A long 48 hours

It started at 8:30 pm on Thursday night, as we were watching TV and talking about how we had to be on the road into town by 7am Friday morning to deliver the new to us Search and Rescue truck back to Faricy Ford by 8am for a couple of items that need fixing.

And then the phone rings...and the Direct TV caller ID says "Alert", its a call out. We haven't had a search and rescue mission since August, things have been pretty quiet since the end of the summer tourist season. How though we are deep into hunting season and they come from all over the US to get a deer, elk, big horn sheep and/or antelope.

In this case, the day after a 10 inch snow fall, we have a couple of Texas hunters lost in the foothills along the Arkansas River.

By the time we get to the trail-head its 10pm, cold and damp from the melting of snow during the day. The hunters are about 10 miles up a ATV trail, somewhere. They tracked a deer away from where they parked their ATV and can't find their way back. As luck would have it they could get a cell call out, which for those of you who are familiar with this area as know it as one of the biggest cell site black holes in the state, know was pure luck.

About midnight they are found, and by 1am they are cold, but back at the trail-head. We pack-up and get home about 2:30am. Setting the alarm clock to ring at 6am for Friday's errands.

Friday goes pretty uneventfully.

Saturday morning we are up at 4am to make the 3:30 hour drive to St. Mary's Glacier for Alpine Team Training. The forecast is for 30 degree temps, -7 wind chill, winds at 36-45 mph, gusting to 70 mph. A blustery day.

We meet the rest of the Alpine Team on the road at 5:15, arriving at the trail-head to the glacier by 8:30pm.

The approach

It takes a while to get on the layers of clothes, avalanche beacons, crampons, snowshoes, shovels, probes, ropes, climbing harness' and everything else be taken in for the training. A few of the back country skiers coming out after getting in an early morning run mention the wind...as incredible.

Of course after you get geared up is when you realize you need a health break. Good practice for taking things off and putting stuff back on and how ill design most gear is for this basic human function. BTW did I mention that we stopped at a bakery in Silverthorne and got coffees on the trip in? They also had some raspberry brownies that will be the reward for a day in the back country, and the drive home, another 3:30 hours.

St, Mary's Lake with the glacier in the background

We get to a frozen St. Mary's Lake, below the glacier, and the wind is howling. Because it is coming in over the ridge to the west it is swirling and hitting us from multiple directions. The downdrafts are hitting the lake ice, which is only about 2 inches thick, pushing it down and causing blowouts at a few spots along the shore, at least that's my theory.

The morning is spent getting back into walking using ice axes, something that has to be second nature. Coordinating foot placements, hand and leash switch-overs, balanced vs. unbalanced steps, all need to be practiced, because the basic rule of mountaineering is pretty simple "don't fall".

By noon we find a place a little out of the wind (but not completely), and grab some food, visit nature and get ready to get on the glacier in the afternoon.

Marlys on the hike to the glacier

We hike around the lake to the glacier foot directly into the wind, stash our packs, grab ice axes and head up to do self-arrests, basically stopping yourself when sliding down the mountain. Probably one of the most important skills needed in this environment. St. Mary's is what i believe is called a hanging glacier in that it is located in a valley above the outflow lake.

The gusts in this area are so strong that you need to stop and brace yourself when one starts or risk a blow down, something that in this terrain would not be good. We walk up the slope a few hundred feet and start falling and sliding in different positions to simulate a real fall, and then stopping using the ice axes pick. Even though it is early in the season and the avalanche condition reports don't start until November you still need to be careful.

Marlys sitting and waiting to slide.

And wouldn't you know it, while we are all sitting on the glacier we hear and feel a "whoump", which is generally cause by the snow settling (we had a storm move through Colorado on Wednesday, see above) and an indicator of avalanche danger. We all head directly to the side of the glacier make our way back to where we had cached the packs and have a meeting on what to do next...at least as much as you can in the howling wind.

Its about 2:30 and will take us about an hour to hike out. Some folks have commitments that evening, including us as the "Da Gurls" are arriving on their seasonally trip south to Arizona for the winter. We decide to pack it in and head out.

We get home about 6:30, after stopping for the raspberry brownie...I do have my priorities, and fuel in Breck. The folks at the bakery said we were the first and last customers of the day.

"Da Gurls" had dinner ready.

By 9pm I am in bed.

Who Dat in Nawlins?

Two weekends ago, after 8" of snow the weekend before, Marlys and I took a trip to New Orleans. Someplace I had never been, and up to that point had no real need to see. I take that back one of the guys I use to work with (Scott C.) used to go there for the jazz festival and I had though that that may be a good reason to go, but I never really worked on it as a place to put on the list.

Anyway we had some points that needed to be used up on our timeshare ownership (Worldmark) or we would lose them, so after Marlys' exhaustive search for a three day trip, Nawlins seemed to be the place.

I though...what the heck I could then say I had been there.

We flew Southwest and didn't check in until we got to the airport so we were way back in line to board and couldn't sit together. This worked out becuase Marlys sat with a vacationing SW pilot and his wife from who she scored us a ride to our hotel/condo, which believe it or not we found out they were also staying at when we gave them the address in the rental car.

New Orleans is a great place to visit, beyond the French Quarter and the entertainment, the places to eat, music and historical/haunted walking tours it made for a outstanding weekend.

We chose mid-October to avoid the heat, humidity and touristas. We succeed on two of the objectives as the weather was perfect. Being a tourista we were everywhere.



Central Grocers

 We arrived Saturday afternoon and since we had not eaten all day we headed to one of the stops Marlys had on her list of places to eat; Central Grocery, which is located in the French Quarter.



This place was actually a old Italian grocery store. Except it sold sandwichs and beer.

Just about everyplace in New Orleans sells booze and you don't even need to go inside to get it, as they have window bars that are open to the street.

We got there just in time to get the last muffileta of the day, which is their noted sandwich. We also got a local (kinda) beer called an Abita Amber.

Marlys and the muffeleta

Both were excellent as Marlys' expression can atest.

We stayed in the Garden District, which we were to learn the next day, was started by the folks from the northeast that moved in after the Lousiana Purchase and were a little taken a back by the rather risque lifestyles of the resident French and Creole of the French Quarter.





Street Car

The way to get around from our place was the St Charles Streetcar line, which runs down the middle of the street on the boulevard. Easy to get on and off as long as you have the exact change for the fare. This was my first time on a streetcar (cable cars are different). The windows are open, the breeze comes through, they are fairly noisy as they rattle along, but damn it was neat. We road them a number of time over the weekend, but we could pretty much walk whereever we wanted to go, other then the taxi home on Saturday night after we did the Burbon Street Stagger.

After the repast af the Grocery we headed into the French Quarter. Marlys wanted to hit a place called Pat O'Brian's which she had been to 30 years ago. Pat O'Brian's is noted for there Mint Julip's and Hurricane's. We each got one and sat in the piano bar for about an hour and were underwhelmed by the pianist. This was about the only bad music we heard all weekend.

About 6pm we walked out onto the street and folks were waiting for the start of a Haunted History walking tour of the French Quarter. We needed a walk by this point, paid our money and joined the crowd.



If you haven't done a walking tour, do. Between this one and one we went on Sunday morning in the Graden District we learned a lot about the area, the people and the culture.

The Haunted History tour ended about 8pm at a place called Laffite's Blacksmith Shop, which it originally was, but is now a...bar. From here the Bourbon Street Stagger commenced.

Unknown Band

As we made out way down the street between the stops at the before mentioned windows, trying to catch the thrown bead necklaces from the second floor balconies, we would stop in to hear the music, which was great.

I can't remember the name of the pictured band or the place we were in, but they were really good. Lots of 70-80's rock and it was loud enough that Marlys had ringing ears for the reat of the night. After our ears were numb we headed out.

Another Unknown Band

Literally, I think it was the next block we stumbled (not figuratively) into a blues bar, where again the band was so good we stayed and seemed to tip them for a long time.

About this time I was feeling like we should start to mosey toward the abode and ran into a real find, a Krystals, which for those of you who are White Castle gourmand's know is the southern relative. After a box of four we took our only taxi of the weekend (Other then the trip back to the airport).

The next morning, we went for a walk around the Garden District as part of a walking tour that had two participants Marlys and moi. Nancy the tourguide was great and had all of the scuttlebutt on most of the residents.

When we were done, it was back to the east and the warehouse district (between the central and garden districts) to hit another place on the must eat list named Mother's, which is noted for its poboys. We had ones called "debris" because it is made of the roast beef that drops into the gravy while roasting. Needless to say they were really messy. The mayonase/mustard really made these interesting.

After eating it was off to the New Orleans Blues and BBQ Festival going on in the Business District in I believe Washington Park. This being New Orleans the blues bands were slightly better then those at the Belevedere Blues and BBQ festival in Canon City. The weather was beautiful and beer was cold.

Sunday evening we went a little upscale to the Delmonico. The service and food were incredible.

Du Mont's

Monday the first stop was Du Monts for bengates (french donut) and coffee ulatees (coffee with cream).

Walking out with powdered sugar everywhere, we walked the riverfront and end up at Harrah's, but we didn't drop a quarter.

Its no wonder that the Superbowl seems to be here every other year.

We walked up Canal Street which reminded me of a 60's big city down town with buildings and street cars going up and down the center of the street.

For lunch we hit another place on the eatry list called the ACME Oyster House. I had another recommended debris style poboy and gumbo, both were excellent, but the bread pudding was ...I can't describe how good.


Monday night we went to dinner at a place we found during the Garden District walking tour call Commanders. Again an incredible place, very old school.

Tuesday if was back to Colorado and as I write this we are forecast to get a little over a foot of snow tonight through tomorrow.

Getting our FFL Lift tickets

Last month it was cancelled due to a mission, but today the Eurocopter AStar AS350 B3 showed up at Canon City Fire Station #1.

This is the same variant of this aircraft that landed on the top of Mt. Everest in 2005.

Flight For Life operates 5 of these state-wide.

This is training put on by Flight For Life to acquaint search and rescue people with the aircraft, how to get in and out, bucket up and put on headsets, so that when on a mission we can ride the bird.

It also is a pretty straight forward marketing program to make sure that we use their services when necessary.

The scope of services was beyond what I expected, in that they will help in aerial search, personnel placement and body recovery.

Oh ya and patient transport.

The AStar can land at any altitude encountered here in Colorado and the wind range goes all the way up to 50 mph.

Pretty incredible.

In the couple of hours we spent with the crew we went over all of the safety procedures including

what to do in a crash/hard landing where you are the only one mobile/conscious. Basically pull any lever or push any button that is red and the yellow rotor brake.

Then we all had to ingress/egress, buckle-in and get on the intercom. To get our cards.

I think we were all amazed at where the patient is loaded as this is not a big aircraft.

The crew sit either to the patients side (pilot) or against the rear bulkhead.

After everyone got their turn, they were handed a lift ticket card with their names on it which are good for a year.

I wonder if we will ever use them?

Pikes Peak Again...it looked great...at the start

October 1 and time for the second trip up Pikes Peak, and the last 14er hike, of the season.

This was also the first opportunity to get Herb out since last year's bout with GBS laid him up for most of the year, literally; bed, wheelchair, walker, etc.

But this isn't a story about the challenge Herb had in getting to the top, because it really didn't seem to be that difficult for him. He took the lead, set the pace and basically motored to the top.

It may have been the prospect of the world famous Summit House Donut's. He was a cop after all, and being a connoisseur of deep fried dough is part of the job description, at least as TV programs have lead us to believe.

This is a story about how fast conditions can change.

The hike up started at the Devils Playground about 3.5 miles and 1500' below the summit.

We didn't get the normal early start because on October 1 the opening time for the Pikes Peak Highway changes from 7:30am to 9am. This meant that once through the gate and going 16 miles up the road we didn't hit the trail until 9:30am.

The sun was out, there wasn't a cloud in the sky.

About halfway up I took this picture, which showed the first cloud of the day in the background over the summit. This shot was
taken at about 10:15am

This wasn't a surprise as there was a 10% chance of thunderstorms after noon in the forecast.

The only change in the normal trail up was going to be going around the boulder field above the road in the background. Herb felt his balance was not what he wants it to be in attacking a scramble and this boulder field is a scramble in places (four points of contact).

This would mean traveling along the side of the road, which is forbidden, but we were going to play the ADA (American with Disability Act) Card, if stopped.

Guess what...we got stopped and guess what Herb played the card.

Kent Chaney, The Ranger, gave us a pass. You may wonder how I remember or even got his name...read on.

We decided to try the boulders at the very top and get

off the road, as "The donuts were calling and we had to go"...really we had to go.

An apology is owed to Ansel Adams to the usurping and modifying of one of his famous quotes. Oh, and also to Flo of Progressive Insurance commercial fame.

Besides Herb and Marlys moving through the snow and boulders, look at the cumi's forming to the north over Woodland Park in the background.

At this point it is a walk of about a block to the Summit House and the actual summit.

Even though summer vacations were over, the summit was crowded. Even Detroit Diesel had a couple of there semi-tractors up there doing a high altitude test run.

But hey, the sun was still out and the group was real happy to have topped out.

Finding someone to take a picture is pretty easy at the summit sign.

Again I bring your attention to the cumi's in the background and their vertical development.

BTW: you may be asking "Whats this thing with cumi's and cloud's?" Those of you that have read some of the first posts to this blog know that at one time, I was an avid hang glider and paraglider pilot. Cumi's are the manna from heaven for soaring pilots as they tend to mark the top of a thermal, the engine of un-powered flight.

Back to the pictures. Usually it is a trade-off, e.g. you take my groups picture and we will take yours. An interesting observation was that every camera handed to me to take a group's picture was actually a iPhone, not a purpose built camera. I have to confess that I too am split between using a phone camera and our Sony camera. The shots on this post are split about 50/50 .

Now to get to the restroom and then some of those donuts.

After a bit of a rest, and of course 8 of those world famous Summit House donuts, we headed down.

The cumi's are no longer the puffy white cotton ball fair weather clouds of the hike up.

As you can see in this picture they are now dark. This can be a sign of the moisture accumulating and ultimately a sign of possible precip.

Also many times when moisture starts moving around in the cloud an electrical charge builds up. When if reaches a certain point...boom, lightening and its accompanying thunder.

About five minutes after taking this picture...boom.

There is a good rule of thumb that says, if you can hear the thunder you can get hit by the lightening.

We are completely exposed! No where to go other then a retreat to the Summit, but that means going higher and being a even better lightening rod.

We kept going down hill, wanting to get to the east side of the mountain and get some rock and other stuff between us and the storm. Don't know if this strategy was the best, but it was the plan.

Along the way the cumi's started dropping precip, graupel in this case. Graupel happens when precip can't decide if it wants to be hail or snow. I guess since precip is not self-aware (meaning it doesn't recognize itself in a mirror) it probably has more to do with the temperature. Speaking of which, the temp was dropping as the moisture pulled the heat from the air...the sun no longer warmed us.

The thunder was being heard more often, but so far the lightening seemed to be staying cloud-to-cloud (most common lightening).

We were screwed!

Lightening is what makes Pikes Peak one of the most dangerous mountains in the US according to Backpacker Magazine. The moisture rolls in from the SE and is pushed up against the front range where is condenses (clouds) and ultimately can build into a thunderstorm with its inherent lightening.

As we are hot footing it down, along comes Kent. His salutation is "Get into the truck".

Yahoo! Off to the Summit...again. Kent needs to get folks into their cars or the Summit House as this electrical storm moves in...people standing exposed are the lightening rods.

We jammed into the Tundra and off we went. Stopping every time we meet other hikers where Kent tells them to get their thumbs out and hitch a ride either to the bottom or the top.

At the top Kent gets on the P.A. and tells folks to take cover. One hiker that had just summited walks up to the drivers window and her hair is standing on end. Folks that is not a good sign!

Summited for the second time of the day.

Off we go with Kent down the mountain to our car at the Devil's Playground (so named because of the way lightening can jump between rocks during a storm). He is stopping at each group of hikers along the way telling them to get a ride.

Those who have hair (sorry Bill), that is not somehow held in place, look like somethings out of Discovery Channel show experiment, as it is standing up.

We get to the car and it is surrounded by a dozen women that have just come up from the Crag's Trailhead. They were thinking about crowding into it, because Herb had not locked it, and it is the only shelter beyond a couple of culvert (metal) going under the highway.

We offered to take three down with us and told the others just what Kent was telling everyone, get out your thumb.

After what seemed like too much discussion three of them climbed into the Subaru, even into the third row seating...wait a minute there is no third row in a Outback.

The curving road down the mountain did not sit well with the third row and eventually we needed to stop for a oral donation to a nearby tree.

It was decided to rotate the third row passenger.

I think the third row also accused Herb and I of "bantering". What's that all about?

By the time we got to Woodland Park the upper mountain was very angry looking, enclosed by dark clouds and with cloud to ground lightening. A good place not to be, if not in a car or a building.

As we are heading down we see a number of motorcyclist heading up, I am not sure if that provides any protection or just a faster moving target. Since lightening travels at just about the speed of light (186K miles per second, as I recall), I don't think a motorcyclist, even at speed, would have much of a chance at out running a strike.

As for our riders, they were from around the country, so they get a bit of a pass, but we are from around here and know this can happen. Thanks Kent.