Redefining Hard Core Class 2+ on Mount Sneffels

Saturday, September 10, 2005 Another day rafting on the "daily" stretch of the Colorado River passed slowly as my mind drifted to the fun I'd have the next few days playing in Colorado with my good friend Katy Nelson. Back at my place I quickly threw hiking, camping and climbing gear into my car and raced 4 hours east to meet my friend. When I met up with Katy and her sister Jen decide to attempt the 14er Mount Sneffels the nest day. So we threw all our gear into the back of Jen's truck, some food and tons of water finally leaving her place around 11pm. Sunday, September 11, 2005 Turning up the mountain road around 1am Katy taps me awake to ask what the funny lights out the window are. We stop the car to get a better look and drop our jaws when we realize we are seeing the northern lights...in souther Colorado. Of course we denied this at first and tried to rationalize something else. But none of us knew what else would create the green and red vertical lights we saw dancing across the sky. We took this as a good omen and eventually climbed back into the truck, and drove to the trailhead where we crawled into our bags for a few hours of sleep. The alarm sounded around 6am. With one eye half open we decided to set the alarm back an hour to 7am, from there we hit the 4 minute snooze till 7:30am. Finally awake we ate some breakfast, packed day hiking bags and hit the trail. Good spirited and light hearted we joked about the punting a yapping dog not far away. In the trail log we wrote our mode of transportation up "Mount Snapple" would be 6 feet on legs (mistake #1; never make fun of a mountain - you will pay for it later) We spent the next three miles enjoying the scenery, sharing epic hiking/climbing stories (mistake #2; your just begging to create another story), shedding layers and being goofy. Arriving at Blaine Basin we decided to sit in the warm sun and consume some delicous sandwhiches while taking in the view of a very impressive Mount Sneffels. The name does NOT do the mountain justice....at all.

Satisified we continued up the trail - something we'd soon learn to appreicate. Our trial brought us up a short hill through colorful flowers, next to a tumbling waterfall to tree line. Here unbenounced to us the trail ended. We continued on what turned out to be animal trails till we realized the trail had disappeared from under our feet - literally. Assuming we were of course headed in the right direction we bushwacked up the next hill. The drive to reclaim the trail seperated the three of us (mistake #3 - duh...don't seperate, and it is OK to backtrack). Jen stayed low, Katy headed up diagonally up in the direction of the 14er, while I headed up. A good 20 minutes of searching provided a deer, frustration and finally the admission of losing the trail. Katy and I reunited on a scree field where we studied our 14er book and the surrounding topography, fought through our fears together (see photo) and decided to cross the trough and begin up the mountain to what looked like a good trail. If you've ever "crossed" a trough before you know this tests the number of small heart attacks one person can have. "Exiting" a trough by hiking up the steep side brings about shifting boulders, rock slides and having to yell rock about a hundred times to your friends scattered below you. Luckily no one caught any rocks or "surfed the Rockies". Ohh and we are just getting started!

Out of the trough we looked up to see of course more rocks, but some nice grass, with a trail through it! We had to be getting close now!

...more to come!