Spooked a bear

Yesterday morning Marlys and I finally spooked a bear while walking. I am not sure who was more surprised, but the sable colored adult sure took of once it saw us. We were so surprised we didn't even stop talking or walking toward it.

The bears are out and about as they are fattening up for winter, as evidenced by the broken pickets on the communities garbage enclosure.

Pat's Pike's Peak Half Marathon

It has been a hard year to get started on 14er hiking with the heavy snow pack that lasted into June, when the summer thunderstorm season started up limiting the window on a daily basis to safely be above treeline.

This year we had wanted to try a 14er a week, but mother nature had her own thoughts on that verbal bravado. After the debacle on Silverheels back in May, it was time to give it another try.

Pike's Peak was the last front range 14er on my list, and it has been my primary target all summer. But you cannot believe how busy you are when you are retired and this week was going to be it for me. Initially, it was going to be a Tuesday hike, but as it has been all summer I had a meeting scheduled for Tuesday night, which ended quickly due to a search and rescue call out. Friday was the only day left on the dance card and with a 30% chance of thunderstorms after noon, it would be an early one.

There are a couple of trails up Pike's Peak, the Barr Trail being the most talked about coming up from Manitou Springs but it is a two day trek due to is +13 mile length...one way (BTW there are people running this trail today in some event). I needed a one day (non-running) turn around trail, and the Crags Trailhead through the Devil's Playground worked. This is still a long trail at 13.23 miles (half marathon) round trip with a 4100' vertical gain most of which comes in the first third on trail.

This was going to be beyond what Marlys would want to do, Herb is still recovering from GBS, and Bill had to work, so it was going to a solo trip, but the trip reports seemed to indicate I would have plenty of company on the trail.

Before hitting the trail under headlamp power at 5:10, there is one stop that needs to take place and where personal offerings to the mountain gods are made and the Crags Campground crew deserve a reward for what may be the cleanest dry toilets, I have ever seen/experienced. Usually the facilities are pretty dismal and can cause instant constipation, but these were so clean and nice I needed to take a picture.

As I mentioned the first hour on the trail has under headlamp and coming from the west side (behind Pike's) meant that the shadow would last a while. Once it did lighten the scenes were some of the most spectacular I have witnessed on 14er hikes, so far.

I ended up taking more pictures then even last year on Long's Peak. Too bad my camera skills were not up to the unfolding scenery.

After topping the initial ridge at about 12,500' the summit came into view, but seemed a long way off. The trail from the ridge line to the Devil's Playground was almost road like and was able to make some time. At this point I had been on the trail for two hours.

I had read about a couple of guys earlier this summer that made it all the way from trailhead to summit in 2:45, which amazes me. I am usually in the "hour a mile" range and wanted to top out around 10am in order to make it back to treeline before the anticipated afternoon fireworks got started.

This next section of the trail goes through the Devil's Playground so named due to the lighting jumping between the rocks during some storms. This is a place I need to clear through on the way back down before the forecasted storms start. The day so far was mostly overcast, so I was thinking the the storms may hold off a bit later then 12n.

The terrain between the ridge line, before the Devil's Playground, and the final slope before the summit was relatively easy, with a gentle incline and good trail surfaces. This is where the exposure, mentioned on the route guide, shows up, but is easily avoided by walking on the road shoulder, if needed.

The road, brings up an interesting experience for those that have gone up 14ers, which are normally remote with limited to no development anywhere on or near the trail. Having vehicles swinging by, smelling exhaust fumes does reduce the mountain ambiance a bit, but knowing that there are donuts, bathrooms and things at the summit, somewhat makes up for it.

Let me say this now, the final 500-600 feet through the boulder field to the summit, sucks. It was steep, I was 6 miles in and tired. I know it saves some distance vs. the road, but I seriously considered following the road back down on the return, but I didn't.

Oh yeah, to add to the challenge during this final climb it started to lightly snow and I was in a short sleeve wicking shirt. No stopping until the top.

I came up behind the U.S. Army facility on the top, what its for I don't know. But talk about people, they were everywhere, van loads, car load, motorcycle loads(not sure if that possible), and train loads. Many different languages being batted about...and me in search for the world famous Summit House Donuts.

I traded a family in to taking of pictures in front of the summit sign (I take theirs, they take mine) and then headed for the cafeteria.

Some of you know that I like donuts, especially cake donuts, especially, especially, if they are chocolate covered.

But alas, other then the donuts being warm they were pretty disappointing, small and oily. But I still took two and 12 ounce Pepsi (for a +$5 tab) went over to a booth by the windows and sat down for the first time since leaving the trailhead.

After the repast, I went outside and tried to find a place that wasn't a Verizon black hole to call Marlys and let here know I had topped out and was heading down. It had taken me 4 hours to cover the +6.5 miles to the top. I changed in to dry socks and headed down at 9:30.

I mentioned that it was a partial overcast, but the deck was dropping virga and darkening. I wanted to be below treeline by 12n and that was about 4 miles away.

As I mention, I went back down the boulder field, then hot footed it (as much as I can hot foot) to the ridge line to drop into the Crag's drainage area. I did though stop to take some more shots.

I hit the ridge line about 11:30 (it always seems to take me about the same amount of time going down as going up).

It was getting darker and light showers had started. Treeline was still over a 1000' feet below and my legs were starting to quiver.

I realized about halfway to treeline that I was out of juice, because other then the donuts, a gu, a yogurt and a nectarine I hadn't eaten much so far today. According to "map my hike" this trail was going to burn about 5000 calories. Marathon runners hit the wall when they burn through their ~2000 ready energy calories. I was way beyond that and had only taken in about 1200 calories. Also even though I seemed to be hitting the camelbak regularly, I had yet to water the hill side. Between coming up to hitting the wall and dehydrating a bit, I needed to stop and reload, but not before getting in the trees as the sky was getting darker.

I found a rock to stand by, started to get some food into me and drink straight water out of the spare 1 liter jugs (SAR 24 hour pack requirement), just as it started to rain, no longer just a mountain shower, those I tend to ignore.

After a few minutes I got back to down hiking and over the next hour or so I really started to recover, to the point that I could even hustle downhill to the trailhead, instead of wondering if my legs were going to collapse with every step.

Got back to the car right around 1pm. Travel time was 7:30 hours (4 up/3.5 down). Had some ladies take my obligatory end of hike pic, got into the Jeep (Derek's high school and college ride) and headed home.

It was difficult getting out of the car at home and I went into a persistent vegitative state in front of the TV. I was brought out of my stupor by a search and rescue call out at 7pm.

Next month, Bill is coming out from Minnesota and we will try Mount Massive.

BTW I got up at 6am because my thighs were sooooo sore I couldn't sleep. I don't think getting into the hot tub yesterday was a very good idea.

Fools and Children

As I went in to the kitchen to start the coffee and the day (which includes writing this post) a bear cub walked up the stairs by the camper and off into the woods. I am assuming the mom is around here somewhere, but Dusty can go and try to find her later. UPDATE: Dusty went out and followed in the trail of the cub but came back after a few minutes, no barks were heard, so mom and baby(s) must be the other side of the ridge.

We have had a couple of more search and rescue missions this week.