Human Powered Sopris

Sunday, August 6^th, the Prince Creek Crawl

-       Emily and I set off late afternoon on our bikes with tires bulging under the pressure of over a hundred pounds of crazy Canadian and two nights worth of supplies. To add to the adventure, my bike had only two gears since the rear derailleur gave up on me. Gear #1 was a.k.a. “gear difficult”, and Gear #2 was a.k.a. “the useless/too difficult-to-be-practical gear.”  

-       We wheeled up Prince Creek Rd southeast of Carbondale, Colorado and arrived at a designated camping area early evening as a light rain and thunderclouds occupied the sky. Arriving at the site was a special relief for us as the muscular fatigue from the previous day’s 14-miler proved to add to the challenge of dragging ass, limb and pack up the washboard-ridden road beneath us.

-       Despite forgetting the curry for kedgeree, the fish, egg, rice and onion mash tasted fairly amazing. The “beer” on the other hand, tasted more like apple cider. The rest of the evening consisted of washing dishes in the creek, sharing the second beer (a darker brew that actually tasted like beer) and getting ready to turn in for the night. With heavy eyelids, I read Emily a piece from Trail Runner Magazine’s July issue about Nicholas Triolo’s traverse of the Cordillera Huaywash route in the Peruvian Andes. “Andes”, according to the Triolo comes from the Quechua word anti meaning “high crest.” However, according to both Wikipedia and Glosbe’s Quechua-English dictionary, anti means either “of or pertaining to the Andes” or “east” and seems to have nothing whatsoever to do with “crests”, high or not.  

Monday, August 7^th, Journey to Thomas Lakes

-       We woke up to a beautiful Colorado sunrise, transported the breakfast supplies out to a sunny spot around the corner and boiled water for coffee. After the coffee preparation and consumption, the porridge concoction took its turn on the noisy camping stove. The porridge, apple, cinnamon mix was its usual mushy, heavenly morning meal. 

-       Off we went up the road with big bags and a full day ahead of us. We followed the road up until a crossroad at the crest. Left would descend to the old Emma schoolhouse and church, and right would take us to trailhead. I waited for Emily under a small bush at the mouth of the Dinkle Lake Rd and took out the running magazine and began reading the piece on Michael Wardian, a well-known, all-around running extraordinaire. My progress was interrupted by a sweaty, thirsty Emily chugging up the last bit of the hill approaching the crossroad. We sat down together to have water and a coffee-oatmeal cookie in the shade of the small shrub behind us.

-       The rest of the trip up the road consisted of short breaks to rest the legs, checking out the view both behind and before us, and marvelling at the apparently unusual lack of cattle. Upon reaching the trailhead, we locked our bikes to the fence enclosing the parking lot and set off on foot under the toasty sunny sky. We registered our adventure on a permit slip at the trailhead and continued up a path that would lead us through first a primarily spruce-covered forest, then through what looked like an old aspen-forest burn site, which was quite exposed, and then up through an aspen/mixed conifer wood that stretched all the way to Thomas Lakes. About a half-mile from the lakes, we stopped at a small creek for a water break. The creek crossing sat above an incredible meadow abundant with a purple, daisy-looking flower called the violet aster.

-       After reaching the campsite and dumping our bags, we trekked along with coffee and cookie in hand to enjoy them ashore the third, and largest, of the three Thomas Lakes. The swimming experience in this lake was surprisingly warm, likely due to its shallow nature.

-       We soon made our way to a suitable supper location near the second largest of the lakes to read and build anticipation for our 5 o’clock beer. Beer slurped, pasta downed and deep content filling the mental space, we slowly made our way to the orange nylon den after a good pot scrub. 

Tuesday, August 8^th. Sunny Sopris and the descent back to Carbondale.

-       Laces tucked, cookies slowly crumbling in our packs, and excitement growing to scale the chunk of stone ahead, Emily and I trotted along the trail to the summit. 

-    On our way to the summit, I struck up a chat with a man who called himself Kim Miller, a climber and executive employee for Scarpa. He seemed like a really neat guy, likely full of wild climbing stories. He knew Emily’s bosses at Trail Runner and asked her to pass along a greeting. 

     Atop the first of the two peaks (both of which are the same height), the view of the Elk Mountains, Capitol in particular, was incredible. Although Sopris is not particularly close to these mountains, gazing upon Capitol’s northwest flank was a special sight for sweaty eyes nonetheless. 

-       We then attempted running over to the first bump of the second peak, but it soon slowed to an awkward spider walk over the intimidating talus-like rock chunks forming the path.

The mountain behind us, the bushes ahead, 

we ran on down with legs fairly dead. 

We packed up our tent, ate lunch thereafter, 

and began to hike on with fatigue and some laughter. 

Down to the fence that kept our bikes, 

we walked and stomped to complete the hike. 

Then came the cruise to town below,

 but as Emily feared the downhill the descent was quite slow. 

“My breaks are sketchy, I don’t trust them one bit! 

These washboards, these loose rocks, I’ll have none of it!” 

“No worries, my dear. Better safe than be ditched. 

We’ll get there in no time, we’ll be home in a stitch!” 

Finally home and food on the mind, 

we’re stoked on the adventure we managed to find. 

Up the dirt road, up the mountain, past lakes and wildflowers, 

we went up Mount Sopris with just human power.