Read the Beforeitsnews.com story here. Advertise at Before It's News here.
Profile image
By Frosty Wooldridge (Reporter)
Contributor profile | More stories
Story Views
Now:
Last hour:
Last 24 hours:
Total:

WILD FLOWERS IN THE MIST: A MOUNTAIN CLIMBING ADVENTURE

% of readers think this story is Fact. Add your two cents.


By Frosty Wooldridge

Mountain mist offers magic, especially at 14,000 feet, where nature pampers itself with waterfalls, rocks, trees, and wildflowers.  The mountain mists await, so let’s hoist that heavy pack onto our shoulders and tread into the mountain throne-room of the wilderness.

(Durango-Silverton coalfired locomotive letting off steam along the Animas River heading into the mountains.)

The door bell rang at 6:15 a.m. and who should be there but my friend Jack—bright eyed and bushy-tailed.  In the front room, I finished the last of my packing.  “Heavy” defined my backpack, but “excitement” awaited us on this grand adventure.

We talked about climbing three of Colorado’s Needle Mountains in the early spring.  A train ride on the Durango/Silverton narrow gauge railroad into the San Juan Mountain range would dispatch us into some rugged wilderness where cool winds whisper through tall pines and the white music from cascading waters frolics across mountain meadows.

I threw my gear into Jack’s car and we sped off at night fall.  We talked about philosophy for the next six hours before we stopped to see a  heavy meteor shower lacerating the night sky.  “Yow!” and “Hey, look at that one!” and “Wow, over there;” shouting match, and lots of  laughter at seeing the white hot meteor tails fizzling out in the evening sky.

The ride from Montrose down the Million Dollar Highway offered unending curves.  We watched the dark mountain peaks as if they were monster waves lapping at the night sky.  No end to my fascination  for these mountains that I love to see and climb!      It continues as a lifetime romance.      We arrived in Durango and hit the sack for three hours.

We leaped out of bed at 7:00 a.m. with our eyeballs dragging off the sheet covers.  Nothing like a few hours of sleep to drain the energy out of your body.  At the market, we bought fruits and veggies.  Moments later, we parked the car, cinched our backpacks and walked over to the train.

Quite a sight, the old steam locomotive.  Its black engine belched smoke out the stack and steam released from the valves like a teapot in the morning.  It made us feel good, and a bit old fashioned with a slower pace to match our spirits.

(Climbing along one of the many raging white water streams cascading out of the snowfields at the higher elevations.)

The brakeman heaved our packs into the boxcar and moments later, the “clang, clang, clang” of the engineer signaled the crunching, jerking start of the journey to the drop-off point near Needleton.   The shrill whistle blast split the morning air as people waved from the sidewalks.

The whistle blew that lonesome call to adventure that I’ve heard around this planet many times, and once again, I charged off with a dear friend on a new journey.

People waved from intersections and gravel road crossings as our train chugged toward the mountains.  The cars jostled back and forth in a rhythm that settled well into my soul.  It didn’t take long for the train to grind into steep climbs which carried us into a deep canyon along the Arkansas River.  At one moment, we rode beside white water and watched the  swirling currents crashing over the rocks, and the next, we soared high above the water that reflected blue/green far below us.  Everyone snapped pictures of themselves and the scenery.  Selfie heaven!  The view up the canyon showed us needle pointed peaks and barren cliff walls.  Always, the rushing water  of  the river sounded steady and peaceful.

Two hours into the trip, we stopped at Needleton where we grabbed our gear and walked over a narrow footbridge–gave each other a ‘high five’ and headed into the wilderness along a dirt trail.  Tall pines and undergrowth allowed no views of the high peaks, but their presents seemed  to vibrate around us.  We reached a river that was our constant companion for the next four hours.

The trail cut through the deep woods where wild flowers bloomed sporadically yellow, red/orange Paintbrush, golden daisies, purple/blue Columbine and deep crimson lilies.

Jack, ever the speedier hiker, vanished into the woods ahead.  I came upon him when he stopped near a waterfall where a footbridge crossed a rampaging river.  We stopped for pictures and a few pieces of fruit.

The climb steepened and I creaked under the weight of my pack but as always, each foot-fall, however labored, brought me nearer to the top. 

My mental state fascinates me when I labor hard to climb a mountain with a heavy pack.  It’s hard work, yet I bear the burden with a smile.

(Relaxing on the rocks by one of the glacial lakes created by snowmelt and jammed up rock dams inside Chicago Basin.)

I breathed deeply and relished deliciously clear air.  The stillness calmed my soul.   It makes me wonder at these times why I’m not a forest ranger.  I’d be happier at my work and healthier with my body.    But, I’m working at something that will release me into adventure mode soon enough.

Two and one half hours into the canyon, the forest opened into a huge panorama of cliffs on my right and a large waterfall on the river below me.  Above, snow dotted the tundra in patches while rock slides cascaded  everywhere.  I stopped to watch a marmot on a rock that stared at me.

After five minutes, he decided to skedaddle and I pulled on my heavy pack for my continued journey.

Crossing a newly formed avalanche chute, I witnessed where 15 inch pines by the hundreds had been snapped at the base and swept along in a violent river of snow.  It’s an awesome feeling walking in the wake of something so powerful that had occurred only a few months earlier.

Into the woods again, the climb steepened until I broke through a meadow where a riot of wild flowers glistened with dewdrops reflected in the sun.  A small stream cut through the verdant field.  Colors!

I danced among endless flowers.  Grand!  I snapped a dozen pictures.  Fun! Fun! Fun!

On the other side of this flower meadow, I met with Jack who had chosen a nice spot seven miles into the valley in a pine grove overlooking a river. Above us, raging waterfalls roared down the rock faces of the high mountains surrounding us.  Through the evening light, more wild flowers waved in the breeze that sifted through the valley.

We cooked two pots of food and laughed at our good fortune.  Near dusk, the high ridges near the 14′ers lit up with the last light of the day.  It gave a roller coaster light affect to the highest rock faces. 

The sun set, which quickly turned the peaks to dark profiles butting up against the night sky.

I sat on a rock, watching the stars come out one by one when Jack came up to talk.  He reclined on a rock ledge where I joined him.

(Summitting the peak with a storm racing toward us.)

The meteor shower continued with white streaks crisscrossing the sky like fireworks on the fourth of July.  It  soothed our spirits to see this show while lying on our backs among the towering pines.  We both stared up at the million twinkling stars and I recited my “Star Poem” that I wrote many years ago.  We talked about everything and nothing like two friends might do when they spend time together.

We retired to our tents.

A cool wind blew gray wisps up the valley in the morning. A soft rain during the night cleansed the morning air which caused me to jump out of my bag and into my sweater and Gortex jacket to fend from the cold.

We cooked up some oatmeal and  sliced a banana over the top. Oh, what a way to warm the body on a crisp morning.

We packed our gear, hung the main packs in trees so marmots wouldn’t chew them up and proceeded up a steep climb beside a waterfall. Dense undergrowth replete with wildflowers brought colors to our eyes.  Waterfalls converged on us from every visual angle.  The shelves of snow provided their sources and the valley filled with white music.

I call it white music created by a constant melody of splashing more fascinating than human music.  White music can be heard—and even more refreshing, seen at the same time.  This renders the listener with not only pleasant sound, but even more spectacular sight—to immerse the spirit in the harmonics of nature.

My friend John Muir said, “Camp out among the grass and gentians of glacier meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of Nature’s darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.” 

(Mountain mist engulfs the high peaks.)

As Muir said, it’s a satori experience at the seventh level.

We broke through the 12,000 foot tree line and climbed ever higher into the flower-speckled alpine tundra.

Above us, Rocky Mountain sheep traversed along a trail near the rock line where grasses stopped growing.  We listened for “peek peek” chirp of Pica rodents and watched a couple of marmots chase each other.  In the needle peaks above us, clouds enshrouded the gray giants, and as quickly released them for our visual pleasure. Nature played a game of hide and seek on a grand scale.

We marched up a steep incline beside a thrashing white water stream when a bolt of lightning ripped across the valley. We dove for cover.  Jack found a small overhang above us and we made our way toward it as the storm swept across the valley.

We propped ourselves against the rock with our jackets protecting us from the wind.  The rain fell in plunging sheets across the valley, which changed from several miles visibility to less than 100 yards.  Soon, hail pelted us.  Now that’s a lot of fun when you’re going for a 14′er climb and you get the hell frightened out of you by thunder and then nature sends you a few lighting bolts to keep you on the straight and narrow, and then, to really keep you straight, a few million marble sized hail stones will keep you humble.  I just love it.  I remember John  Muir, my idol, climbing a tree once, and he rode out a summer storm in its topmost branches in Yosemite.  He wanted to feel what the tree was feeling throughout the storm.   I love doing that, too.

(Wildflowers raging across the green tundra in Chicago Basin.)

After the storm passed, pristine clarity wafted over the valley which only happens when rain scrubs the air.  Our climb brought us to a second plateau in the valley.  To our left, a grassy incline reached up to vertical rock walls that poked into the sky.  On our right, three sharply pointed mountain massifs struck like daggers into the mist. In front, two turquoise lakes, one with an iceberg floating in it,  reflected the snow and mountains in a perfect mirror image.

Again, we ascended a steep wall broken rock, which carried us to a large saddle that overlooked the valley we had packed up the previous day.  Ours was an eagle’s view at: 13,000 feet.  A rock mountain like tall skyscrapers of broken glass boulders loomed before us.  Below, the eternal white water from waterfalls lined the valley like throbbing silver earrings on a movie star’s ears.   But in this case, more sensual in a natural way.      The river formed under the falls converged in the middle of valley and cut a sparkly path through the dense green tundra.

Wildflower patches in burgundy and white, and dashed with yellow/purple, spread out across the rocky terrain, and grew in places that seemed impossible.     Scanning upward,   the  trees changed from golf course green tundra that faded into gray rock–in turn swept dramatically upward to sheer rock cliffs that vanished in the mist.   We climbed in a natural Coliseum.     They call them the Needle Mountains because their sharp projections stand like porcupine quills against the sky.

Minutes later, we resumed our climb through treacherous broken rock.  We moved into the gray mist at 13,500 feet where I watched every footfall. 

The air breathed clean and the mist felt as heavy as a San Francisco fog at night.  Our visibility ranged less than 50 feet and the rock we climbed on gave us our only assurance of being attached to the planet because on our left: gray nothingness.

It’s a mental experience when I  get to this part of the  climb.  I measure each footfall, every rock calculated for safety, every breath felt in my heaving lungs—life rushing into my blood and spreading throughout my body, and an awareness of my heart pounding and a consciousness of being alive.  During such a climb, I live a spectacular life filled with no ordinary moments. When satori takes over, when I create my life, each moment—where I am responsible for what I am, what I am doing and what I want.  I create a living spirit sculptor in my spirit and that spirit moves through me and upward on this mountain.  It becomes a negative ion nirvana high! In this high mountain rampart, life mingles with death.  To top it off in the shadowy recesses of  this dark mist, I must make distinct judgments of where I will place my foot, how and what  I grasp to keep me in touch with the rock—for any mistake would send me flying down the mountain without the use of wings.

Surely it would be a one-way flight with a terminal landing.

(Hiking through snowfields on our way to the top.)

It is this day I will remember with my friend Jack—for we lived it deeply.  Not routine, not dull and not ordinary.  We lived a peak experience on a mountain in Colorado.  Our toughest climb to date.

Nearing the top, the rocks steepened into columns, like needles piercing the sky.  We saw only oblong shaped dark rock or the mist, which swept around us everywhere.  Finally, in the grayness, we reached the top at 1:10 P.M. We saw the little silver medallion mark the top with the tube for signing our names.  Cold!  We breathed inside a cloud.

It’s amazing that when I look up at the clouds, they prove so beautiful with puffs and billows surrounding the peaks, but when I climb to the top, and become part of the beauty which I saw—it turns to gray, damp and cold mist.

That adage about grass being greener on the other side: certainly questionable.  The greenest grass grows where I choose to be now.   So, in fact, I stood in the grayest, cleanest, cloud formation this day and I felt the wonder.  We summited Windom Mountain at 14,082 feet.

Jack wanted to get off the mountain, but I insisted on pictures.  I stepped back to the top of one rock and looked down for a moment.  Holy bat dung Batman! It dropped vertically more than a hundred feet down from where I could see and then into gray mist, so I presumed another 2,000 feet could be the bottom.  Thankfully, no gust of wind to sweep me off my  feet and over the edge.

Moments later, we scampered down the mountains very carefully. About  800 feet down, we saw glimpses of Sunlight Mountain, our next quest.  Explorers named it that because of the rock needle projections at its peak cause shadows and streams of light to pour down into the valley almost like sunlight through the skyscrapers of a large city like New York.   We crossed over a snowfield, dotted with boulders and we heard rushing waters muffled below the surface. 

Our world consisted of rock, ice, water and sky.  Made me wonder what the marmots and picas survived?

We headed up a red couloir toward the summit.  A number of watermelon sized boulders dislodged in the scree so we decided to climb on opposite  sides.  It’s really tricky trying to dodge a 300-pound boulder plummeting downward at you .

(Old mining tunnel blocked up with dirt and snowmelt cascading down across the entrance.)

We were within 100 yards of the summit when lightning cracked the sky and hail pelted us.   We jumped for cover.    Jack told me that lightning travels 13 miles horizontally so we needed to keep our ice axes close to the ground—so as not to attract nine million volts of  electricity which would have turned us into a couple of vegetarian shiskabobs. (I only eat vegetables, so does that mean I am meat or a vegetable?)     We almost reached the top, but the danger became to great.

That became a mind bender in itself—to be so close to the top of a 14′er only to turn back down the mountain.  Jack sensed my disappointment, but in fact I felt more respect toward him.  I know he wanted it as much as I did, but his hands numbed up, and even more importantly, his wife and kids awaited his return.

Down that mountain we slipped, on scree and rock.  We pushed into the snowfields and over the rivers.  At one point we walked on the water…no, rocks just under the very shallow water allowed us to walk without getting wet.  Again, the peaks grew higher and higher as we hiked down. We walked into the bottom of an immense mixing bowl—strewn with boulders the size of Volkswagens and patches of snow ten feet deep and crystal clear tundra ponds.

Near the end of the valley, we looked down a crevasse with white water exploding from every crack.  A multi-layered waterfall kept us in rapt attention with its wonderment.  Below, the twin lakes with the iceberg came into view.  Near my foot, a tiny, and I mean tiny, patch of purple wildflowers resembling a pincushion.  How? Why? For Whom?  Jack and me, of course!  We enjoyed a fantastic day of seeing wildflowers in the mist.

We made camp at sunset.  The valley filled with white music as we cooked our rice and lentils along with fresh tomatoes.  Wonderful dinner with bread!  Ah, night sky and sleep, about twelve hours of it. 

Next day, overcast, dreary and rainy.  No climbing for us. Jack took off early, but I decided to stay and write. It fetl heavenly savoring the last few hours of that day to enjoy writing and quiet in the middle of the wilderness.  I reclined in my tent and sponged as  much relaxation as humanly possible.

(Packpacking into the wildflowers of the mist in Chicago Basin.)

By 12:00 noon, time to get moving.  I packed the tent as a new storm rolled up the valley.  The wildflowers rustled in the breeze. Soon, rains swept toward me.  I packed the remainder of my gear and picked up the campsite.  It felt as if I had not been there and that spot waxed into a dream.  I marched back down the valley into the teeth of swirling clouds and pelting rains.  Lightning struck intermittently.  I hiked close to tall pines on my way across the meadow of wildflowers.  At one point, just before the rain hit me, I grabbed my tripod and camera and took a picture of me looking back up the valley.  That was the way I liked it, being out in that storm, like John Muir in the tree. 

After the camera snapped the picture, I stuffed it into my pack. I looked back at the valley, with mist in my eyes, and cried out in the storm, “I’ll be back, and I’ll see you at the top.”

No ordinary moment in my life.  I turned around, surrounded by a rainbow of colorful wildflowers, and headed into the mist.

                                                                             The End

Frosty Wooldridge
Golden, CO

Www.HowToLiveALifeOfAdventure.com

Www.frostywooldridge.com

Six continent world bicycle traveler

Speaker/writer/adventurer

Adventure book: How to Live a Life of Adventure: The Art of Exploring the World

Frosty Wooldridge, six continent world bicycle traveler, Canada to Mexico summer 2014, 2,200 miles, 100,000 vertical feet of climbing:

(Just barely holding on to make it to the summit of 14,000 foot peak.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

 



Before It’s News® is a community of individuals who report on what’s going on around them, from all around the world.

Anyone can join.
Anyone can contribute.
Anyone can become informed about their world.

"United We Stand" Click Here To Create Your Personal Citizen Journalist Account Today, Be Sure To Invite Your Friends.

Please Help Support BeforeitsNews by trying our Natural Health Products below!


Order by Phone at 888-809-8385 or online at https://mitocopper.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST

Order by Phone at 866-388-7003 or online at https://www.herbanomic.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST

Order by Phone at 866-388-7003 or online at https://www.herbanomics.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST


Humic & Fulvic Trace Minerals Complex - Nature's most important supplement! Vivid Dreams again!

HNEX HydroNano EXtracellular Water - Improve immune system health and reduce inflammation.

Ultimate Clinical Potency Curcumin - Natural pain relief, reduce inflammation and so much more.

MitoCopper - Bioavailable Copper destroys pathogens and gives you more energy. (See Blood Video)

Oxy Powder - Natural Colon Cleanser!  Cleans out toxic buildup with oxygen!

Nascent Iodine - Promotes detoxification, mental focus and thyroid health.

Smart Meter Cover -  Reduces Smart Meter radiation by 96%! (See Video).

Report abuse

    Comments

    Your Comments
    Question   Razz  Sad   Evil  Exclaim  Smile  Redface  Biggrin  Surprised  Eek   Confused   Cool  LOL   Mad   Twisted  Rolleyes   Wink  Idea  Arrow  Neutral  Cry   Mr. Green

    MOST RECENT
    Load more ...

    SignUp

    Login

    Newsletter

    Email this story
    Email this story

    If you really want to ban this commenter, please write down the reason:

    If you really want to disable all recommended stories, click on OK button. After that, you will be redirect to your options page.