Last Saturday I went on my first big hike of the summer with friends. Snowden Peak at the top of Molas Pass. Although a bit challenging with some hand-over-hand scrambling, and very dry since the summer monsoon rains haven’t really gotten here, the views were as usual spectacular and the climb was worth all the effort. With that in mind, here’s an essay that was originally posted to the blog in August of 2018. Another great summer season of mountain hiking begins!!                                                                                Word Count: 1417

The Year of

Hiking Spectacularly

It’s inevitable, you look back on a certain period in your life and events that transpired at that time stand out. In my case, thirty or forty years from now when I’m hanging out on the rocking chair, attempting not to slobber all over myself, and yelling for no apparent reason at the neighborhood kids, I’ll look back into the deep recesses, and certain memories of 2017 will stand out. One of these recollections will be of all the great hiking I was able to carry out during the year. I’ve become cognizant of the fact that I’m probably slightly beyond the halfway point of my existence on this rock (every time I get another AARP promo. flyer in the mail I’m made aware of this fact). In other word, I’m making a supreme effort at this time in my life to take advantage of still being able to physically carry this stuff out. Being able to control my bowel movements is a key side benefit in order to pull off all these hikes.

The year started out with me doing my usual X-country skate skiing, downhill, and yoga in order stay in shape, and I didn’t really get an opportunity to do any serious nature jaunts until spring break at the end of March. At that time, I did a nice day hike with friends in the new Bear’s Ear National Monumentarea just west of Bluff, Utah. A sweet half day hike into one of the side canyons lead up to a set of Anasazi Cliff Dwellings, and a nice way to kick spring into high gear (Website/Blog essay posting – 3/31/17).

Later during that same spring break, I drove way south in New Mexico to Carlsbad Caverns. Totally lucking out, since I was able to sign up for a special hike that took a group of amateur Spelunkers into one of the side caverns off the main hall at the bottom of the caverns.

This was so cool since all the people in our group got to carry candle Lanterns into the darkness (totally old school), and the hike turned out to be way beyond your standard tourist jaunt through the caverns. The hiking expeditions have just gotten better since then, and this run of good luck will hopefully continue through the rest of the year.

A good buddy of mine here in Silverton is a huge hiker. This is a carry over from his childhood growing up in Pennsylvania, his days as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer teacher in Nepal, and all the great mountain climbing he’s done in Bolivia, Morocco, and other far-off locales. Me accompanying him on his hikes is sort of like asking if I enjoy tuning into JEOPARDY!! on a daily basis (I’m seriously addicted to watching the show and the obsession shows no signs of abating).

The only thing I don’t like about going on these hikes with my friend is the fact that we usually have to leave our little valley while it’s still dark. Way before it gets light, and usually an hour or so before that big yellow ball in the sky has peeked over the eastern horizon. Yes Maynard, life does exist at 4:00 am, but it isn’t always pretty at that time.

Doing it this way is mandatory since you need to get up on these high mountain ridges to do any sort of peak bagging way before the rain clouds build up and static electricity makes an ominous appearance – announcing the entrance of thunder and lightning in the sky. If you’re on these ridges when that happens, your hair might do the standing on end thing (not much of a problem for me at this point in my life). Then when the lightning strikes and you’re screwed. In order to avoid this, one needs to get back down to timberline as fast as your legs can carry you. Unless of course you’ve got a serious Death Wish.

There’s so much great exploring to do in the San Juan Mountains of South West Colorado, and now that the monsoons have totally shown up the wildflower displays in all these high mountain environs are truly spectacular. Once they make their inevitable late summer fade, all this extra moisture just means the mushrooms and raspberries will be popping up, and after that the fall colors make an appearance. I’ve done two sensational hikes so far, but keeping my fingers crossed in the hopes that there’s more on the horizon.

My aunt passed away in December of last year, but my cousin decided not to have her mom’s funeral till the end of July. Since my aunt lived on the north shore of Oahu (wet side of the Hawaiian Islands), the funeral was way out west on the 29^th of the month.

Although my airfare to get to that part of the globe wasn’t cheap, from various perspectives (including the hiking I did) it was totally worth it. Once again, I had the opportunity to do two hikes, and the mind blowing, take-your-breath-away results kept up the string.

The first of these was short n sweet, taking us only a half hour to get to our destination from the parking lot. “Puka” is Hawaiian for “Hole” and the Pale Puka trail leads up to a spot where a hole in the rock exposes you to this sensational panorama of Kaneohe Bay on the windward side of the island. Steep in a few spots, and hiking up this didn’t bother me. What did put the fear of God into me is the fact that in a few spots the trail skirts the cliff as you climb up the ridge.

This reminds me of the hike I did with my buddy in Vermont when we climbed Mt. Kathadin at the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. On that particular day, my friend told me it was good thing that we were hiking in thick fog along the Knife Edge Trail leading up to Mt. Kathadin. Turns out there are precipitous drop offs on both sides of the trail we couldn’t see anything. Amazing what you can pull off when not being able to look through all sorts of thick cloud cover, isn’t it?

The precipitous drop offs on the Pale Puka are sort of like that, but thankfully they’re only on one side of the trail. The view once we got to the Puka was well worth it though.

“Stairway To Heaven” is just that; a set of steps, guard rails, and ladders leading up to an old radio tower also on the windward side. Just like the Pale Puka, we were technically trespassing on private property, but in a single word security on the Hawaiian Islands is just that, somewhat “lax”?

On the morning we climbed Stairway to Heaven, we worked our way through a bamboo forest in the early morning light, squeezed through a barbed wire fence, and walked up to a security guard sitting in a car at the start of the Stairway. I’ll never forget his distinct words of wisdom, “Technically you’re trespassing, but since I can’t stop you, have fun.” Although my little sister got nauseous and had to turn back about 1/3^rd of the way up, having fun was exactly what my cousin and I did as we worked our way up the ridge.

Climbing in the San Juans at altitude has prepared me beautifully for the Hawaiian hikes. When we got back down, people kept asking me if the long, strenuous, climb up the Stairway to Heaven bothered me. My reply, “Not really, I didn’t even feel like I was breathing during the entire climb up.”

Now that I’m back home in the San Juans, I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that the hot streak of 2018 great hikes continues. We’ve still got four and a half months left to go in the year, so here’s expecting the good luck to persist.

Postscript: The streak continues!!! This past Saturday I was able to go on another fantastic hike with friends. This time we climbed a ridge leading up to the Three Needles near the top of Red Mountain Pass. The monsoons are fading since we didn’t even blow out of Silverton till the relatively late hour of 5:00 am. This hiking thing is almost getting too easy? Then again in quite a few places I lagged way behind my buddies, so maybe not.