Dewy night last night. Luckily I was in the trees and I somewhat escaped the brunt of it. It was a little damp inside, but not bad. My foot was an exceptional pain this morning. It took it over an hour to calm down and quit stabbing me with each step. Once it warmed up and the Ibu kicked in it was nearly pain free.
The trail started out going downhill for the first couple miles. It wasn’t really a trail, more like a five foot wide two foot deep ditch with muddy walls. Tracks of four wheelers were visible in the goo. The steepness abated and now a babbling brook on my left ran through the totally burned forest. About a mile later the trail turned uphill. The beginning of a long climb.
This is the last 12,000+ peak of the trail. Parkland Peak stands 12,296’. It’s name is appropriate as all the ridges leading to and away from it are beautiful parks of meadows. It was 3800’ of ascent over 8.5 miles. I thought I had gotten up and moving early enough to clear this peak before the thunderstorms that appear every afternoon arrived, but I was late, or rather the storm came early. I don’t think I could have gone appreciably faster had I known the sky was moving it’s time table up.
Tree line here in Colorado’s northern Rockies is about 11,000’. I cleared tree line and was climbing up through the meadows when I heard the first peal of thunder. I still had 2 miles to go and another 1300’ to climb. I knew three hikers ahead of me. I had been leap frogging them all morning, Sketch, Savage and (can’t remember). I could see them high on the ridge above me, maybe a 45 minute lead. Once above tree line the wind picked up. I couldn’t see the source of the thunder. The sound was coming from the north and I was climbing up a south facing slope. Once I crested the ridge I saw a massive storm to the north. Bolts of lightning streaking to the ground and peals of thunder. At most it was three or four miles away, but the wind appeared to be coming right toward me from its location.
I really needed to get over this mountain today. I still had about 8 miles to cover on the other side if I was to get to Steamboat Springs on Tuesday, July 5th. I decided to press on with all possible haste while keeping an eye on the angry storm. If it advanced too quickly, I’d turn around and scamper down to tree line and wait for it to pass.
I met two parties descending from the top. Seeing them above me gave me a frame of reference as to how far below the summit ridge I was. I was pretty sure I could make it up and over. Once I crested the summit ridge I still had half a mile, at 12,000’, to traverse to the real summit, plus an additional 300’ to climb. I hustled my buns, still watching and listening to the storm flash and boom. It was approaching slowly. I had picked a few landmarks in the sun to watch. They were now in the shade of the storm.
When I was just a few feet from the top I looked up to see Sketch and Savage hanging out on top. There was a building up there, about 8’x10’ with a hefty lighting rod attached. They were looking in it. I considered hunkering down in it to ride out the storm if it passed overhead, but dismissed the idea and quoted in my head the line from The Mountains Don’t Care, “We gotta get off this ridge”. I hunted for
a minute to find the trail. It went straight down the fall line, fairly steeply. I jogged down it for the first ten minutes trying to lose altitude quickly and get to tree line. I think Sketch and Savage thought I was crazy or a chicken, but they were not too far behind me. Once off the main summit block and on the ridge I sat in the meadow to let my legs recover and to get a drink of water. The storm was veering to the east, missing the peak, but it’s flashes and thunder continued. That was fun!
I still had a mile or two of ridge to walk, so I kept an eye on the weather as I did. It looked settled so I got a bite to eat and called Andy about finding a room in Steamboat Springs through his friend Ross who works for a huge hotel chain. Word came back it wasn’t going to work.
I covered the next six miles or so. I was out of water now and quite thirsty. The nearest water on the trail was just under four miles away. I drank a liter while at the creek, then loaded a liter in my pack. My intention was to camp 0.1 miles short of the next water source, about 2 miles away. When about 0.3 miles away the sky started booming again, like once every 15 seconds. I found a perfect little place to set up my tent, did so and crawled inside just as the rain started. I only had a liter of water for the night, that includes making dinner. I told myself I would walk the two tenths of a mile when the rain stopped . . . but I didn’t. I made do with one liter. Knowing the next water was only 0.2 miles away in the morning was a comfort.
I watched episode 8 of Stranger Things while eating dinner. I wrote a little, but couldn’t concentrate so I rolled over and went to sleep. Exciting and difficult day.
The thunderstorm to the north taken from my position on the trail leading up to the summit ridge. I tried to time my photo to catch a flash of lightning, but no luck. I wanted to keep moving.
A 90° panorama shot showing the ridge run to the summit and the storm off to my right.
Down in the meadows nearer to tree line looking back up at the summit (center of photo) and the summit ridge to its left.
I thought I had made it out of the RMNP fire of 2020 but I was back in it traversing to my much needed water source. Such devastation.
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