Six Peeps

July 19, 2007

Rocky Mountain Highhhhh PART III

OK it’s about time i wrap this post up! The part II was sort of rushed, I was on my way to an airport. Sorry. I will narrate this one a little more. I’m in Arizona right now, just got back from Chicago. Back to Denver on Fri. Phew.

OK. Where did I leave off…
We didn’t forget to stop and smell the flowers

After bagging our two 14ers, we started making our way down to Lake Shavano, an alpine lake (above treeline).

There’s the lake, looks beautiful, and a deceptively simple descent…

DECEPTIVELY simple. Here’s a look of what we had to come down to get to the lake (taken from just above the lake). The route that looks easiest is on your right where there’s a gap between snowfields. Well that would be nice, but it’s filled with rockabands and cliffs. Without ropes that would be quite the feat. We went right down the very center of this picture, and glissaded down the snowfield. The part right before the glissade had us grabbing onto whatever hand holds we could find.

I stopped midway through my glissade to take this photo, almost lost balance and almost lost my G7!

At the bottom of the glissade, you can see how steep it was.

The final stretch back to the lake. The sun was beating on us and I was starting to think of how nice it would feel to just jump in that lake…

Another cool shot of T

Getting closer

T and I with the face behind us.

At the lake…

I took the plunge, it was so hot outside, and no shade, this felt so great! It was FREEZING in there!

Come on in, the water’s great!

about an hour later we made it back to our camp where we were haunted by Blair Witch

We saw more animal bones than you could shake a stick at. This one protected my tent.

I picked a flower for Jenny. I am a giant.

The creek that led us back to civilization the next day.

We celebrated our victory with some fine cigars (from Albertsons)

I love this shot. We hiked back up to the lake at sundown to see if we could see the fireworks way out in the town of Salida, CO.

After bushwacking along the creek for the next morning, T and I finally returned unscathed from our adventure. Shavano in the background.

We live in a world of modern marvels; iPhones, Tivo, plasma televisions, etc…. The more advanced things become, the more I appreciate my annual trips into the wilderness amongs the bugs and wildlife and thunderstorms. The air is clean and life is simple. I love my trips into the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Some people go their whole lives without ever experiencing this kind of stuff, which blows me away. It’s God’s country raw and untouched. If there’s such thing as heaven on Earth, this is what it is to me!

July 19, 2007 |