It’s been an intense 30 hours to finally make it to the trail head. It started with me in North Carolina at the world’s most luxurious, all-inclusive resort located in the enchanting hamlet of Wilson. The staff here bend over backwards to serve their guests and make sure all is running smooth as a clock at all times. I had two personal attendants that monitored my every wish—Ricky and Charles. Charles tried to get me to stay on another week by bringing me another Margarita (my third of the morning) but I insisted that I had to go. He had Ricky summon my limousine and personal driver to get me to the airport to fly first class back to St Louis. After 5 days, I couldn’t handle even one more light beer or 5 star meal provided by the resort staff. It had been another glorious, relaxing week. In fact, I’ve already signed up for another week after we get back from Maroon Bells. At least, that is how Pam envisions my weeks when I’m travelling for work.
In reality, I was ecstatic to get the hell out of the tire plant where I’ve already spent 6 months as a serf for Charles and Ricky (their real first names until legal gets after me). They are good one dimensional managers meaning they are excellent at managing crisis. If a worker only carries a hammer, everything looks like a nail—if there is not a crisis, they can easily turn any situation into one. This is the second job I’ve done for the large conglomerate (another name for a structure over a river to allow vehicle to pass, another name for rocks—no need to tempt fate when dealing with large international corporations, especially ones based out of Japan). I only came back for this job for one reason which I can easily remedy from any cliff on this trip—Brad “Big Daddy” whom we met in Denver last night. Since Brad might read this, I should probably stroke his ego a bit, after all, he is a manager and thrives on humus and money. Brad is a manager that doesn’t fit into the company mold of make everything a crisis and then belittling any/everyone that tries to help solve that crisis while shortening the schedule and stealing project dollars to shore up some other mess that bad leadership has created. Brad tries something so foreign to the company that I’m sure his days are numbered—he actually treats people with respect and gets additional help if he sees someone struggling. Dead man walking!
Once again, I have taken care of all preparations for the trip so everything runs smooth. Brad, even though he’s a manager, didn’t question or second guess any decision I had made in preparation for the trip. Maroon Bells four pass loop is just a 30ish mile loop located between Aspen and Crested Butte. We have decided to start from the Crested Butte side to avoid the larger crowds and parking issues on the Aspen side. As the name implies, we will go over 4 passes each about 12,500’. We started taking Diamox yesterday to ease any altitude stresses our flatlander bodies might encounter. When I went to Nepal, I tried to NOT take any Diamox, but when we got above 14,000’ I started getting headaches and had difficulty sleeping. I decided to not have anyone take any chances on this trip.
We drove to Frisco, CO and stayed at the Hotel Frisco. We got in after midnight which meant no one was on duty, but they had left keys in envelopes at the front desk to get into our rooms. We slept in until almost 8 then walked around Frisco to check out the town and grab some breakfast. Frisco is a great town with a quaint strip of a downtown with plenty of restaurants, coffee shops, and stores enough to satisfy any need. It sits at about 9000’ and surrounded by mountains and close to ski resorts and ready access to nature. I loved the place so that means I probably can never afford to live here. After breakfast, we headed back to the hotel and repacked all of our gear and food so we were trail ready then hit the road.
The plan was to catch up with Joan and Tom whom we met while hiking in the Grand Canyon last year. They were the couple that joined us for supper on Plateau Point on the edge of the inner rim. We had plenty of time for the 3 ½ hour drive down the “Top of the Rockies Byway” to Crested Butte via Cottonwood Pass. Brad lives in Tennessee so he’s used to seeing some larger hills but I am still very impressed by mountains. The beach doesn’t really do anything for me. At some point, Pam and I will have to live in the mountains full time. To break the drive up and relieve bladder pressure, we stopped for coffee and sweets in Buena Vista (we’ll burn off the extra calories this week).
Pam and I have driven to Crested Butte via Cottonwood Pass before when we went on a family vacation with her kids a few years ago. I didn’t remember it being so far up or being a dirt road on the Gunnison side. While we were up on the pass getting pictures, we smelled some hikers approaching before we saw them. These were some people that had been out a while. We started talking to one college age guy, Jack, who was solo hiking. Actually, he was doing a 160mile loop on the Continental Divide Trail and the Collegiate Mountains with his dad and brother, but they had other commitments so they had to stop after a week. He asked if he could get a ride down the pass so he could resupply and get a shower. I’m always glad to help a hiker—hopefully, someday we’ll get to do some long distance hiking and we’ll have some good karma built up in the bank. We told him it’ll be crowded because we were pretty full of gear, but if he didn’t mind holding his pack on his lap, no problem.
We finally got to Crested Butte around 2p. After finding a parking spot, we started walking down Elk Ave and happened upon Joan and Tom. We went to Camp 4 Coffee for real coffee and the flavored crap that the women like. This was the first time Brad, Joan, and Tom had met so we just sat around talking to get acquainted with each other. Joan and Tom had checked into getting a shuttle up and over Schofield Pass. Pam insisted we could drive ourselves but I was still skeptical. We stopped in the Alpineer to discuss the road with people who knew the area. I’ve been over Scholfield before, but only walking. As I recall, it was extremely rough with a nice vertical fall into Emerald Lake. The last time we tried to drive up the area, Pam ended up backing the car back down because I got too nervous and had to get out. She insisted her dad has driven this pass several times causing me, once again, to question Bill when I get in a car with him driving. Several people in the store told us it was open and no problems—if we had 4 wheel drive we would be fine.
Everyone tried to convince me that we could do it. They were pumping me up and told me all I needed was a good meal to build up my confidence. We walked by an empty restaurant and decided to get a steak meal for our “last supper” before Curtis plunges into Emerald Lake. I went up and asked for a table for 5. They directed us to a table in the full sun. I asked if we couldn’t move over to a shady table, all the while thinking I was just being polite since the place was absolutely empty, as in not one customer there. He refused to let us move because every other table was reserved. 3:30 in the afternoon and they had no customers! They obviously didn’t want our business. I’m pretty sure this was Elk Avenue Prime and if they don’t have lousy yelp reviews, I will give them one. Pitas in Paradise was very happy to take our money and bring us great food and beer in exchange.
It was no longer possible to avoid it, we had to drive over Schofield Pass and park at the trailhead. We got a short reprieve at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory for the girls to get a final bathroom break. The drive up to the pass isn’t bad until you pass the turn for Emerald Lake. Everyone was telling me I’d be fine. I had a death grip on the steering wheel and waited for another car to take the lead up the final mile of road. The worst nightmare scenario would be having to back up to allow another car to pass me heading down. I figured we would all die together if they were wrong. This is probably the first time in my life I was not looking forward to saying “I told you so”.
After 3 days of agonizingly slow climbing over the pass, we made it. I won’t have to worry about digging a hole for a few days because I puckered up pretty tight. People were lined both sides of the road as I crested the pass with hands over their eyes, cringing with relief that we had made it alive. Or maybe it was only 10 minutes and we got up there with about 40 other vehicles (obviously, there are a lot of idiot drivers in Colorado). We pulled into the lot as a shuttle was heading out—I definitely wouldn’t want to ride in a 15 passenger van going over what we just did. My original plan was to park before the climb up the pass and walk an extra 3 miles to the trailhead—that plan had quickly gotten vetoed by all parties.
There’s a sign-in box at the trail head and lots of camping in the area. There’s no charge (yet) to hike the 4 loop pass. We set up camp and built a fire. Brad had bought a new antigravity Osprey pack and the lightest synthetic bag on the market (if Brad does something, he jumps with both feet and gets the best). I loaned him a platypus, sleeping pad, hiking poles, tent, and fleece jacket. I did have him carry some of our food, but Pam and I carried the rest of our group gear. Since he was travelling light, he had the option to bring a few luxury items: he brought enough cigars for everyone to have one (every night), a 5 pound bag of M&Ms, and a flask of bourbon (I told him to leave his gun home—apparently there are penis issues at play here that I can’t fathom). Brad was the only cigar smoker tonight, but the bourbon and M&Ms hit the spot. It was only right for us to lighten his load since this was his first foray in the mountains.
