Missed out last month on a day of alpine climbing due to the pre-holiday search for a missing Christmas Tree harvester But last weekend finally made it out, but this was to go ice climbing. Never done it before, never quite understood the draw, but needed to get out in the cold, and I got an offer to go.
Saturday Marlys and I spent most of the day either in the car driving to and from the Colorado Search and Rescue Board annual meeting at the Alpine Rescue "Shack" up in Evergreen. Just walking around "The Shack" and looking at the memorabilia on the walls is worth the trip. The history and items from places around the world makes for a high degree of envy.
We made the drive home and got into a traffic stop on Cty RD 2, due to a vehicle accident at the gravel pit pass. A Super Duty was hanging back half in the air over the edge and a Sub that was the other party to this dance was in the inside ditch. Luckily, they got a front-end loader from one of the local folks to anchor the front of the truck and bring back all of the SD to terra firma.
Up at 4am on Sunday to get things packed for the trip to Agnes Valle over in the Collegiate's on the south-side of Mt. Princeton. Met up with the other guys at 5:30am and headed for Salida and then the Hot Springs area on the road to St. Elmos.
Hit the trail-head at about 7:30 to find all of the toilets locked for the season, at about the same time the coffee and Diet Coke had loosened everything up.
Not a lot of snow at the trail-head, but we packed in the snowshoes just in case. Even though I had lightened the pack, by the time ropes, harness, axes/tools, crampons and everything else was loaded I had a 50#'er.
Hiking 1/2 mile in to the water fall/ice smear didn't take long, but walking in plastic boots on uncovered ice, carrying a load warmed me up fast. Once the canyon came out of shadow the day was a dreamer, off came the layers on went the SPF 50.
The ice was still early season with the ice still filling in and the area near the edge of the drop at the top looked pretty thin, in fact it would melt out mid-day.
Found some spots in the rock to gear up and then Craig headed up to set an anchor. As the day warmed a few of the rocks rolled down, so were on the look out. Doesn't take much of one to ruin a day.
We belayed from the bottom until we had all been up and down a couple of times. Then we all went up (top belay) to get a picture from above.
By the time we had gotten everyone down and removed the protection (ice screws), anchors and stuffed ropes it was 2:30 by the time we headed down.
The rope I carried up now seemed to weight twice as much.
Sun was still on the trail-head when we got there, but getting gear sorted and packed in to the Jeep seemed to take a long time.
We hit three spots in Salida to get designer coffees and none were open, ended up at the local MacDonald's barrista, I opted for a Diet Coke.
Spent most of the time during the ride back reading Will Gadd's mixed climbing book, right up until I heard a "whoa" from the front seat, saw some debris fly out on the road and what looked like smoke.
Got around the debris to find a SUV sideways against a rock wall. Out we popped and into SAR mode. SUV had a Dad, infant and two small children in it. Got them all out, folks were stopping and Mom who was in another car got turned around and came running up.
I checked out Dad who had blood on the side of his head. The kids came through it very well... because everyone had on there seat-belts.
Infant was put in to another car, still in the seat, to stay warm, Craig held the little girl in his arms, and the little boy latched on to Mom. By the time help arrived the kids were in Mom's care playing games on the iPad and iPhone, baby was asleep in a pickup, Dad was losing his adrenaline buzz and Mom was hugging folks that stopped to help.
First to arrive was Deputy Sanger who we work closely with on search and rescue. As he was releasing us, he said that we were due for a mission, since it had been almost a month.
Got home, collapsed on the couch. Got into the sack about 10pm, as I finally fell a sleep the phone rang, Caller - "Hey, what you doing?", ME-"Sleeping", Caller - "Remember what I said this afternoon".
BTW: This is not the first time Steve Sanger has had pre-cognition on a mission. He did this to me once before last summer.
We have a missing person over in the foot hills of the Wet's.
Up at 3am, briefing at 7:30, in the field at 8:30. Found him at 3:30pm. By the time Marlys and I got home it was 7:30pm.
A long weekend.
Well, with every step forward there, especially when computers are concerned, there is technology cross over, which in this case meant the dreaded "lock up".
