It’s been far too long since I’ve thrown up a trip report, particularly in this surreal COVID era.
We were sent home, to work from home, at the beginning of March I believe. I found myself recognizing and experiencing the Spring with a satisfaction that I can’t remember feeling. I would find myself saying to friends: “it’s been such a wonderful spring hasn’t it?” and then realizing belatedly that perhaps it’s always such a wonderful Spring, but every other Spring I spent everyday most days working.
Regardless, I found that I enjoyed my Springtime experience at home and in the backyard with the family so much that I didn’t feel much need to run away to the mountains to camp. I found it super odd that I wasn’t taking advantage of the stay-at-home period to go off more frequently on camping adventures with the kids, but I just didn’t feel the urge.
Anyway, even though we weren’t prolific adventurers this Spring, we have still camped numerous times without posting about it, and it’s started to stack up to the point where I’m feeling guilty.
Most recently we took a wonderful trip up to Colorado with another local family. It was great to have some friends come along with us–for some reason we have a hard time getting people to join us on our adventures.
Despite feeling no need to justify our COVID behaviors, I will say this: we really only interacted with other people at gas stations, and once at a restaurant to get some food, but our exposure was minimal–less than a day-trip to Santa Fe or Albuquerque would have been. We did, however, pass a whole hell of a lot of people on the roads. It seemed like all of Texas was driving around the backroads on four-wheelers. Jasper at one point exclaimed, “it’s like there’s a spawner of them (ATV’s) right around the corner!” to which Karen replied “yeah, it’s called Texas”. There you go: a Minecraft and a New Mexico/Colorado joke combined into one (so maybe two people will appreciate it).
The first day it rained hard on us, complete with some lightning. It started pretty much as soon as we set up camp and paused just long enough for us to hike the mountain the next morning before giving us another dose for a few more hours. Fortunately, we got the canopy set up and were able to keep the fun going – we could hang out warm and dry while the kids played rock- paper-scissors and other awesome games.
The ostensible goal of the outing was to hike Handies Peak, a Colorado 14er. In my opinion, it’s the easiest Colorado 14er, leaving out the ones you can drive to and the ones that suck (like Antero). For me, hiking Handies was mainly an excuse to get up into the Colorado alpine, and a lure to inspire others to join us.
It was Bodie’s third time to Handies’ summit (second on his own two feet), and Jasper’s first. Emerson ended up turning back with Karen about a third of the way up, but I was quite proud of his hiking method: talk non-stop and walk fast and hard until you decide you’re done, then turn around and head back, without a single complaint the whole way. He’ll have other chances to summit, and I’m happier that he had a good time anyway. I admit that it’s also a lot to ask of a 4-year old – waking at 5:30am to hike 5 miles with a 2,500 ft elevation gain, topping out at 14k+. Tyler, a boy from the other family we were with, joined us on the top also. He actually peaked first, then came back down a ways to escort us, as Jasper was struggling on the last hundred yards. Handies is a beautiful mountain, it’s great for the kids, and I’m always happy to revisit.
My favorite memories from this trip include the whole group of boys (six of them, plus the two dads) engaging in my camp “challenges.” These consisted of various physical antics pulled right out of playbooks from past college adventures around the campfire… Like mounting and balancing on a wooden cross-beam blocking the parking spot from camp (I believe it was the same wooden beam used by my college buddies to break our firewood with rocks back in ~2001). I also showed the kids that game where you keep your body behind a line and try to retrieve the farthest stick possible without touching the ground past the line (pulled straight from Slotfest 2006). Another favorite was balancing on the beam and doing a Karate Kid one-legged “crane” kick (kids obviously just copied me on that).
The boys were very excited about all of it, which brings warmth to my nostalgic heart.
I will also remember the quantity of wood shavings I produced this trip, in the act of whittling countless sticks (mostly variations of a stabbing spear) for six increasingly ambitious and creative boys. What else does dad have to do during a camping trip, except carve sticks for us?
I will also remember Emerson replacing the word “destination” with the word “destiny,” for some of the most touching and poignant things I’ve ever heard him say. For example, while trying to navigate the maps app on the iPhone, “how do I find our destiny?” More commonly, of course, was the classic: “when will we reach our destiny?” This was the second trip that he spoke repeatedly of our destiny, and I’m prematurely sad to think that he may correct himself by the next time we head out somewhere.
The vicinity of Cinnamon Pass was crowded with dozens of rented four-wheelers out of Silverton and Lake City. Granted, it’s hard to blame them for converging at the pass, as it is such a beautiful place – and it was 4th of July weekend after all – but still. I’ve always associated that area with being a more remote part of Colorado, and I can’t help but wish it really was.
So we left that area and went in search of a quieter, more off-the-beaten path campsite. Admittedly, with little expectation of success on 4th of July weekend during the COVID Texodus. But it worked out: we found a stunning spot right next to a creek, shaded by pines, across the meadow from Aspen forest, about 30 minutes off the highway. Definitely going to return to that spot, and we could even bring trailer-pulling friends with us (smallish trailers only though).
As I sit writing this in my house at 10 PM, it’s about 100 degrees, and my brain is melting. So I’m just going to dump all the photos here and call it a day. Note that one of them looks like a picture of the mountains, empty of people, but in fact, has my four year-old at the top of a dead charlie-brown tree that ought not to have supported his weight.
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