Could have been a day hike.
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Self portrait near Hagerman Pass.
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It was time to head out on the trail again. I drove to Leadville and had a Mexican dinner, then called my folks to tell them my hiking plan. Next I drove up to Hagerman Pass (got there about 9pm) and camped out in the back of Curly.
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In the morning I remembered the last dream I had. I arrived in my truck at the base of a large mountain and paused to contemplate how to get over it. Instead of switch backing up the mountain on a road, I put Curly in 4WD low and drove straight up it. It was a smooth, steep and long climb that very, very gradually became steeper and steeper. It started to get bumpy near the top and I lost control. The truck bounced around sideways to the hill and was about to begin rolling down it. Then I woke up!
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I got going slowly. After breakfast and packing my bag, I began the hike back down Hagerman Pass toward Leadville. After a few miles a black and white tiger striped 1960's Mercedes jeep came up behind me. I put out my thumb and the jeep with its two occupants (a father and 8 year old son) pulled over. The father thought I was pretty bold to be counting on getting a ride on this road. I disagreed--I could walk the 15 miles to Leadville by mid-afternoon if I had to. Coolers, gas cans, bags, and fishing poles were strapped down in back around a crank up tent mounted on a platform. We made a little room for me on the back seat and wedged my pack amongst the gear.
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The jeep had been impressively modified and this was its maiden voyage. Dad had worked on it for two years, two hours every night after his son had gone to bed. I counted eight levers surrounding the gear shift and there were countless knobs and dials on the dash. He had complete control of braking, suspension, and power for each wheel. We rolled down the rough road for a while. When we got to where the road was regularly graded we stopped to make a few adjustments. A flip of a switch fired up the air compressor which quickly pressurized its air reservoir (the hollow tubes of the custom roll cage). We added air to the tires and flipped up the windshield (across the top it read "Pack Animal"). We cruised at higher speed into Leadville. I got out and thanked them for the ride. Dad and son met another dad and son team in another modified 1960's Mercedes jeep with whom they'd planned to adventure into the Mosquito Range.
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I had a burger for lunch and hitched a ride south to the highway 82 intersection with a guy who bartended in Buena Vista. He grew up in Leadville and moved to Denver several years ago. When the recession hit he lost his job and came back home. He's building a house in Leadville now and thinking of opening his own restaurant in B.V.
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I got another ride up to Independence Pass from a guy on his way to Snowmass for the Thursday night free concert. He was a house painter from Denver and going to make a long weekend of concerts in the high country. He was pretty amped!
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About 5:30pm I finally got to hiking. I pointed myself north and hiked around parts of dissembled metal snow fences strewn about the tundra and then up to a rocky summit. Looking back down to Independence Pass I could see someone had spelled out "HOWDY!" with the snow fence parts.
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I picked a route down a talus gully and across a tundra bench to Blue Lake. As the sun set I made camp and fished a bit. My first cast a big fish went for my line, but I didn't hook him. He made a big splash and his crimson underbelly flashed at me--a cutthroat. Further casts drew a couple bites, but I never landed anything. I made dinner more to lighten my pack than to satisfy my hunger, ate and went to bed.
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I woke up slowly the next morning and packed up. To the north I followed the high bench the lake was on up to the head of the valley and up to a pass below Deer Mountain. I sat down and snacked. Cutthroat trout patrolled the shallows of a lake below me and an Outward Bound group headed up the shoulder of the mountain above. I traversed below Deer Mountain, regained the ridge just past it, and huffed up and over Mt. Oklahoma. Not feeling particularly daring I decided to head down off the ridgeline from the saddle between Mt. Oklahoma and Mt. Massive. I went down to a spring, filled up my water, and headed up the steep western slopes of Mt. Massive. It was good to get some water, but this route was probably not any less technical than staying on the ridgeline.
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I made the west summit of Mt Massive and paused to contemplate my future. All day I had been watching a forest fire develop on the Flattops. The day was cloudless, hot, dry, and windy, and a giant cloud of smoke and steam continued to grow on top of the fire. As the cloud built it would get a flat and misty halo around its top, and then more boiling clouds would bust through higher.
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I looked down the Continental Divide to Hagerman Pass five and a half miles away and 2,400 feet below me. There my trusty red truck "Curly" waited for me. I'd planned to stay a night or two at lakes on the east side of the ridgeline. But why lose the ridgeline if I didn't have to? I didn't have much daylight left, but I went for it. On down and down and down. At one point I came to a garden of huge salmon-colored slabs of granite that glowed in the evening sunlight. I shimmied under and over them and followed soft green hobbit paths between them. I looked down on Windsor and Rainbow Lakes as dark shadows overtook them. I laughed at the long shadows I made on the tundra, krumholz, and boulders I passed. Finally I stumbled up to Curly in the twilight. I got the keys, fired him up and cranked the heat so as not to catch a chill in my sweaty and exhausted state. I ate a few cookies, an apple and some cheese and crackers and listened to country music on the radio. Warm and satisfied I turned Curly off and crawled back into the camper shell and fell asleep.
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Looking south along the Sawatch. Grizzly Peak is the highest summit in this view.
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Looking down on Independence Pass and what has become of abandoned snow fences.
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Crepuscular colors on Blue Lake.
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Looking down from the start of the Fryingpan River.
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Rifle sight notches.
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Pinnacles of rock on Mt. Massive's western slopes.
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A succulent plant above 14,000 feet showing colors from some the first frosts of the waning summer.
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A huge plume of smoke and steam rises as a thunderhead above a forest fire raging on the Flattops on a hot, clear, windy and dry afternoon.
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A rock.
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Ridgelines looking west from the Sawatch to the Elk Range. The highest summit on the left side of the image is Castle Peak (14,265') and the highest peaks on the right are the Maroon Bells (14,156').
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Sunset on my way to Camp Curly.
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