we headed west on a boulevard. He was black and had Illinois plates and a fuzzy toy hanging from the rear view mirror. Tim suspected that this man was also from the Secret Service. I thought Tim and Gabe's paranoia was unfounded, but it was infectious and made me uneasy. We stopped outside a cafe full of white hipsters. There were no open tables, since it was the only source of good coffee in Hyde Park other than Starbucks. We didn't venture in, but I commented to Tim that everyone inside was Secret Service.

We decided to bike back to downtown on the streets of the South Side, rather than returning via the lakefront. Taking the streets meant dealing with motorists who at best would be indifferent to white bike nerds. In the actual event, the ride north on Cottage Grove, then Martin Luther King Drive, and finally Michigan Avenue was devoid of a single dangerous encounter with a car.

We ended the 40 mile ride at Aaron's place in Logan Square. My two year old nephew, Byron, was revved up to have three yahoos on bikes visiting him. I felt a powerful sense of physical wellbeing. The cold weather marked the beginning of Chicago's winter. The return of winter causes dread and unhappiness for many people. By biking outside for six hours, we had embraced the change of season and immersed ourselves in the powerful beauty of winter's grey skies.

My refrigerator is decorated with magnets arranged to resemble the Einstuerzende Neubauten logo, a stick figure whose arms and legs point down. Recently I amputated Neubauten man's legs and gave him articulated arms that reach for the sky. After the bike ride, I detected in this crude likeness a hint of joy I hadn't recognized before. I thought Tim had tweaked my design, but he doubted it.

Trainspotting the Novel is Better than Trainspotting the Film

The main character of Trainspotting, Mark Renton, is eloquent enough to persuade you that self-destructing with injected narcotics makes more sense than the middle class grind of sleep, commute, work, ad nauseum. His deftness with words is showcased when, in the film, he lambastes the people of Scotland for submitting to English rule:

It's shite being Scottish! We're the lowest of the low. The scum of the fucking Earth! The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some hate the English. I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers. Can't even find a decent culture to be colonized by. We're ruled by effete assholes. It's a shite state of affairs to be in, Tommy, and all the fresh air in the world won't make any fucking difference.

I adore Trainspotting the film but the novel is a higher work of art. The foundation for the greatness of both works is Renton's character. The film gives us a passing account of him. It focuses on his transformation from a junkie scraping by in Edinburgh to a Londoner trying to claw his way into the middle class. The novel gives a complete description of Renton's personality, world view, and family.

In it, we learn that, growing up, Renton was ashamed of his younger brother, a spastic who was sent away to an institution. He felt a mixture of hostility and contempt for his older brother, Billy, who regularly beat him up until he earned Billy's respect by stabbing a bully at school. This incident and Billy's reputation as a hard man caused the thugs of Leith to give Renton wide berth.

Renton's family, on his father's side, is Protestant and militantly Unionist. On the mother's side, they're Catholic and favor Scottish independence. Billy takes after the father's side, joins Her Majesty's Service, and is killed by Republican forces on a patrol in Northern Ireland. At the wake following the funeral, Renton drunkenly comes on to his cousin. His advances enrage his Unionist uncle, Chick, who attempts to throw Renton out:

--Listen son, if you don't get oan yir fuckin bike, ah'm gaunnae tan your jaw. If it wasnae fir yir father thair, ah've done it a long time ago. Ah don't like you son. Ah never huv. Yir brother was ten times the man you'll ever be, ya fuckin junky. If you knew the misery yuv caused yir Ma n Da ...

--You can speak frankly, ah cut in, anger throbbing in my chest but nonetheless contained by a delicious glee that comes fae knowing that ah've upset the cunt. Stay cool. It's the only way tae fuck a self-righteous bastard over.

--Oh ah'll speak frankly aw right, Mr University smart cunt. Ah'll knock you through that fuckin waw. His chunky, indian-inked fist was just a few inches from fae ma face. Ma grip tensed oan the whisky gless I wis haudin. Ah wisnae gaunnae let the cunt touch us wi they fuckin hands. If he moved he wis gittin this gless.

Ah push his raised hand aside.

-If ye did gie us a kickin, ye'd be daeing me a favour. Ah'd jist huv a wank aboot it later on. We University drop-oot smart cunt junkies are kinky that wey. Cause that's aw you're worth, ya fuckin trash. Yir also takin a wee bit for granted. Ye want tae go ootside, just say the fuckin word.. Ah gestured at the door. The room seemed tae shrink tae the size ay Billy's coffin, and be populated only by masel n Chick. But thir wir others. People wir looking roond at us now.

Renton reduces Chick to fodder for a pervert's sexual fantasies. The contempt is impeccable. Renton's contempt first reached artistic heights at the wake when a minister of the British government extends condolences for Billy's death:

Some ruling class cunt, a junior minister or something, says in his Oxbridge voice how Billy wis a brave young man. He wis exactly the kind ay cunt they'd huv branded as a cowardly thug if he wis in civvy street rather than on Her Majesty's Service. This fucking walking abortion says that his killers will be ruthlessly hunted down. So they fuckin should. Aw the wey tae the fuckin Houses ay Parliament.

Here, Renton seems to view Scottish nationalism as a viable program that might bring about an independent Scottish state. This contrasts with his rant in the film in which he calls the Scottish servile trash, which suggests that hopes for independence are futile.

Since films are short and visually oriented, Trainspotting the film can't depict Renton's personality with the art and the depth of the novel. Because Renton's character is the nucleus of both pieces, the novel is superior to the film, just as an original of a painting is superior to a reproduction.

The opposite holds in the case of the film and novel versions of Fight Club. Palahniuk fails to give his characters personality in the novel. The film, by shifting the focus to the compelling chain of events described in the novel, and away from the deficient characters, is stronger than the novel.

Mountainscapes by Luke

When we hiked in the South Colony Lakes area in July, Luke took 12 photographs. Each one turned out to be a strong composition (compared to my yield of two good compositions out of every 100 photos taken). Here are six of the photos he took in July plus a tremendous black and white photo he took on a late spring hike somewhere in the Sangres.

Looking east at the Wet Mountains, perhaps from Highway 69.

Crestone Peak in the late afternoon, from Bear's Playground.

Crestone Peak is in the foreground, with the Needle on
the left. I think this was taken on Columbia's summit.


Columbia from the summit of Kit Carson.


The humble keeper of this humble
blog on Kit Carson's summit.


Crestone Needle from Crestone Peak. Tiny figures are
visible on the Needle's summit in the full size picture.


Luke took this photo on a late spring hike. Every element in the photograph contributes to the composition. It merits being exhibited. Hopefully I didn't ruin this scan by altering the levels and contrast.

Strength Training Program for Skiing

The October 2008 issue of Outside Magazine describes a physical training program that Ann Hodel, a former NCAA ski racer, devised for downhill snow sports. This weekend, I split my old program into two days and added exercises she recommended. I had more fun in the gym than I'd had in years.

Upper Body

Pull-ups: 50-62 reps, 7 sets. In June, I started using the Schwarzenegger method - doing at least 50 reps of pull-ups, regardless of the number of sets required. Since then, total number of reps I do has increased from 40 to around 60.

Push-ups: 60-100 reps, 3-4 sets. I added push-ups at Hodel's suggestion. I haven't worked on my chest in a year. The last time I did my shoulder joints felt like they would dislocate when I lowered a barbell to my chest. Yesterday, I did 25 clean reps on the first two sets and failed completely at rep 15 on the third set. My chest muscles have been burning since then.

Standing Barbell Military Press: Around 26 reps on heavy days, up to 60 reps on light days. This exercise requires you to extend your arms over your head while standing. The motion builds up the deltoids and back muscles.

Bent Over Barbell Rows: 30-50 reps, 3-4 sets. I start with the 45 pound barbell or the bar and quarters and work up, on heavy days, to 185 pounds.

Good Mornings (alternative to barbell rows): 16-24 reps, 3 sets. I start with the barbell and work up to 135 pounds. You place the barbell across your shoulders as if you were doing squats and bend forward until your torso is as close to parallel to the ground as you can stand. It builds up the lower back and the hamstrings. Like dead lifts, Good Mornings can blow out your lower back unless you keep your back arched.

Lower Body

Squats: 48-60 reps total, 12 reps a set, 4-5 sets. I added this at Hodel's suggestion. When I last did squats in August 2003, it felt like the exercise would make my right knee explode and spray synovial fluid all over my gym's mirrors. Tonight I worked up to a reasonable but taxing 210 pounds. The exercise felt great - the deep movement lit up my calves, hamstrings, quads and glutes. I didn't feel the slightest twinge in my right knee. I may be able to do this exercise safely at moderate weights.

Plyometric Jumps: I discovered this exercise thanks to Hodel. You stand next to a platform or box that is a foot above the ground, jump onto it sideways, and jump off sideways, as many times as you can in 60 seconds. Switch sides for the second set and stand facing the box for the final set. Jumping sideways involved a lot more coordination than I thought. Jumping onto the box when facing it required less dexterity. But at that point my legs were cached. I could get into a rhythm with the front jumps, but not the sideways jumps. My quads and lungs were begging for respite two thirds of the way into the second set. I did 39 right sided jumps, 35 left sided jumps, and 49 forward jumps.

Barbell Bicep Curls: 5 sets, 25-50 reps. I include barbell curls because the bicep assists in pull-ups by taking the strain off the latissimus dorsi.

Before Andrew's Wedding

Some people pack when they travel, others buy what they need when they get there. Brent and Gabe fall in the latter category. After they picked up necessaries at the local K Mart, we decided to pass the time remaining before the wedding by having a couple of beers outside the hotel. Aaron practiced his best man's toast. His deadpan praise of Andrew's moral character made me double over with laughter. The rain diminished to a drizzle and a bottle of Becks swiftly killed my hangover. We made comedy from the raw materials of defamation, absurdity, and bad taste.

John Belushi lives.

A pose reminiscent of Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner, when Roy Batty dies.

Where to Rent a Tux in Battle Creek, Michigan

Andrew and Mira got married in the middle of an impressive storm that hovered over the upper Midwest for more than 48 hours and caused flooding in Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. Aaron was the best man, Brent the next best man. Guests thought they looked dapper in their tuxedos, which had been supplied by Clair's on Columbia Avenue. Although we were wearing the same style of tux, Gabe and I, the groomsmen, were mistaken for blackjack dealers who hadn't changed after their shifts at Firekeepers.

Non Sequiturs

It seems to be often believed that, if you admit that [ethnic groups differ from each other], consistency requires that you try to murder entire races of people. I do not know what one can say of a belief as ridiculous as this, except that it is extremely ridiculous. Take my example of long-distance running, Ethiopians, and Eskimos. Like most other people, I am not a fanatical enthusiast for long-distance running. But suppose I were: would consistency then require that I try to extinguish the race of Eskimos, and multiply the number of Ethiopians?

David Stove, Against the Idols of the Age

Being Grateful for Simple Things

"Holy God Almighty," I declared after Luke pointed out that we had almost finished slogging through the marsh below Mt. Evans' west ridge. Several times my feet had sunk into the mud past my ankles. I was tired and filthy.

"Holy God Almighty," if spoken reverently, expresses gratitude to God for providing relief from discomfort, despite the fact that the Almighty himself caused the discomfort. The man who feels gratitude to God for ending suffering that God caused must see himself as deserving of punishment. The Puritans impressed this attitude on school children. The letter J in The New England Primer is accompanied by an image of Job's suffering and this rhyme:

Job feels the Rod
Yet blesses GOD.

Calling God merciful for limiting the suffering He inflicts is laugh-out-loud nonsense. But there is a grain of validity in this religious attitude toward suffering: we should strive to grasp that life is valuable even when we have to confront pain, adversity, and set backs.

An Optimistic Vision of a Future without Religion

One of these days the cold bright light of science & reason will shine through the cathedral windows & we shall go out into the fields to seek God for ourselves. The great laws of Nature will be understood--our destiny and our past will be clear. We shall then be able to dispense with the religious toys that have agreeably fostered the development of mankind.

Winston Churchill

I came across this quote in Churchill, Hitler, and The Unnecessary War, by Patrick Buchanan. Buchanan tries to refute the notion that, by resisting Hitler until the U.S. and U.S.S.R. entered the war, Churchill single-handedly saved the world from Nazism. In Buchanan's view, Nazi Germany had neither the means nor the desire to dominate the world. Churchill's refusal to negotiate with Nazi Germany only ensured that the Eastern European nations that Britain went to war for in the first place would spend the next 50 years under the rule of a totalitarian state as murderous and evil as Nazi Germany. Buchanan persuaded me that Churchill's reputation as a military strategist and the savior of civilization is undeserved. His book also makes clear, with quotations like the one above, that Churchill was a god-like writer.

Critique of Remorse

Guilt. -- Although the shrewdest judges of the witches and even the witches themselves were convinced of the guilt of witchcraft, this guilt still did not exist. This is true of all guilt.

Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Section 250

Guilt means the state of having committed a crime or wrong. It also means the feeling of remorse or culpability for a real or imagined wrong. Nietzsche obviously is not denying that people engage in conduct that is against the law or that people often feel remorse for their conduct.

Nietzsche is suggesting that the intellectual foundation for the feeling of culpability is false. Religious people feel remorse for engaging in conduct that they believe has been proscribed by God. This type of remorse is founded on the mistaken assumption that God exists and that God has commanded people to refrain from certain acts.

Nietzsche also is challenging the sense we get that, if we had it to do over again, we would not commit the wrong that's troubling our conscience. This type of remorse is founded on the mistaken assumption that one's conduct is determined by a transcendental core personality that is not constrained by cause and effect. In reality, our behavior is dictated by physiological processes within our brains. If a situation in which we did a wrong presented itself again, with every last atom in the same state it was in the first time around, we would commit the same wrong again.

Guilt causes us unnecessary distress by insisting that we could have lived up to our moral standard and not committed the wrong. Contrary to guilt, we did not commit the wrong voluntarily or lightly. The brute force of cause and effect compelled us to do so.

South Colony Lakes, Part III

On Saturday, we got up at 4:50 a.m. to climb the Red Couloir on the south face of Crestone Peak. This route climbs southwest from the trailhead at 11,200 feet to the Broken Hand Pass at 12,800 feet, and then descends switchbacks to Cottonwood Lake at 12,310 feet. From the lake, a cairned trail leads west around the south face of Crestone Needle to the base of the south face of Crestone Peak. The route gains a couple hundred feet via a series of switchbacks before climbing the Red Couloir for about 500 feet and reaching the saddle between Crestone Peak's east and west summits. The scramble from the saddle to the west summit is simple.

We hiked at a good clip and passed the Indians we'd met the previous night before we entered the bowl below the Broken Hand Pass. The bowl to the north of the Pass is mainly scree that is difficult to climb and supports no vegetation. We were lucky that much of the bowl was covered in fields of soft snow. There was a well-defined boot pack and getting purchase with our boots was easy.

Luke hikes one of the many snow fields on the way to Broken Hand Pass.

A beautiful alpine meadow awaited us on the south side of the Pass. The gentler slopes there allow mountain grass and flowers to grow. After descending steep switchbacks, we reached Cottonwood Lake. The sky was reflected in its still waters.

Cottonwood Lake seen from the west and from the Broken Hand Pass.

We followed the trail west to the base of Crestone Peak. The south face of the mountain rises up around 2,000 feet from grassy meadow below. We could see the Red Couloir extending several hundred feet from the middle of the south face to the saddle between the Peak's summits. From the base of the Peak, the Couloir looked too steep to be climbed without a rope.

A snow field extended down the Red Couloir from the saddle between the Peak's two summits.

We hiked switchbacks several hundred feet from the base to the increasingly steep rock of the Peak's southern face. The last cairn we saw was just east of Couloir. We figured we were entering the couloir at the right spot. We climbed along the west and east sides of the Couloir and at one point hiked up a steep field of rock hard snow. We had ice axes but no crampons. Luke asked me whether I would be able to self-arrest. I doubted I could. His question planted a seed of fear in me.

We got off the snow field and continued climbing to a point thirty or fifty feet below where the Couloir seemed to turn into cliffs that couldn't be climbed without protection. We exited the Couloir to the east and began scrambling up the rock face. We had no idea whether we were on route.

The face became steep enough that I doubted we could continue. Luke was more sanguine. While I sat tight, he climbed above me and moved beyond my range of vision. Five minutes later, he shouted down that he'd found a route that would take us back to the Couloir above the cliffs. Around the same time, I caught sight of the Indian climbers far below me. They noticed me and began shouting from several hundred feet below. I couldn't make out what they were saying and followed Luke's route without answering.

I climbed another 100 feet up. Then we moved west to re-enter the Couloir. The Couloir was a good 10 or 15 feet below the rock face. I got back to it by lowering myself down a natural stairwell between two large rocks. We eventually reached a long snow field that had been softened by the sun. Our boots got good purchase. After the snow field, we climbed a series of knobs and steps along the Couloir's east side. Then we reached the saddle between the two summits and climbed the short pitch to the west summit.

Two other climbers had already reached the summit. They told us they had made two previous unsuccesful attempts to summit Crestone Peak. They had spent a couple of hours that day doing route finding on the rock face east of the Couloir. Crestone Peak was certainly the most challenging mountain I'd done from a route-finding or exposure to heights perspective. The other climbers took our picture and then I took theirs. I cracked sarcastically that it would be the cover of the next issue of Outside.

Luke and I on the summit. Crestone Needle is between us.

From left to right, Challenger, Kit Carson, and Columbia, seen from Crestone Peak.

On the descent, we encountered one of the Indians in the Couloir at an elevation around 13,500 feet. His partner had given up the hike because of altitude sickness. He had left his ice ax with the sick guy and continued up the Couloir alone. He asked whether he could safely continue. We said it was his call but it would be safer to return since he was solo and he had no ice ax. Also, it was almost noon, putting him in danger of getting caught by an afternoon rain that might make the rock unclimbable.

The Red Couloir during the descent. The lead Indian climber is in the upper left.

When we got back to the Broken Hand Pass, the leader of the climbers we met on the summit caught up with us. The Indian climber who had altitude sickness had postholed on a snowfield in the Couloir and got stuck. The leader Indian climber had dug him out with their shared ice ax. Both of them had made it out of the Couloir and down to the base of the Peak, which came as a relief to me.

Luke and I got back to the camp by 3:00 p.m. As we were driving down the Forest Service road back to Westcliffe, a terrific storm broke over the South Colony Lakes. Massive clouds moved in and thick tendrils of rain streamed down. Our timing was perfect.

July 12, 2008

South Colony Lakes, Part II

Easterly winds coursing over the Playground battered the tent throughout Thursday night. A couple of times I thought the gusts would tear the fly off, but the tent held together. The temperature probably dropped into the 30s; my finger tips became numb and I gave up reading. At 5:00 a.m. on Friday, my wrist watch emitted a feeble beep that neither of us heard. We got up on our own at 6:00 a.m. and began hiking west along Bears Playground toward Kit Carson.

Carson is a complex mountain that comprises three distinct peaks: The east summit, Columbia, reaches 13,980 feet. The west summit, Challenger, reaches 14,080 feet. The true summit, Kit Carson, flanked by Challenger and Columbia, rises to 14,165 feet. To muddy the waters a little more, Columbia has a false summit east of its true summit. Most people hike up Carson's north face from the Willow Creek trail. The route from the east ridge, which we were taking, is hiked less often. Columbia guards against any approach from the east. You have to climb up Columbia and then downclimb 500-odd feet to the saddle between Carson and Columbia. Where to start downclimbing from the top of Columbia is non-obvious and the route down to the saddle is steep.

Point 13,799 marks the western end of Bears Playground. We contoured around Point 13,799 to the south of its summit and began hiking up the east ridge of Columbia. While we were on the east ridge, we heard coyotes howling from somewhere far below in the Spanish Creek basin.

Point 13, 799 is in the foreground. Columbia's east summit is behind it.

Looking back at the Crestones and the Playground from Columbia's east ridge.

We summited Columbia in no time. A plaque bolted to the summit memorialized the astronauts who died when Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated in 2003. Idiot vandals had defaced President Bush's statement about the disaster.


The fun began after we topped off on Columbia. I started down climbing above the highest point of the saddle between Columbia and Carson. That section was a dead end without climbing gear. Luke found the correct route down farther to the left of Columbia's summit. The steep down climb was a lot of fun because the rock was bomb proof and holds were abundant. Exposure to heights focuses me more powerfully than deadlines or caffeine.

A solo hiker joined up with us just after we hiked onto Carson from the saddle. We climbed up through a talus field and then a rock face to reach Carson's summit.

Looking up at Carson's summit from the east

From the summit we downclimbed to Kit Carson Avenue, a well-defined path that contours along the south face of Carson to the saddle between Carson and Challenger. We picked a line up the talus field on Challenger and reached its summit in short order. On the summit was a plaque in honor of the Challenger astronauts.

I made two harmless errors on the return to Bears Playground. As you hike below Columbia's summit on the Columbia-Carson saddle, you pass several pitches of rock before the stretch that you climb to reach the summit. I started climbing up a rocky gully that was 50 yards west of the correct route. Later, as we contoured around Columbia below the summit, Columbia's false east summit came into view and I mistook it for Point 13,799, which marks the west end of Bears Playground. Neither mistake cost us any time because Luke pointed out I was wrong on both counts.

About to start the climb up Columbia from the saddle between Columbia and Carson.

Half-way there.

When we reached the tent, I had drunk one liter of water for the day. I was parched, but my spirits were high. I had just noticed that gum tissue that had been swollen for six days no longer was inflamed or painful. This brought an end to my preoccupation with abscesses and brain infections. I savored the absence of pain and anxiety throughout the afternoon.

We broke down the camp. The plan was to hike back to the trailhead, camp, and make an attempt on Crestone Peak the following morning.

Luke felt adventurous and suggested that, instead of returning to the South Colony Lakes on the switchbacks below Humboldt's west ridge, we hike down a steep scree gully. I gulped and said I'd give it a shot. The gully we picked had to have been more than 35 degrees in grade. The scree was fine and loose; it flowed like water when you stepped on it and I set off more than a few mini-rock slides that rattled me. Negotiating that terrain while wearing a heavy pack was a dangerous test of my dexterity. The dexterity test continued after we reached the bottom of the gully. We traveled east through the basin in the direction of the trailhead by leaping from one huge boulder to another.

When we got back to the Highlander, thirst was driving me crazy. The first thing I did was to take the water filter over the South Colony Creek and treat and guzzle three liters of water. We made camp a few hundred feet up the trail from the parking lot. Luke cooked up burritos with scrambled eggs, red beans and rice, and grilled vegetables. As he cooked, it began to rain, and we scrambled to pitch my four season tent. The rain ended quickly. I gorged myself on the burritos.

After we stored the food and some gear in the Highlander, Luke produced his flask and we had a shot of cheap, 100-proof Canadian whiskey. Two friendly Indian guys who had just parked at the trailhead approached us. They had flown to Denver from Indianapolis that morning and had one day, Saturday, to attempt to summit Crestone Peak. They wanted to know if the REI in Colorado Springs was correct in claiming that they needed an ice ax and crampons for the climb. We said that other climbers had told us that crampons were handy but not essential. I offered them a pull of whiskey. They thanked me but declined the offer.

July 11, 2008

South Colony Lakes, Part I

In March 2008, Luke moved to an old mining town just east of the Sangre de Cristos, the southernmost subrange of the Rocky Mountains. I was sorry to see him leave Oregon as it was handy to have a friend who lived an hour away from Mt. Hood. After doing a few early spring hikes in the Sangres, Luke declared them as impressive as any volcano in the Cascades. He and I made plans to hike three fourteeners in the South Colony Lakes area in July.

On Wednesday I flew from Chicago to Colorado Springs and drove a rented Toyota Highlander to Westcliffe, Luke's new home town. We took our maps over to a saloon on Main Street and hashed out the itinerary over a round of drinks. We planned to hike the Class 2 route up Humboldt Peak on Thursday, summit Kit Carson via the Class 3 route on its east ridge on Friday, and finish on Saturday by climbing Crestone Peak’s Red Couloir, a Class 3 route.

The north slopes of Humboldt Peak from the South Colony Lakes trail.

Around 6:00 a.m. on Thursday, after a mountain breakfast of pancakes and eggs, we started driving to the upper trailhead at South Colony Lakes. The last five miles of Forest Service Road 120, which accesses the upper trailhead at 11,200 feet, are four-wheel-drive-only. In between the half dozen stream crossings, the road is covered with deep ruts and big rocks. The Highlander scraped bottom several times although I drove at a snail’s pace.

Around 7:00 a.m., we reached the parking lot. We planned to carry overnight packs up to 13,000 feet on Humboldt. Then we’d drop the heavy packs and summit Humboldt with day packs and water. On the way down, we’d grab the heavy packs and hike west on Humboldt's west flank to Bears Playground, a high saddle that connects Crestone Peak with Kit Carson. This would enable us to start the attack on Kit Carson from close range on Friday morning. Hiking steep terrain with a heavy pack at 13,000 feet was going to punish me since I was acclimated to sea level air. At the trailhead, Luke encouraged me to ditch anything that was arguably unnecessary. He thought my water filter was unnecessary since he was bringing a stove and iodine, so I left it in the Highlander.

We passed through the gate at the parking lot and began hiking west along the road that decades ago provided access to a mine below the lower South Colony. After a mile, the trail forked. The left (south) fork is the standard route for Crestone Peak and Crestone Needle. The right fork winds above the lower South Colony Lake at 11,800 feet to the valley's north wall. When I crossed a stream above the lower lake, my foot slipped on the stepping stone and I fell in. The hike was off to a brilliant start. A steep set of switchbacks ascend the north wall of the valley from around 12,000 feet to about 13,000 feet on Humboldt's west ridge. Saddled with a 50 pound pack and not acclimated to the thin air, I felt dizzy and sucked air hard while hiking the switchbacks. I counted each step and took a break each time the trail switched back. Luke moved farther ahead of me the entire time. I had gone two weeks without smoking and thought my lungs would be stronger.

I reached the top of the switchbacks five to ten minutes after Luke. The end of the exertion cheered me up, as if a sharp pain that had been dogging me abruptly vanished. We stopped for lunch. Luke had brought all the food we'd need on the trip. Lunch consisted of apples, peanut butter and honey sandwiches on Luke’s homemade sourdough bread, and his homemade power bars. The food was excellent.

The established trail had ended with the switchbacks. From the there, the route to Humboldt's summit entailed picking a line route through an immense talus field covering the peak's west ridge. I felt reborn without the overnight pack, but I still lagged. A twenty-something guy from Denver and his father overtook us below the summit. We reached the high point (elev. 14,064 feet) just after 11:30 a.m. We had covered 2.8 miles and 2,800 vertical feet in about 4 hours. This was Luke's first fourteener.

While descending the west ridge to the spot where we left our packs, we crossed paths with a guy who ascending Humboldt with his dog. Earlier that day, he and his dog had made it to the summit of Columbia Peak, which guards the approach to Kit Carson from the east. He didn't attempt to summit Kit Carson because his dog would not follow him when he began downclimbing to the the saddle between Columbia and Carson.

Luke stands on Humboldt's west ridge with Crestone Needle (on the left) and Crestone Peak (on the right) looming on the other side of the South Colony valley.

Crestone Needle (center) and the Broken Hand Pass (left) seen from Humboldt's west ridge

To get from Humboldt to Bears Playground, we hiked along Humboldt's west ridge, which drops to around 13,000 feet and then climbs up to over 13,200 feet. There is no trail on the ridge. You pick a line and follow it. We climbed Class 3 boulders and rock faces in a few places. I did my best to keep up with Luke, who led the whole way. He has strong route finding skills, excellent judgment, and high endurance.

Bears Playground, at 13,200 feet, connects the northwest face of Crestone Peak, the west ridge of Humboldt, and the east ridge of Kit Carson. Mountain grass and wild flowers are the only vegetation. Crestone Peak soars above the Playground to the southeast. 700 feet below the Playground to the northeast lie the North Colony Lakes. 1,200 feet below, to the east, lie the South Colony Lakes. 1,000 feet below to the southwest is the Spanish Creek basin. Surrounded by the surpassing beauty of the mountains, I felt awe and reverence for the physical world.

Crestone Peak towers over our tent.

That tent has style.

Colony Baldy from Bears Playground

It took us an hour to find a campsite. Using his ice ax as a pick, Luke dug up stones to make a smooth place to pitch his tent. I melted snow at the top of a gully that descended 800 feet to the South Colony basin. Luke thought melting the snow without boiling it would make drinkable water. I was so dehydrated I put aside my doubts and drank heartily. That water might have given me a case of giardia. That, or perhaps as likely, Chantix - the nicotine replacement drug I was taking - would scramble my gastrointestinal system for the six weeks after the hiking. After we had a massive spaghetti dinner, Luke hiked 700 feet down a steep snow field to the North Colony Lakes. At the uppermost North Colony, he made another three liters of water and treated them with iodine.

The altitude had decimated my strength. I didn't consider hiking down to the North Colonies with Luke. While he hiked, I read my camera manual and took photographs. The Playground was the visual equivalent of Beethoven's 7th Symphony. I felt a raw, overpowering love for life.

July 10, 2008