Indisposed. Still riding the wave of excitement after watching the eclipse and seeing a moose, Torrey and I gathered our gear together and got to our first backcountry trailhead, where we planned to spend the next three days hiking and camping around the extreme northern edge of Rocky Mountain National Park. After a quick lunch where we tried to let the fact that we were finally actually doing this set in, we began! Our trail took us through a forest full of firs, spruce, and pines, winding along the baby Colorado River as it rushed from its headwaters towards the soaring red rock towers in the desert not far away. We kept an easy pace, trying to capitalize on the energy we were being fed from just being in the mountains again. It wasn't long before we came to our first check point at Lulu City, where a mining town once thrived. Now only the shell of a few log cabins remain, the rest reclaimed by the forest or torn apart by repurposing humans.
We crossed Colorado River over a log bridge not far after Lulu City, and it became obvious almost immediately that we were in for a tough hike. We were more than halfway to our first campsite at Skeleton Gulch, but the remainder of the trail was steep. Like, one wrong step and we would go tumbling back down the trail until we could stop ourselves or we hit the river. On most of the trails I've hiked this type of pitch is usally tackled by switchbacks. You know, those hated things that make you zigzag up a cliff or mountain or hill and make it seem like you're not gaining any ground but in reality they are helping you not have to take an incline head on. Yeah, this trail didn't have those. At most the trail curved around a giant boulder or a thick stand of trees, but that was about it. Every once in a while an erosion dam popped out of the earth in front of your feet, but that was about it as far as breaks went. I'll never bad-talk switchbacks again.
I used to pride myself on how well my body seemed to handle altitude. Growing up we would come to the mountains as a family often, just to get away for school breaks or long weekends, and I never felt the headaches or shortness of breath, the increased heart rate or the stomache cramps, those traits of altitude sickness. Last year when Torrey and I came up for Pike's Peak and our roadtrip around Colorado I really only got a headache, and that was at the very tippy top of a 14,000+ foot mountain. This year? A totally different story. Yes, I dealt with a little bit of altitude sickness at Pike's Peak, but I thought that would be the end of it, my body would adjust, and I'd be fine for the rest of the week. I was also very, very wrong. Our first day of hiking in the mountains, loaded down with a heavy pack and trying to make it up a steep incline, almost did me in. My stomach was cramping so bad I was hunching over, which made it even more difficult to breath because my pack straps were restricting my lung expansion. I was having to stop more and more frequently, and at some points I was nearly in tears. What the hell was wrong with me??
I was too sick to even be relieved when we finally made it to camp, but forced myself to pay attention to things like the slope of the camp area, dead trees above us, and other basic backcountry safety. I was already miserable enough without adding to my problems. Torrey and I set up, with me trying to move as little as possible, and made sure we followed the bear safety rules about putting your bear canister (required in the park) at least seventy steps or two hundred feet away from your camp area. I tried to walk around and take pictures of our camp, the stream, and the meadow next to us, but felt worse and worse the more I walked around. I was also shivering, although it wasn't all that cold, maybe in the 60s, and that in itself was enough to tell me that my body had had enough. I don't get cold that easily (I may live in Texas now, but remember I'm from Nebraska and I know what winter is) and when I start to shiver in nice weather its a good indication that something is wrong.
The sun had dipped behind the high mountains next to us, but hadn't set for the night yet, so I pulled on every single layer of clothing I had brought with me and tried to tough it out, wanting to relish the fact that we were finally back in the mountains even though I felt like shit. It wasn't long before I gave in, apologizing to Torrey and explaining that there was no way I would be able to keep dinner down, before burrowing into my sleeping bag and trying not to throw up all over the inside of our tent. At one point Torrey grabbed some medicine for me out of the bear canister and it helped a little bit, enough to send me floating off into sleep. Not long after, she joined me in the tent and as we settled in for the night we heard the distinctive cracking of branches down towards our bear canister. I was on the edge of a dream but Torrey's sudden stillness brought me sharply back to the present, and we heard it again. We had to ask each other if we had heard it, not wanting to admit fear of the unknown was making it up in our own heads, and a few minutes of intent listening convinced me it was the sound of hooves making their way towards the neighboring meadow. Nothing bothered us, anyway, and that was really all I cared about. I turned over and burrowed back down into my sleeping bag, hoping I would feel better in the morning as I drifted off to sleep.
Did you miss the first post of my Rocky Mountain Adventures? Read it here!
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