8/31/14
Boulder, Colorado
After two days of hiking Colorado’s National Parks in my favorite pair
of cut-up shorts, two of my favorite t-shirts, and my trusty pair of flip
flops, I will be closing the trip tomorrow by spending the day hiking
Colorado’s biggest National Park in the proper attire: my suit. I could not have done these past two days of
hiking in my suit, and it was fun to hike in civilian clothes, even if my feet
now look like they Frodo’s after he climbed Mount Doom. Yesterday, I wrote about how that mamash
moment tends to fade after a few minutes, but I was proved wrong today. I spent the better part of the day at Black
Canyon of the Gunnison NP, and the feeling of mamash lasted straight through
from my arrival at 8 AM until my departure at 2 PM. I really hate ranking the National Parks. Actually, I won’t. I’m just going to say that it was an
absolutely amazing park.
My first mamash
moment was when I officially entered the park, and there an overlook right at
the entrance. There is no point trying
to describe it, nor can this picture even come close to showing the grandeur of
it. I headed straight to the VC, not
wanting to take any selfies until I had gotten my brochure stamped. There were two trails leading from the VC,
one along the rim that led to the campground.
The other trail went 400 feet down into the canyon, but I did not trust
myself to be able to climb back up 400 feet of vertical elevation. I was starting to get better acclimated to
the elevation, but I didn’t want to take any chances. I grabbed my Romeo y Julieta and started to
walk to the rim trail, but I saw a sign that pointed in the opposite direction
to Gunnison Point overlook. I figured it
was worth a look, even if I didn’t go the full 400 feet down. The view was so mamash that I wound up
spending the entire cigar walking around that area.
I kept climbing down, going
off the trail, feeling like a Hobbit climbing in Mordor. It was out of view and the perfect spot for
an official U, and what a view. It was
not easy climbing back up. I also knew
with absolute certainty that all of the hiking I would be doing today would eff
up my foot. I just didn’t care, and,
surprisingly, my foot feels fine. I then
drove in a little more to a hiking trail at the end of the road. When I got there, I lit up a Cuesta Rey, and
I hiked until the elevation, now over 8000 feet, got the better of me, and I
had to turn around. I was an hour behind
schedule, but I didn’t care. The only
limiting reactant was getting to the VC at Colorado NM by 6 PM. My schedule had my arriving at 3:15 PM, so
there was quite a buffer. It was a 2.5
hour drive to the North Rim Ranger Station from the South Rim VC, and I was
pretty much going just to get a stamp. Yes,
there would be scenic vistas at the North Rim, but I didn’t imagine it would be
much different from the South Rim. I
stopped for lunch along the way, and the restaurant had an outdoor smoking
patio, so I had a steak, a Coors, and a Diamond Crown, the perfect lunch.
When I got to the Ranger Station, my heart
sank. It was “temporarily closed” since
the ranger was down in the inner canyon.
I didn’t know if he would be back in 5 minutes or 5 hours, and there was
no way to find out. I figured that I
would spend as much time there as I could and check again before I left. Maybe I’d get lucky. The worst part was, I could see the stamp
through the window. I even tried all the
windows and doors, hoping to find a way to sneak in to get the stamp. I’m sure that it could have wound up with me
doing ten years in federal prison for criminal trespassing, but I needed that
stamp. No dice. No way to get in. I parked at a hiking trail by the campground,
and I grabbed a Quest bar from my bag. I
was a little over halfway done when I dropped it. I immediately picked it up, counting on the
five-second rule. Apparently, that does
not exactly apply when you drop sticky food on a dirt road. Big mistake. I lit up my Centurion and walked the short trail. More mamash.
I checked the ranger station again.
No dice. I then headed down the
other road, which had five scenic vistas, planning to stop at each one for about
five minutes, which would mean I was only 30 minutes behind schedule for my
arrival at Colorado NM. Each vista was
amazing. At one of the spots, a cowboy started to chat
me up. I really had no desire to chat
with him, but I didn’t want to be rude, either.
At the next spot, I head him debating whether the canyon was caused by
rivers or an earthquake of if “that was just the way god built it.”
On the way back, I found a great spot to do more climbing. There was a
series of ledges, so I could do my Hobbit in Mordor impression again, and it
was secluded. On my way back up, I felt
something sharp on my foot. I had
stepped into a cactus. Who the fuck knew
they had cacti in Colorado? I also had
no idea what to do. I did the wrong
thing. I tried to remove it with my
hand. There were still barbs in my foot,
and now I had barbs in my hand. I got
the damn thing off and removed as many barbs as I could. Do these things dissolve in your body or do
they live there forever? I was also
concerned about infection, so I got an alcohol wipe from my first aid kit and
cleaned my hand and foot the best I could.
It still hurts, but I think I got most of them out. I drove back, checking the ranger station one
more time. No dice. My next and last stop of the day, NPS unit
205, would be Colorado NM, which seemed to be much bigger than I anticipated,
so I stopped for Chinese along the way.
I was so exhausted that I had no desire for a cigar during the 2-hour
drive. After my dinner (at 3 PM), I lit
up an AFR and drove to the monument.
It
was massive, and the only way to see it was a 23-mile drive from one end to the
other. I didn’t really have my mamash
moment until I got to the last vista before the VC, the Grand View. It was good that I went in the direction,
since I saved the best vista for last.
At first, I didn’t think it was that impressive, having seen similar and
better sites in Utah and Arizona during the best domestic trip I have ever
taken, but I was impressed at that last vista.
I took care of my business at the VC, stopped for gas, and the embarked
on a grueling, non-stop 4-hour drive, possibly the most difficult drive I have ever
taken in the mainland US. There was so
much construction, and the signs were unclear, and I almost got lost once,
taking a left-side exit instead of bearing to the right for the highway. This drive was all on I-70, and I did not
know that interstates could be so winding.
At one point, I reached an elevation of 10,000 feet.
I most apologize to my readers
who were expecting more philosophy, but I have been unable to come up with any
new philosophy since my Day 0 entry, which was called my best entry ever
written, instead simply thinking about the points I raised in that entry and becoming
more and more convinced of their truth. As
I passed by Beaver Creek, I had a warm feeling, remembering that trip my family
took to going skiing there half a lifetime ago.
I then saw some condominiums, remembering with a laugh how I had asked
my father if those were “condoms.” Maybe
those were the same “condoms.” It is so
funny how you can remember something like that from when you were 8-years
old. Finally, I got to the hotel, or at
least where the GPS said the hotel was.
There was no hotel there. I made
a right turning trusting my gut, and then I saw the hotel, but there was no
access from that road. I wound having to
circle around, taking 6 minutes, and then drive through a shopping mall to get
to the hotel. When I got to the room, I
took what Bella would call, “five human minutes” to get situated before I lit
up my Ardor and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I
can prepare for my last hurrah.
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