StephenBraunlich.com

I set out last Friday directly from work for the mountains. My internship had me in magistrate court that morning, and I was able to pick up an ice ax and crampons in anticipation of completing the Decalibron. The last trip reports suggested that it could be icy on the ridges, and I figured I may need them.

For the first time in awhile, I managed to get to the trailhead before it was dark out. With about 30 minutes of good sunlight left, I prepped my car to sleep in and took a walk up the trail. The plan called for a 2 am rise, and it seemed prudent to get a good feel for the route up to the ridge. Prior experience climbing Blanca had left me traversing slopes and wasting time after losing the trail; it was an experience to learn from.

The 2 am wake up didn’t come together, as my cell phone’s battery died overnight. By God’s grace, I was still up and out at 3 am, though. To my surprise there were others up at that time. I passed Ollie from Chicago as he rolled out of his rented H3.

To my greater surprise, it was downright balmy as I started up the trail. Overnight cloud cover had trapped the days warmth, and the snow had developed only the thinnest of crusts; I found myself wishing for snowshoes rather than crampons. The warmth also played some tricks on the snow, causing a ground fog to develop and slowly build itself up in the drainage. I tried to take some photos of it, but to no avail.

However, thanks to the wonder of Photoshop, you can get a sense of the view, although it is substantially brighter.

An early start combined with the climb out of the bowl to present an opportunity to view a sunrise over the rooftop of the Rockies. After topping out on Democrat before sunrise, I made a best effort to get up Cameron to view it from there. It was not to be. However, I was able to snap some nice shots of the dawning light on the ascent to Democrat, and on top.

Once on the saddle between Democrat and Cameron, I also snapped a few photos looking over towards Quandary.

As I began the ascent of Cameron I could look back over my shoulder and see Ollie climbing the well defined trail up to Democrat.

Topping out on Cameron I caught the sun full on in my face for the first time. I’ve never been this high with the sun that low on the horizon, much less on a snow covered slope. Snowblindness became a concern, and later in the day it became clear that I had suffered some injury from the brightness. Thankfully, it didn’t seem to be anything serious, as I got down with just a dull aching sensation.

The obligatory ice ax shot. It was my first time using an ax and so this is my first such shot.

Walking across the broad top of Cameron, Lincoln’s corniced ridge seemed intimidating. It took a moment’s consideration to decide to go for the peak. In the meantime, I enjoyed the experience of being on the high ridges and peaks with the clouds forming below me. In the above photo you can see them starting to rise and just begin to peek over the ridgelines.

It took a remarkably short time to get to Lincoln, and the walk was substantially less intimidating than I had feared. My energy was just beginning to flag, but I took plenty of time to enjoy the more jagged peak, and to snap a few classic summit shots.

Lincoln’s benchmark.

Summit shot, walking into the wind.

At this point I made my (at least) one goof per hike. Rather than descending from Lincoln back to the trail, I tried to traverse the slope over to the Cameron-Bross saddle. Where the slope up to Democrat had been punchy with a thin crust, this one was hard and slick. I was thankful for the ice ax on a couple of occasions, and even more thankful when I finally regained the trail. In the interim, though, much energy had been expended and I found myself panting on the trail up the mountain that will not be named.

Once on top of the mountain that will not be named, I encountered the first people since crossing paths with Ollie as he ascended and I descended Democrat. Using them for a focus point, I snapped some photos creating a panorama of the entire Decalibron.

Shortly thereafter I picked up my ax and made a glissade down the mountain that will not be named. It was the longest, fastest glissade of my life. The snow had not yet softened on this face, and it flew up in my face like I was looking down a sno-cone machine. My gloves became soaked and my hands grew numb. It was a thrill.

As this point I am tired. Not yet completely drained, but certainly getting there. With the monster wind blowing, the early wake up, the start of dehydration, and not taking enough food breaks, I would have had a good day’s hike right then and there. But that wasn’t to be the end of the day.

Hurrying to my car and tossing my gear in the back seat, I took off down the road to Alma. The Al-Mart provided me with my lunch (Gatorade, a gallon of water, and a bag of potato chips) and I headed up the road to Quandary. I was on the trail to the top by a quarter to 10.

The trip up Quandary was an ambitious addition, and the fact that I did it with my snowboard was more a point of damnable pride than anything else. It would also make the hike incredibly unpleasant. My pace was slow as it was, but once I hit the ridge the strong winds knocked me around. Just before the main push I came across two of the Quandary billy goats and snapped some photos.

I am ashamed to admit it, but after seeing the billy goats the going got to be very, very rough. Now that I was coming up on close to 11 hours of near continuous hiking, and having been battered by the wind, I was completely drained. Purely out of pride and the desire to get 4 1/2 fourteeners in a day, I kept going. As the wind kept coming I acted like Job’s interlocutors, asking God how he could keep this up. Petty, stupid, and prideful. Particularly in light of the beautiful weather he developed.

I finally made the summit after dropping my pack about 200-300 feet short of the summit. I continued up with just a stick I had picked up on the trail and my camera. I stopped, snapped a quick photo, and stumbled down to my pack.

Being completely exhausted I threw on my snowboard boots, strapped in, and made a series of slow, wide turns down the upper bowl. Concerned about building clouds and storms further north, I simply left my boots on and continued down. Although I tried to board down one more snow field, the board didn’t float on the warm wet snow, and I wound up face planting from a rock.

With exhausted legs and a dehydrated body screaming for nutrients, I slowly plodded my way down to the car. The gear was thrown into it, and I made my way home, stopping at BeauJos for a much needed pizza and beer. All told, it was 13 hours of hiking since I started, which would be followed by another 10 hours of sleeping.

After reviewing the previous weekend’s trip reports from ShavTab, and knowing that to meet my summer goal of ten 14ers by August I would need to start tagging twofers, I pulled the trigger and decided to head for the southern Sawatch. My hope was that I could make the trailhead before dark and camp in the aspen grove–aspens being my favorite tree and the grove looking beautiful in the photos.

Alas, it was not to be, and at 5:30 last Saturday I found myself tossing my tent back into the Hyundai and hitting the trail from the trailhead. The plan was to get some easy exposure to backcountry snowboarding for the first time, by descending via the Angel; the concern was thunderstorms, which had been called for Friday and Sunday and which had been given a chance of appearing on Saturday. An early start would be my best safeguard against getting knocked off the peaks.

During the climb up Shavano’s east-ridge trail, the clouds seemed to promise an afternoon storm. Dark gray and low hanging, they were coming up and over the top of the peak, threatening my side of the mountain.

Breaking through tree line let the wind hit me full blast, and as I contoured along the ridge it seemed as though the wind was gusting at 20 mph—not bad, and certainly manageable.

I was able to spot a few flowers starting to bloom, and snapped a quick photo of them.

I also paused to take a few photos of the Angel, which I’ve stitched together to give folks an idea of what the remaining snow cover looks like.

Around the time I paused to take those photos of the Angel, the wind picked up, or I simply left a sheltered aspect of the mountain. By the time I was crossing the Angel the wind felt like it was blowing at a near constant 20 mph with gusts up and into the 50s. With the snowboard on my back I was unbalanced a couple of times, and found myself walking into the wind much as a cartoon character might: at a 45 degree angle to the slope.

The hike only got tougher as I crossed the 13,500 ft mark. This tends to be the area that I begin to really feel the lack of oxygen, and with the wind I was quickly getting worn to a nub. To add to the problems, my additional cold weather layers were in my pack, and with the wind blowing as it was, I did not want to pull them out and risk watching any loose gear blow away. The board was also a hassle to restrap to the pack.

Finally, I made the summit. The time was 9:30, making for a roughly four hour hike to the summit.

Obligatory summit shot.

Once on top, I met a couple that was also hiking Shavano. Like me, they had also hoped to tag Tabeugauche. However, once on top of the peak, the dark overcast skies remained, and to the north we could see a solid sheet of precipitation hiding the northern Sawatch, Mosquito, and Front Ranges. With the strong winds blowing from that direction, we had the sense that a storm may move in by early afternoon. Indeed, one ridge became obscured in the clouds even as we stood there.

This ridge shot looking to the west gives a sense of what we saw, although I failed to take the northern looking photo.

The decision was made by all parties that it would be safest to descend. As someone once put it, summiting is optional, but descending is mandatory. We preferred to do so without fear of a storm knocking us off. It was, however, disappointing not to get Tab after having already made it up the first of the peaks.

The descent from Shavano is entirely skiable, if you have sufficient skills to maneuver the rocks. I do not. Instead, using my remaining trekking pole as a brake, I glissaded down to the saddle. If one has never glissaded with a snowboard on their back, I would say it is an interesting experience. It’s also a little emasculating, given that you expect to board instead of glissade; however, prudence dictated staying within my skill level. On the first of these I lost my copy of Dawson’s Northern 14ers. It was impossible to catch it as I watched it blow down the valley, carried by strong winds.

Can you spot the glissade routes further up?

Crossing the saddle to the western arm of the Angel, which seemed to hold constant snow higher up, I snapped a picture looking downhill.

As I settled down a little bit below the saddle (in order to get dampen the wind) I paused to get myself psyched up for the downhill snowboard. Most of my experience snowboarding has been in the mid-Atlantic region, where your black diamonds are the equivalent of a Colorado blue. My Western riding experience has been all of two days in Vail and a recent day at A-Basin. Confident of my ability to ride down the mountain at the start of the day, the doubts began to slip in. I ran through my checklist of how to handle different snow conditions, and, not letting myself get caught up in the negatives any longer, I strapped in and started down.

Here’s a picture of some folks starting up the ridge, taken where the doubts crept in.

The descent ended up being fantastic. After failing to cut my first two turns to the backside properly, I was cruising down the Angel with broad turns from side to side. It was tremendously enjoyable just to feel the edge of my board properly cutting into the hardpacked yet not icy snow.

It was a world of difference from the East, and as the snow transitioned from pack to wet, Arizona dust infused slop, I took breaks just to give thanks for being out on such a wonderful day. Who cares if I didn’t grab Tab as well, for this Virginia boy snowboarding in June was treat enough. Where I had been tired and cold just a little while earlier, I was now on an outdoors high and praising my good fortune.

Once at the bottom I stopped to sip some water and talk with folks on their way up. We all agreed how impressive it must be to ski or snowboard the Angel earlier in the year, when the snow reaches down and into the trees. For my part, I was looking forward to trying something in the northern peaks next weekend, where the new fallen snow may leave a good route for a beginner like me.

Here’s a picture looking back at the Angel. You can see the four climbers I met about half-way up.

Descending through the tree-filled basin, I took advantage of the weather’s decision to hold out. Stopping for a brief while I explored an abandoned cabin with complementary garbage.

The creeks were also flowing the snowmelt. Though not swollen by any means, it had enough water to make for many good photos.

The real treat, though, was hanging out in the aspen grove and breathing in the beautiful view. The yellow pea flowers were blooming, and their bright yellow petals dotted the green grass carpet. Together with the white aspen trunks, blue skies, and green leaves twisting in the wind, I was practically in heaven.

I took my time photographing the area and just enjoying the moment. One of the reasons that I enjoy aspens is that they exist in a certain sort of community. Although they have separate trunks, their root system is interconnected. Being in the midst of a book on St. Ephrem the Syrian, who meditates upon the hidden meaning of the created world, it occurred to me that the trees mirror humanity and the Church. While we are each individuals, we share a common past. In the Church, there are individual parishioners who share a communion through their belief in Christ. It was an interesting thought that I now pass onto you.

Here’s the pics.

A bee pollinates the yellow pea.

Looking up to the aspens.

Fun with a macro lens.

A photo of the aspen grove.

The colorful carpet of nature.

After a week which saw, among other things, a new radiator being put in my car, I was eager for some R&R in the high country. After hitting up REI Lakewood for some snowshoes, I tore down the road to my destination: Mt. Sherman.  On the map, my route is #1, modified by the red ascent.

Because I needed to be back in Denver by the early afternoon, I figured that Sherman would be a good pick. After camping out at the Leavick TH, I hit the trail around 5:40 am. There was a little alpenglow on Mt. Sheridan as I began the hike.

It didn‘t take long until I hit the upper trailhead. The road was pretty good all the way up, and as I was hiking it seemed as though the road, which Dawson says take a high clearance vehicle, was better than the road up Elbert, which is supposed to be “good.”

After getting up into the amphitheater, I took a few photos to give me a good panorama. After the conditions on Elbert last weekend, I was excited by the possibility of big views and perhaps a glissade or two down the mountain.

The hike continued up to the Hill Top Mine. The mining history of Colorado and the West is one of the fascinating things to me. It is difficult to picture it now, but places like Sherman could be filled with thousands of miners; a veritable community.

My own experience has been more in New Mexico, with places like Elizabethtown/Baldy Town. Whole communities were built up at higher elevations than more of us ever think about living at. Then men would haul heavier loads than most peak baggers to go to work in dangerous mines. Incredible!

Soon after Hill Top Mine I was confronted with a choice. Do I take the standard route and go up to the saddle then follow the ridge, or do I throw on my snowshoes and try to go straight up the side? I chose the latter, a mistake.

While much of the climbing was good, by the time it was 8:30 am, the snow had gotten too soft. There was a layer of drier recent snowfall (perhaps a couple inches) over a solid foot or so of wet, old snow. Earlier the snow had been holding weight, but now, after a couple hours of sunshine, it began to punch through. Combine this with the slope and my admitted lack of knowledge about avy safety, and I found myself in a less than ideal situation. I tried to work my way up in those spots where the snow seemed less deep and the rocks nearer the surface.

When I finally made the ridge, it was to my relief and exhaustion.

The view from the ridge was incredible. I‘ve never hiked the high country while surrounding peaks carried much snow. It was beautiful and awe inspiring.

A short while later I was on the summit.

The summit took longer to attain than I had hoped, in part because of the poor choice not to take the ridge. On the way down I ran into a number of people, including some from 14ers.com. Unfortunately, some folks took the same route up as I did, although I told those I ran into not to.  My route was more or less a straight shot up to the center of the ridge in this picture.

Finally, I made it back down to the car, tore down my campsite, and headed back to Denver.

The Essentials:
Started hiking: 6-ish
Summit: 10:30-ish
Back at Car: 4-ish
Map of Trail:

At this point anyone who glanced at the map should be exclaiming, “WTF?” Indeed, so was I when, after descending a bit through tree line, the creek to my right (the south) was closer than it should have been.

As a precursor to the below, I want to state that Elbert was the first time that I had been back above 12,000 ft. in over a year, and my first 14er in close to two years. I‘d gotten into Denver on Thursday, skiied on Friday to acclimate, and then figured I‘d take a bite of the pie. I was, perhaps, overly ambitious. I was also unprepared for the severely restricted visibility.

I had thought that a 6:00 start time would give me plenty of opportunity to gain the summit, and in fact, it was good that I had taken advantage of the full time period allotted to me. As you can see in the following pictures, once I got above treeline the visibility was close to nil.

At first I didn‘t think this would be too much of a problem. Being a flat lander by birth, and having been less than ideally acclimated, I was taking my time and reading my body to make sure I wasn‘t getting altitude sickness. The result was a slow climb, and there was another hiker who had passed me. All I had to do was follow his footsteps, right?

As it turns out, I ended up slipping further to the right than I should have and missed out on the trail proper. The result was that when I got to the top and found that close to a dozen people had already summited, I didn‘t realize that they hadn‘t come up the Northeast Trail as well. Here‘s a picture of them at the true summit, taken from near the pole, and the obligatory summit shot.  I’ve also thrown in a picture of my gear.

Now at this point I‘m thinking to myself, “Four hours, with no acclimation hikes? Tink, that‘s entirely satisfactory.” And in truth it was. However, when I started on the downhill, I followed in the tracks of the groups that had come before me. Here was my critical mistake.

In my lack of common sense, and an unhealthy dose of self-centeredness, I had assumed they came up the same trail as me (only without losing said trail). So when I started to descend and found myself passing people, I thought I was hot stuff. More like dumb stuff. Sure enough, the trail stopped “smelling” right: the creek was too close, the trees weren‘t the same, and Box Creek had never made its proper appearance. When I finally got a break in the clouds, my bearing on West Twin Lake said, “Stephen: you‘re a proud SOB that should have known better than to go full tilt down the mountain.”

Rather than hiking back up, I figured I could just ‘shwack over to Box Creek, follow that down to the Colorado Trail, and take that back to where I needed to be. I should have taken another bearing and triangulated my position, because I didn‘t realize just how far I‘d descended, and how far east I had traveled.

I went ahead with the ‘schwack anyway, and at the first creek I found began to descend until I hit the trail. At times it was brutal, and I managed to break one of my trusty hiking poles.

When the creek did finally hit up with the trail, I thought I had proven my land nav skills (nevermind that I had previously proven they weren‘t what I thought). Then I started hiking, and soon came to a sign for “Mill Creek,” which got me wondering if I was in the right spot. Then the trail kept going further than I had anticipated it would. It soon dawned on me that I had fouled up more than I realized, and all because my pride wouldn‘t let me think other folks might take other trails, and that I didn‘t need to descend fast to make up for a slow ascent.

Long story short: I eventually made it back to the car, but only after begging the mercy of God, Mary, and all the Saints, and swallowing my pride to ask a couple of trail runners to make sure I was headed in the right direction. Thankfully I didn‘t mess things up anymore than I did, and had picked up enough land nav skills to keep my foul ups to a minimum. But the experience of hiking in the low, low visibility has certainly reinforced the benefit of GPS, and it may go on my list of future purchases.

Here’s a pic of Mt. Elbert that I took driving away.  Sadly, the clouds were up almost the entire day.  However, I did get one shot off that showed the peaks on the other side of the valley.  It’s included, too.

After a successful trip to the Nature Conservancy, I had it in mind to try and find another diamond in the rough hike near to DC.  With short winter hours, I wanted something nearby that I could hike after a Divine Liturgy on Sunday.  I came up with the Thompson Wildlife Management Area, and on a sunny Sunday afternoon hiked it with my friend Jeremiah and his sister Maire.

The drive to the trail head is an absolute joy.  Winding country road, open fields, and warm weather with the windows down.  Fabulous.

Shortly after you hit the trail you come to a reservoir, which, on our visit, was mostly frozen over.  The signs by indicated that it was stocked with fish, though, and I imagine that it would make for quite a nice place to spend a summer afternoon.  Click the pic for the panorama.

The trail itself proved to be uneventful on the way up.  It was muddy from all the melting snow, but we picked our way along.  According to the map there was a lookout tower on the top, from which we hoped to score some pretty sweet views.  It was not to be.

As you can see from the above photos there was not much going on in the way of views.  It turns out that a local road  passes right by the highpoint, and there were a number of communication towers aroun.  While I thought of climbing one of them, my better judgment prevailed and I settled for some goldfish instead.

While the hike down started with a bit of disappointment, we did learn about how Jeremiah had stopped and started a rabbits heart while an undergrad at MIT.  Interesting story involving the engineering of biology.

Hopefully that caught your attention again.  Like I said, the hike down wasn’t terribly interesting until we started to get closer to the boundary of the Wilderness Management Area.  At that point we were on the edge of the aforementioned fields, and the views were quite nice.

The hike brings you back alongside a stream, and we were able to enjoy some long shadows as the light filtered through the trees.

On the whole I would not place this on my list of hikes to do again, nor would I recomend it to most people.   I firmly believe that anything that gets you outside or gets you exercising is, at least insofar as those are concerned, good.  However, you never got to leave “civilization” all that much between the towers, the road, and the reservoir.  It is, however, a good way to kill a few hours if that is all you have.

John was a fisherman called by Christ to be one of his 12 Disciples, and also wrote a Gospel.

John became a very close friend to Jesus. On Good Friday, when all the other disciples left Jesus, John refused to leave. He stayed with Jesus, even as Jesus was nailed to the cross and died.

Because he followed Christ so faithfully, John is known as John the Beloved. He was the disciple that Jesus asked to care for his mother, Mary, and when the women told the disciples that Christ was risen he was the first to go to the tomb.

In addition to the Gospel of John, John also wrote three letters to members of the early church, and the Book of Revelation

Celebrated on May 8 in the Byzantine Rite

Source: http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-john-the-apostle/

Blessed Rose was born in 1656; her father was a doctor in the town of Viterbo. Although she joined a convent for a brief time, she left to go home and take care of her mother.

When Rose returned home, she found that many of the women in her town did not know about their faith. Rose began to teach them and quickly found that teaching others was the special purpose God had made her for.

Rose became known as an excellent teacher, and Church leaders came to her for advice on how to open and run schools. Her work even received the praise of the Pope.

Many of her followers eventually came to the United States, where they opened schools that helped educate Catholic immigrants.

Celebrated on May 7 in the Latin Rite

Source: http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=136

It’s been awhile since I served up anything but the Saints of the week, but it’s time this blog came back to serve up the other half of its ever developing purpose: the outdoors.

Last January, I was able to take a gem of a hike on the property of one of my favorite charities: the Nature Conservancy.  You may know them for as managers of huge swathes of privately owned land that is at risk from any number of threats: development, pollution, etc.  In the greater Northern Virginia area the Nature Conservancy owns and runs Wildcat Mountain.  On this visit I hit up the trail with my friend, Mike.

The Nature Conservancy asks me to go left.  Of course we oblige!

Like I said, this trail is a real gem… an honest to goodness diamond in the rough.  It’s not too far out from Fairfax/Arlington/Alexandria abomination, but it has far fewer crowds than any other trail I’ve encountered within a couple hours of my home.  Despite this, it has a good mix of terrain, history, and sites, even if it lacks a killer vista.

Since it was January the weather was cold, and this just made the trip more special. One of the first things you hit along the trail is a pond, and as beneficiaries of a deep cold snap we were able to head out onto at least four inches of ice.

Mike boot skating on the ice.

The hits keep coming, and we soon come across an abandoned cabin.

Of course the Conservancy doesn’t really want us clamboring about in it.  After all, there’s nails and broken glass on the ground, and rusted out buckets.

Or it may be that they also wanted to keep you from the dead bodies.

Just kidding Nature Conservancy!

Anyhow,  after the cabin the trail does go down hill.  No, I mean it goes down the hill.  It’s not much further until you return to the parking lot and can roll out.  This would be the downside (no, really, the negative) to the hike: it’s not long enough.  Thankfully we had a time constraint which made the brevity more acceptable.

So here’s to getting back on the trip reports.  You can hope to see some more of them in the next few weeks, as I report on hikes I took over the spring semester, and start publishing new ones from a summer in Colorado.

James was one of the Twelve Apostles, like his brother John. The two were called “Sons of Thunder” by the Lord because they became great preachers and had a deep understanding of God.

Saint James’s courageous preaching was greatly opposed by Herod Agrippa, the Jewish King, and so James was taken into custody during the days of the Passover, and martyred. This had been foretold by Jesus.

Herod would be brought to justice for what he did. The next year he went to Caesarea and gave a speech. The elders and friends that surrounded him shouted, “It is the voice of a god, and not of a man.” Herod was immediately killed by an Angel of the Lord smote him for his vain act.

Celebrated on April 30 in the Byzantine Rite

Source: http://www.goarch.org/chapel/saints_view?contentid=36

St. Catherine of Siena is one of the really fantastic saints in the Church. She lived to the age of 33, and left such great writings that she is recognized as a Doctor of the Church.

When Catherine turned 18, she joined the Dominican order. Her deep love of God became apparent, and many people began to follow her.

During this time she also began to speak about public affairs. While this made her many enemies, she was fearless in speaking the truth. Because she spoke with a love of God and of her neighbor, even the Pope came to Catherine for advice.

St. Catherine also had many mystical experiences in which she came to know God. These are recorded in her book, The Dialogue.

Celebrated on April 29 in the Latin Rite

Source: http://americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1368