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Photo by Kit Dunsmore
Last weekend, we intended to spend four nights camping in the Snowy Mountains near Medicine Bow Peak with friends. We picked an easy loop hike that would allow us to backpack in, camp for a few nights in one spot, and do interesting day hikes on side trails. One of the advantages of our choice was being able to start at high altitude, so that the hiking itself wasn’t all that strenuous. Unfortunately, things did not go as planned.
The hiking itself was as intended – exercise, but not the backbreaking slogging that can go with climbing endless trails with a pack when you’re not really in shape to begin with. However, the area we picked for our first camp spot turned out much wetter than we realized. (There was a little “marshland” symbol on the map, but none of us noticed that…!). We were attacked by swarms of mosquitoes that made cooking and eating dinner so unpleasant that the teenagers with us were happy to forgo dessert in order to retreat into their tent.
Molly and Sarah before the Bugs. (Photo by Dana Geary)
Photo by Dana Geary
We did have a net tent that we set up and used as a place to get a break from the mosquitoes. Even the dog learned the joy of being able to go into this shelter and get away from them.
The next morning wasn’t as bad, though it was still buggy. The girls did not want to stay out another night, so we packed up and hiked the rest of the loop to get back to the car. The day started well but it rained heavily all afternoon, making the last few hours of the hike cold and wet.
This picture of me only hints at how wet I was. I'm not wearing my hat because it was soaked through. (Photo by Dana Geary)
It's still raining, and one of the signs they are sitting by gave us the cheery news that we had almost 4 more miles to go. (Photo by Dana Geary)
Remarkably, the scenery was still gorgeous. If it hadn’t been raining so hard, I’d have taken endless pictures. There were some things (like flowers) that I just couldn’t resist.
Photo by Dana Geary
It was hard to get good pictures at all with the low light, but Dana got a couple that really captured the beauty of the place. I imagine the rainy part of our hike might be easily replicated in parts of Scotland (although I’m not so sure you would see snow…)
Photo by Dana Geary
We saw a little wildlife and lots of wildflowers.
A pine grosbeak that hung out with us in the parking lot. (Photo by Dana Geary)
Columbines (Photo by Kit Dunsmore)
Photo by Kit Dunsmore
I am dying to go back and stay longer, and I think we now have a better idea of which sections of the trail are likely to provide better camp sites. Maybe Kurt and I will head back up there before the year is out. He bought a Wyoming fishing license but didn’t get to use it.
More of my photos from this trip can be found on my Facebook page.
During the first week in October last year, Kurt and I took a driving tour with his parents. We stayed in Durango at the old but opulent Strater Hotel.
The Strater Hotel
Our reason for going to Durango was the narrow gauge train that runs between Durango and Silverton. Jean had heard about it and was interested in taking the trip. It’s about a four hour ride through the Animas River Canyon and turned out to be well worth the time and money. We were in the Vista, the only car with a glass roof. It’s well back in the train, but we still got our share of ashes from the engine smoke.
Kurt with his parents, Jean and Carroll
The scenery was glorious. We had excellent weather, chilly at first, but sunny most of the way. While the majority of the trees were coniferous, there were golden aspens to brighten things up. The river itself grew greener the farther we went up the canyon.
The Animas River from the train
The train wound back and forth and we were able to take pictures of the front of the train from our carriage near the rear.
Silverton turned out to be a tiny town with wide dirt streets and a plethora of restaurants and gift shops. We had lunch at a cafe, then caught the bus back down to Durango. The drive takes about an hour, but it doesn’t get the kind of views we got from the train.
This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived
As freezing persons recollect
The snow -
First chill, then stupor, then
The letting go.
–Emily Dickinson
Research is good for me. It’s leading me to books I would never even look at normally and Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead is one of these. In this case I feel like I’ve found a treasure, or rather, met an extraordinary person.
First: why this book? I’ve got a character in a novel whose wife is kidnapped and killed about ten years before the book starts. I wanted to find out what it is like for the survivors of such a tragedy, and checked out of the library a variety of crime books, most of which were too violent for me to read. Then I had a brain storm. The famous kidnapping of the Lindbergh’s baby in 1932 is the kind of event I’m interested in, and also a story that isn’t too horrific for me to deal with. I found out that Anne Morrow Lindbergh published her letters and diaries in a series of books that included the key years – leading up to the kidnapping, covering the kidnapping and discovery of her son’s body, and the prosecution and conviction of the criminal. So I started with Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead, which covers the years 1929-1932. I wanted to have a sense of who this woman was before I got to the events I am interested in, so I started at the beginning of the book. Am I ever glad I did.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh was a charming young woman who lived an extraordinary life. She traveled with her husband, the famous pilot Charles Lindbergh, all over the world, mapping potential flight routes and promoting commerical air travel when it was in its infancy. Anne loved flying. She was both a pilot and a radio operator. She was also enchanted by the many places they visited on their long tours; included in this book are descriptions of a tour of South America and another of the Orient.
Not everything was wonderful, however. The Lindberghs were news, big news, and the American press hounded them constantly. They could not go out into public without being accosted and the press would often follow them to the retreats they had hoped would stay private. Charles schooled Anne in how to evade questions and give noncommital answers, and she complained more than once of having to be reserved even in her writing for secrecy’s sake. This fame would lead to the kidnapping of their baby.
In 1930, Anne bore their first son. Charles, Jr. was often on Anne’s mind, even when they were on opposite sides of the world from each other. Knowing that her son was taken from her, I was sensitive to her concerns about him. More than once, she begged a trusted relative to stay with Charles, Jr., because she was afraid the press would take advantage of the Lindberghs’ absence and of their staff’s inexperience with reporters. Six months before her son disappeared, Anne quoted a poem she heard in China, written by a mother about her dead son. If thus was fiction, these little touches would seem like artistic foreshadowing. Unfortunately, they are real, and they make the reader aware just how much Anne loved her son and feared for him. When tragedy finally strikes, her tortured hopes and loss of faith in the world are all the more poignant to the reader.
Anne’s diary entries and letters from the disappearance of her baby on March 1, 1932 to the end of that year expose the full range of emotions she experienced, and the many conflicting thoughts. Their second son, Jon, was born on August 15th and Anne experienced a wonderful, though brief, return of her faith in the world. She realized even before his birth that Jon could never erase her memories of Charlie, but that he would give her new experiences as a mother. She respected Jon as an individual even in his earliest days. Whenever memories of Charlie caused Anne to panic about keeping Jon safe, she always reminded herself she must not let her terror negatively affect Jon’s life.
The next book is Locked Rooms and Open Doors (1933-35) which will include the capture and trial of the man who killed Charlie Lindbergh, which is the rest of the reading I need to do for my novel. I’ve decided to go back and read Bring Me a Unicorn (1922-28) as well. My interest in Anne is now much more than academic and I can’t wait to read her observations and thoughts about meeting and falling in love with Charles Lindbergh. It’s not on my official list of topics to research, but she is too special to abandon without hearing her whole story.
For the second half of our visit to Utah, we planned on taking a short backpacking trip. It took us quite a while to figure out just where we were going to go, but in the end we agreed on Pleasant Creek in Capitol Reef National Park, which is a glorious place that I had never heard of before.
Kit and Kelleen hiking along Pleasant Creek
Pleasant Creek runs through a canyon that is neither as high nor as wide as Horseshoe Canyon. This canyon felt more intimate and isolated. Even the trail we were hiking wasn’t a groomed trail. We wanted some back country time and this was it. We hiked along a clear, active stream, something we hadn’t seen much of in our end-of-summer travels.
Pleasant Creek
Unfortunately, we have very few pictures from this part of the trip. The creek, while pretty, turned out to be rather hazardous as well. The canyon’s narrowness meant that the meandering stream would butt right up against one canyon wall and then twist it’s way over to the other side. It was impossible to stay on one side of the creek for very long, and we began to cross the running water over and over again.
It seems silly now that I was so worried about getting my boots wet. Balancing on rocks with a pack on my back turned out to be a real trick. With each crossing, I seemed to have more trouble than less. When Kelleen fell into the creek and was pinned down by her pack, we all became more wary of the rocky path we were following. Except for a skinned hand and some bruises, Kelleen was all right. We had covered about two miles so, after a break, we went on.
Another accident happened at the next stream crossing. We had all made it safely across the water. Kurt had managed to scramble up the steep bank, but I was looking for an easier way out of the stream bed. Kelleen started to climb the bank which was at least five feet high. The rock under one of her feet gave way, and she shifted her weight only to have the ground under the other foot collapse as well. To keep from falling, she caught hold of a woody shrub just above her head with her right hand. The combined weight of her backpack and body yanked on her arm so hard that she dislocated her shoulder. Of course, none of us really knew what was wrong with her at first, but by the time we got to the park’s visitor center and dialed 911, we had guessed.
We sat by the creek for half an hour, waiting to see if Kelleen would start to feel better, and trying to decide what to do. In the end, Kurt took Kelleen’s pack and his own and hightailed it back to the car (he got quite a workout). We rigged up a sling using Kurt’s long-sleeved shirt, and Kelleen and I took our time retracing our steps.
With one arm strapped to her side, Kelleen felt unsteady and was cautious. On our way back, we just waded through the stream at the lowest point we could find – to heck with keeping our feet dry. Kelleen expressed the hope that whatever was wrong with her would be something serious, so she wouldn’t have to feel like she wimped out and cost us our backpacking trip over nothing. She has since recanted. Weeks in a sling is trying her patience and learning that she has at least 6 months of healing and therapy before she’ll be fully recovered didn’t help any.
We were extremely lucky that the nearest clinic had an experienced and confident staff. After letting some Demerol relax Kelleen’s muscles, the nurse and Kurt worked together and got Kelleen’s arm back where it belonged. The relief Kelleen felt was instantaneous. She’d been really uncomfortable for several hours at that point but hadn’t complained once. The nurse strapped her arm to her side and told us what we needed to know to take care of her, and we found ourselves a hotel for the night.
The next day we set out on a driving tour that had been recommended by the nurse. While it wasn’t the trip we had planned, we still had a wonderful time and saw mind-blowing things. On our first day, we drove about ten miles down the Burr Trail Road and stopped for a picnic lunch at what turned out to be a lonely but scenic spot.
Kelleen with sling, and Kurt
The view from our picnic perch
Another example of the scenery at our picnic site
The scenery for the rest of the day was just as beautiful, and we wound up at Arches National Park just before sunset, but I’ll leave that for another entry.
Day 3 of our Utah trip was spent exploring Goblin Valley. Best known as the alien planet in Galaxy Quest, Goblin Valley is full of unusual looking hoodoos. As we walked through the place, it was easy to imagine we were on another planet. I could also see in the shapes around me 1) why it is called Goblin Valley and 2) where the inspiration for the rock monster in Galaxy Quest came from. I got the feeling that the rocks around us really were oddly shaped creatures frozen in time. We saw lots of hoodoos during our Utah trip, but only in Goblin Valley did we see hoodoos that looked alive.
Kelleen in Goblin Valley
The valley is actually several connected valleys and the whole thing was much larger than any of us had anticipated. We spent most of our day wandering and noticing the wide variety of formations, as well as the “faces” and “figures” made by the rocks.
One of many faces we saw in the rocks
We took lots of pictures while hiking. At times, Kurt borrowed Kelleen’s digital SLR camera to get close-ups of things far away.
Kurt and Kelleen taking pictures
For those keeping track, this was the same day the windstorm blew our tent over.
