My Meetup Snow Hiking Trip

Now it is Friday and the meetup hiking cabin trip is in the past. The wooden cabin covered with snow, the kitchen with pans and gadgets and dull knives and a big table in the middle with benches like in a lumber camp that sits eight, it’s history. How did it go, my friends asked me when I return to work.

First of all I want to state that going on a vacation with strangers is stressful. But that doesn’t make the trip a failure. I’ve now learned that many people, me possibly included, thrive on suffering.

Also this: my ideas of how to cook aren’t shared by everyone. The other female traveler, Mindy, brought a huge bag of Stash Flavored Tea in a ziplock bag. She put several bags in each cup. Chamomile, Peppermint, Apple Cinnamon, all together. “I like it strong,” she says.

“You gotta pour the water over the tea, it won’t steep correctly if you let the water cool before you put the bags in,” I tell her, mystified at her combination of flavors. Nevertheless, I accept the offer of my own tea.

I suppose it takes all kinds to make a world. I don’t tell her she’s making the tea wrong. But. I got in an argument with Rick, about “good coffee.”

And Coffee is Nothing if Not Controversial

He had managed to bring a French press (five points for that) but. He was putting far too little coffee into it.

“You gotta put more coffee in there,” I told him. “It’s gonna be too thin, the coffee should be like mud, you know that, right?”

“I’m trying to economize,” he said. “I can’t put more in, this is good coffee and good coffee costs money.”

I felt like I was not hearing correctly. “What? It’s not that much. If you’re worried about it buy it at Trader Joes or Costco. Anyway, it’s just one cup. We’re not drinking it all day. Are we?”

“Well I am.”

I imagine drinking five cups of weak coffee. Who does that?

I feel like he appreciated my advice not at all. Sometimes being right doesn’t help you.

Soon we’re all hiking. Yes, hiking, not skiing. Gary chose a trail which didn’t have the slope or snow coverage for skiing. Ricardo loaned me his extra snow spikes.

I looked up the trail. This was not going to be easy. Hiking six miles is probably twice as hard as skiing. I had forgotten my parka. My mittens were about ten degrees too thin for the temps, which were hovering around 15 degrees.

Jon Krakauer, famous outdoors writer, wrote Into Thin Air by going up Everest and chronicling how people die trying to reach the summit. I, Susan Taylor Brand, would now climb Cow Creek Trail and maybe something worth writing would occur. They said a storm was coming and by tomorrow morning it would be zero degrees. With inches of snow. We could easily freeze to death. If we got lost like we did at Vedauwoo.

I had two polartec jackets and two windbreakers and a down vest. With long johns and yoga pants over them. An ear warmer and a stocking cap. Was that enough? I didn’t know, and imagined the snow coming in and trapping us and all of us making a fort under a tree and huddling together for warmth. It’s not clear which part was worse – the idea of freezing to death or … being forced to huddle with someone who doesn’t know how to make coffee.

I am not the doughtiest hiker. If it all went south, I might not be able to keep up, what if they left me behind? Or worse. After a bit, I was too tired to panic. Would I have to give up? No. Step after step. My feet sunk in. I should be looking around at the beautiful scenery. But I stared at the crunching snow and listened to myself breathing hard. I looked ahead. The trail was going up. I stare at it as if it were the path to Valhalla.

How much more would it climb?

I Was Smart Enough to Wear Wool Socks

But my duck boots are too low. And I don’t have gaiters.

The snow is as bright as diamonds. I tell myself that many people thrive on suffering and I am a person. I can make this all work for me. Really.

We rise to where the trail becomes steep. There is a makeshift hitching post here and it says “no horses beyond this point.” For a moment, I wish I had a horse, but in two feet of snow, I have to admit, it wouldn’t do much good. From here, it will be a scramble. I begin. I am tired but I figure, from the sight of a ridge no more than two or three hundred yards ahead, that the struggle will be brief. We begin to climb.

I See Joe Who Still Won’t Speak to Me

Ricardo is right behind me, Joe, the guy from Brooklyn who I met at cross county day at Happy Jack, is in front. He’s the guy who told me his wife left to “Find herself” and I said, “Oh come on that’s *so* 70’s, what really happened?” and he hasn’t really spoken to me since.

The change from hiking to skiing doesn’t signify; Joe still doesn’t speak to me. There is a steep scree of a hill covered by snow, with a few small rocks peeking out. Joe looks at it, uses his hiking poles, goes slowly, almost falls. Now he is stuck! Will someone have to help him? There’s nowhere to put his foot. Or the pole. He searches for a spot. Tries one. It slips. He has almost fallen. But wait. He tries another. It holds. He pushes on the poles, struggles up and gets over the top. Without the poles he would have been a goner.

Who Was It Who Called This Hiking Again?

I am next and I don’t have poles, of course. Scrambling up I grab the point of a boulder. Put my spiked foot down. It slips. Ricardo is behind me; if I fall I won’t fall all the way. But still. I will fall right into Ricardo’s arms. The situation is desperate. People are watching. If I fall the humiliation might … well not kill me but leave a permanent scar. How did this get called hiking anyway? No time to complain, though. I lean forward and balance my weight, finding a tiny piece of rock peeking out of the snow. That is where I put my toe snow-spike. I lean way forward. It’s a yoga position. Standing lunge. If I were to slip, or the rock were to dislodge … down I go.  That must not be allowed to happen. I am suspended, crouched low, over the rock. Pushing me center of gravity beyond the rock, I put my other foot onto a secure rock close to the edge. I lift myself over.

We Talk About Food

And Ricardo scrambles up as well. We get to the falls without too much more trouble after that. He talks as he goes. He talks about food, how not to eat food. We scramble across a sheet of ice which I realize after a bit is the frozen water of the falls. Ricardo points out a window in the ice where you can see clear water running under it. I look up the canyon. The sun shines down. I imagine the ice, warmed by the sun, releasing drops of water which slide down the hill, under the ice crust, and make a rushing stream under the ice glass window.

It Turns Out, I Don’t Have Any Food

Looking in my backpack, I forgot my Larabar. Damn. No parka, no snack. Riccardo, however, has come prepared. He opens his backpack and there are about twelve, maybe eighteen, Quaker Granola Bars in there, the kind with the caramel frosting bottom … they’re chewy and full of white sugar and probably corn syrup. I take one when it’s offered. “This is the best kind,” I say.

“I know,” he agrees.

Ricardo eats several. I want to tell him that the way to stop eating is to only bring two bars, one to eat at snack and one for emergencies, such as after the snow storm traps the hiking group and we’re all under a pine tree freezing to death. But I suspect that would be an unwelcome piece of advice. On the way down, I slide on my butt through the steep spot I climbed with so much difficulty. It’s the only way I can think of to get back down. Stan, the biologist, is right in front of me and I reason that if I lose it, I will run into him and not into the freezing water that’s under the ice in the creek.

It’s Usually Easier Going Down

Stan and I both see tracks beside the trail. He stops. I look down. They are like dog tracks, but longer, perhaps, thinner. “Fox,” I say.

“Yes,” he agrees. “Bobcat, I thought maybe, but bobcat tracks are bigger and rounder.”

I imagine a bobcat’s furry round foot that makes a big track. Do bobcats ever get cold. I don’t know but I doubt it. I’m cold, that’s for sure.

The sun glints on the snow. The moment is fixed in my mind. I crossed paths with a fox.

My hands and feet are tingling, but I ignore this.

The sun is bright. We walk down. It’s easier now. I have a hard time hiking (or climbing) up but down is easy.  But I’m cold and I have to go to the bathroom. And with all these people around, you don’t want to just duck behind a tree. You’d have to wait until they’re out of sight. But then, of course, if you’re not too fast, and I’m not, you might get lost and freeze to death before anyone could find you.

So I don’t go.

I walk down, ignoring the fact that I need to go to the bathroom.

Used Shoes Can Cause Trouble

Eventually I come across Gary, walking rather slowly. “What’s going on?” I ask.

“Oh, it’s these damn boots,” he says. “I thought I was so smart, I got them at the thrift store, they *seemed* to fit … but they don’t.”

“Were they your size?”

“No, but they felt okay … “  Later he will take the shoes off and skin peels off over the instep and the heel, from broken blisters.

We Experience Our Own Case of Lost Expedition Members

As we’re discussing the question of whether one should buy hiking shoes at REI, even though they cost a fortune there, because at REI they generally won’t sell you the wrong size, we come upon two women from our party who are waiting beside the trail.

“What’s up?”

“Well, Jenny couldn’t go on … so George took her back to the cars …. We’re waiting for him.”

Gary seems surprised. It feels, in that moment, almost like Krakauer’s story of Everest when the author, convinced someone is already at camp, is shocked when he realizes it was someone else and not his friend outside the tent. The woods are disorienting. Gary thought he had everyone hiking together, but did not realize these guys were behind us and stopped and were not finishing the hike. He tells them they should go down. And unlike the Krakauer characters, they agree. In Krakauer’s story, no one leaves the expedition voluntarily. Until they die, that is.

Gary gets these two going down the hill by pointing out that we’ll all be leaving for lunch at a barbecue spot he knows of in Estes Park.

We follow, slowly, because of Gary’s feet.

I look around the wooded valley. It’s beautiful. A gust of wind comes up. The cold front. Will we make it to the cars before it hits? Gary is hiking along looking unhappy. We are both, I reflect, uncomfortable, for different reasons. Being uncomfortable and having to go back early are both potential features of mountain hiking and mountain climbing. And really of any good adventure.

We Talk About the Past

We talk about our fathers. Both are gone. They were people we resembled, and not always in ways we liked. And both of us have made a decision to not do it Dad’s way. My father’s death marked a turning point in my life.

The mountain rises above us, clothed in sparking snow. My hands are cold, I realize, and the sun is now covered by a cloud. But then, miracle of miracles, there is the restroom! Not only can I go to the bathroom, but we’re maybe 300 yards from the cars.

Gary goes on, perhaps planning to take the boots off and put on moccasins. I go into the rest room. And when I get to the car, we get in and turn on the heater. We’re back to civilization.

At the barbecue joint I eat a half sandwich and some coleslaw and corn salad. And think about how good it feels as my hands come back to feeling again after being numb. Suffering isn’t fun in the short run, but the memory of suffering is. And what’s more, suffering brings you close to other people in ways that you can’t really ignore.

It’s like being in the army, I guess.

Five Kinds of Mountains

The guy across the table is bored. They’re talking about something – I can’t remember what … and he says “I don’t know anything about this topic.” And I ask him what he does know. And he tells me climbing. So. What about climbing? He tells me that there are five classes of mountains from ones and twos, which you can walk up, to threes which are scrambles to fours which are bouldering and actual climbs to fives, which are what he calls “technical climbs” and that means you use ropes.

I find it very hard to identify with someone who wants to swing from a rope over a cliff. But I try. “Why do you do it?” I ask.

“I like the view from the top,” he tells me.

That reminds me of Joe’s claim that his wife left to find herself – a response so trite that it’s almost laughable – but somehow I’ve learned not to be so critical. I try a different tack. “My grandfather was a climber,” I said. “He went to climb the Matterhorn in Switzerland. Maybe he wasn’t really a real climber because he had a guide and the guide cancelled the climb because the weather got ugly.”

A “Real Climber?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say you were not a real climber because you needed a guide for the Matterhorn,” he said. “What is your name?”

I have become interesting because I understand the smallest part of what he’s doing.  Looking around at the table, I feel a kind of peace that you only feel when you’ve conquered some obstacle and seen some natural glory. Or when you’ve gotten really cold outside and then you come in and they feed you hot food. We came out here to share an adventure, and to all share this awareness, that struggling forward is always, generally, the success strategy.

We are alike because somehow, we are mountain people, I muse, and I realize that, my complaining and criticizing notwithstanding, I like them all a lot. And when I like them more, I like myself more as well.

And the trip is worth it, just at the point when I reach that realization, and know I can hold on to it for the future.