2010 Day 7 & 8 July 23 & 24

2010 Day 7 & 8 July 23 & 24

We stayed in the left side of this town house.
Our snappy Edge is getting packed for our drive to Estes.

On the 23rd we spend most of the day in the car. Colorado is a big state. I think mostly because their roads are a bit problematic due to those beautiful mountains. We had stopped off at the Crested Butte Visitor’s Center to get some other information earlier in the week. The lady working there mentioned this road called Cottonwood Pass Rd. You can take that right up and over to Buena Vista. According to our trusty new topo map this road is listed as a 2 x 2 road. I am beginning to think what they really mean is the road is 16 feet across and you will need to be ‘creative’ when meeting another vehicle. But, first we will have to take a ‘short cut’ to get to the Cottonwood Pass 2 x2 road. This short cut road starts out by following fence lines. So you go to the end of the fence line and take a left turn. Then you follow some other rancher’s fence line until you find the next fence… And so it goes until we see another gravel road. According to our Nuvi car gps this road is “Cottonwood Pass”. We are now going to upgrade to a 2x2 road. The guidance system which operates the Garmin Nuvi thinks this is the preferred way to drive from Crested Butte to Buena Vista. I’m here to testify that if pulling a trailer or driving a RV, just go around to Gunnison and then into Crested Butte. Even if your Nuvi tells you eight times you have missed your turn… Just let her “recalculate”.

We meet way too many cars, trucks, vans, trucks pulling campers, trucks pulling trailers, and Rv’s which take way more of the road than half. I am wondering how we are managing not to go off of the edge, as I’m sure only 2 inches of the Ford Edge’s right side wheel set were remaining on the road. I try to limit the ‘ditch it or crash it’ comments to myself. I attempt to interest myself with reading the map or looking out at the vistas.

We take this road to the top of Cottonwood Pass. At the pass we go out for a ridge line hike. My toes are blister on top of blister after yesterday’s water action. (More on that later.) I gingerly walk while Kathi lopes along across the parking area and heads up on the ridge for a lovely walk along the Continental divide. We wander out about 1.35 miles and sit down to have half a lunch. As we are sitting on top of the ridge line, up over the ridge from our back side walks a man. He was 70 years old and had hiked up almost all of the 14’ers, (that is, all of the 14,000 foot tall mountains in Colorado). He was a wealth of knowledge and willing to talk your ear off if you are willing to invest the time. He talked for 30 minutes before we decided to see if we could shut him down politely and get going on our long drive to Estes Park.

One other thing that is noteworthy on this drive. We were driving down the other side of the mountain pass when Kathi had a bee fly through the window. So I am looking around the car for a bee…. Next thing I know Kathi is grabbing her shirt where it is tucked into her shorts. This is not how you want your driver acting when driving 40 mpg’s down a twisting and winding mountain road. She dives the car towards a small slow car pull out, slams on the brakes, jumps out of the car and whips her shirt off. The bee just buzzed away. I’m sure the other passing cars were wondering what was going on.

That is about it for high lights. We left at 9 am and arrived in Crested Butte at 5:30pm. Good thing the Edge is so comfortable to sit in, because it was a long drive!

2.7 miles hiked Total miles 66.4

Notch top Mountain.
 The super secret basin in in the back of this Lake.

Today is the first day at Rocky Mountain National Park.

Since the morning was cloudy we decided to drive over to Long’s Peak Ranger station and collect some information on going up RMNP 14’er. Cars were parked way down the road and the parking lot was full. Over 360 some people had signed in to attempt climbing Longs Peak that morning. It is a 12 plus hour hike…hmm.

We drive back around to the park and ride parking lot. We rode the bus up to the Bear Lake parking lot to begin our day of hiking. It does not take too long to get to the first vista and see what we have been missing with the mountains. The views, ahh the views, deep breath, sigh. Crested Butte was beautiful, but not the multi-layered views of mountain ridge after mountain ridge.

We move our way up to Lake Helene and find the super secret hiding spot of a ranger who gave us directions of where to get a really great view of the lake, water fall, Notch top Mountain, and valley. Along the way back to the main trail we step over a good amount of bear poo. I was not aware that bears were common at RMNP. Yo, bear! We have hiked up 1215 feet of elevation. Now we are going to lose 1600 feet going all the way down to the Pools. My toes are a mass of blisters; yesterday my right pinky toe had 3 blisters, today the blisters have joined forces and are one large blister. In fact my toes look like little breakfast sausages. Hiking downhill is not pleasant. I have a good command of the blisters on my left foot, but the right pinky toe has provided me with a huge challenge.

Little Madderhorn

I try to think about bear poo. It is not too much further before we step over the second large bear poo pile; Yo Bear, go on now… We are walking down the trail getting closer to Odessa Lake. Around the corner comes a park ranger. He is all sweaty and asks us if we have seen a bear? Well, no just two really good piles of bear poo. It seems there are 8 rangers all out searching for this big 350 pound black bear that has been going to the backcountry campgrounds and rummaging through backpacker’s packs. The 8 rangers were going to try to haze the bear into leaving. Well, as soon as they could find it. A man was killed by a bear close to Yellowstone NP on July 19th, so the rangers are trying to be proactive in changing the bears thought pattern. Just to give all of you some peace of mind, we do not ever see the real bear, but we did run into a few backcountry campers who were happy to show us pictures of the bear standing outside their tent. They opened their tent thinking there was a chipmunk rummaging through their things, biggest chipmunk they ever saw! I’m thinking I would have forgotten about the camera and thought about creating a back exit in my tent. This gives me something to think about other than my toe.

We stop at Odessa Lake and have lunch, snap a few pictures, and re- tape my pinky toe. I have enough moleskin along to supply an army so I am not worried about supplies. If I could just come up with a way to tape this little sucker, we could get going. We have decided that rather than just hike out the shortest way and take the shuttle out, we would hike up and over Bierstadt Lake and then out to the bus shuttle. This way we can add a few more miles to our day and get some more elevation gain and loss. This whole plan in hind sight has a major flaw. Namely there is nothing to see but trees between the Pools and Bierstadt Lake. Kathi has given me many opportunities to take a shorter way back. But for some reason I don’t want to let this little ole pinky toe detour our plans…

When every other step is a painful, nothing to look at except tree’s your mind goes to dark places. During this 4 mile extended jaunt I have decided that there is no good reason to keep a pinky toe. I mean really, I could live a fulfilling life without it. I can’t imagine that having a toe whacked off would slow me down for too long. I try to reason with myself that this hike is only half bad…just the part when my right foot strikes the ground is the bad part. Everything else is dandy. I am praying to God that He will help me with this, just give me the strength. Kathi asks again if we should go the shorter way. Ohh, no I’m good.

We are walking through some desolate part of the forest where the pine beetle bug has killed off a large section of the forest. We had been to RMNP in 2005 I see the pine beetle has been hard at work changing the complexion of the forest. My pinky toe goes from a tooth grinding 7 in pain to a 9.9999999! I am positive my pinky just blew up! I hop to a stone so I can sit on it while I tenderly take off my shoe and sock to see if in fact my toe was just amputated. The mole skin looked to still be in the spot I had put it. I put my sock and shoe back on and decided 3 Advil would take the edge off. Taking a shorter way to the shuttle bus is out of the question now as we are in a location where there are no more connecting trails. There is no reason for Kathi to ask if I wanted to take a shorter route. How she managed to bite her tongue and not say anything like ‘I gave you a chance to take a shorter route… ‘I don’t know. It must have been at the tip of her tongue. I sense she might have been taking compassion on me as clearly the pinky toe looked quite nasty.

Within 20 some minutes of taking the Advil the edge was gone. Something was different. My toe feels like a 3 on a scale of 0-10. Since I no longer have to wonder about whacking my pinky off, I begin to wonder about what was different down there in my shoe. Each step became easier than the next. Whatever the difference, I’m not going to stop and look. I am going to put my energies into seeing what beautiful sights this trail has to offer. As we come to the last ¾ mile of our hike there is switch back after switch back down a 700 foot face of a side of a mountain. It was full of vistas and flowers. We even found some flowers we had never seen.

My toe feels great. The mole skin has maneuvered around and found a new location. Wherever it is, it is the perfect answer to my prayers. We finish the hike; take the shuttle back to our car. I sit in the back seat and carefully remove my shoe and sock. I do not want to miss seeing the exact location of this moleskin. I can hardly believe my eyes. Who would have ever thought that blocking the ring toe from stepping on the pinky toe was the answer to my prayers? I know I will be able to get back to the business of hiking. Thank you Lord!

After spending hours and hours of time and energy getting my cardiovascular ready, core strength ready, leg strength ready, balance ready to hike it would have been a crushing blow to have to stop due to a pinky toe. I will still have to deal with the blister party on my toe, but at least I now have a working knowledge base on how to deter further pain for my dear pinky.

Oh yes, back to the hike details. When taking this hike start from the Bear lake parking lot. Hike your way Lake Helena go to the back of the lake and enjoy the special surprises of the back basin. Hike down toward Odessa Lake and enjoy a superb view of the Little Matterhorn Mountain. Continue down toward Fern Lake, Fern Falls, and The Pool and then go the short way out to Fern Lake trail head. Do not bother with going up to Cub Lake and Bierstadt Lake. It is just a bunch of climbing and descending in the woods and you don’t get any great views until the last ¾ mile. Having done it both ways now, just take the shorter route 

A new flower

7 hours 12 minutes, 2058 calories burned. 12.5 miles hiked up 1215 feet down 1600, up 1000 feet, down 1000 feet

Total mileage 78.9