A Lovely Day in Rocky Mountain NP
Mark and I made reservations at a campground just outside the park, found a friend to watch the dog, piled all of our gear into the car and took off for the mountains on Friday night. We had planned on getting up early the next morning and climbing and awesome, long, grade III route the next morning. But, Friday night, after putting up the tent, we found out that Mark didn’t have a helmet.
While many people (and even many trad climbers) might feel completely comfortable climbing any route without a helmet, it didn’t seem worth the risk to me or Mark. So, we decided to drive back to the Fort on Saturday morning, grab the helmet (and a few other forgotten things) and then head back to Estes. We would climb someplace low and easy on Saturday afternoon, and then get up early and do our long climb on Sunday.
There’s good pics in the gallery.
But, it turned out that Mark’s helmet was not back at the house. It wasn’t in the basement, car, backpacks, front yard, or under the poppazon. It was gone. We drove back to Estes empty handed. Neither one of us felt much like climbing when we got back to the national park just before lunch. Instead, we took our picnic lunch up Trail Ridge Road, and sat and ate it at 11,000ft.
We drove over the continental divide – our first time on this road in a few years – on a lovely day. It was also our first time above treeline all year, and we were both happy to find that neither one of us had a problem with the altitude on Saturday.
Eventually, we randomly found ourselves at the Poudre Lakes, the actual start of the river that carved the beautiful and amazing Poudre Canyon and runs through Fort Collins. We were so excited to find this spot, that we parked the car and headed out for a quick afternoon hike.
The Poudre River trail runs along the side of the river, through glacial valleys and rocky canyons, until it pops out near Joe Wright Reservoir off of highway 14 near Cameron Pass about 20 miles to the north. I would love to backpack this trail someday: start at Trailridge road in Rocky Mountain and end up in the familiar playground of the southern Rawah Mountains at the top of the Poudre Canyon. What a great adventure!
This weekend, though, we were not prepared for that adventure. We walked a long the scenic trail for a couple miles and then headed back to the car. We drove back over the divide, gawking along with the tourists at huge herds of elk and yellow-bellied marmots along the way. We ate junk food for dinner, chased mule deer out of our neighbor’s campsite (one got away with a banana), saw a badger for the first time, and enjoyed a mountain evening.
We talked around and around, and eventually decided we could do the climb without Mark’s helmet the next morning. And that’s a story for another post.
wait, so you really drove up and back to estes twice in the weekend!? You guys are dedicated!
Hope that link that you put in there does not indicate that I am one of those “many people”. I wouldn’t consider not wearing one for most routes.
Ok – so some clarification is needed before I become a poster boy for bad behavior: the picture that you see there is of us relaxing on the summit. You will notice that there is a dearth of pictures of me climbing – this is because I was the one with the camera. And I was the one who was actually leading the harder pitches (i.e. I wouldn’t necessarily want anyone taking pictures of me due to an obvious need to pay attention).
If you want to know, I wore the helmet up, took it off when I reached the final belay and then put it back on for some down-climbing.
Man, you have to be careful what you put up.
(Although I will admit that I probably wouldn’t run back to town for my helmet; in fact, I forgot mine at the base of Fat City when I took off for the first lead the next day).
Cheers,
m
Hey Matt,
Sorry to be a little corse there, I was just tryign to give you some friendly ribbing. We haven’t climbed together too much since you had da bebe, and what climbing we have done was mostly sport (Shelf Road, Table Mtn, etc). Honestly, I don’t remember you wearing a helmet much there, or back when we climbed at Vedauwoo. I just kind of thought you and Sasha were “helmet-not-so-necessary” kind of people. Which is your own decision. I apologize for being slightly derogatory here.
And yes, Doug, Matt, we drove all the way back (a full two hours round trip in the Prius) to get Mark’s helmet. I really don’t like to climb without one. I really don’t.
yaya…
I don’t always climb with a helmet when doing short climbs – especially when there is not a large potential for rock fall (i.e. well established sport parks). Personally, it doesn’t bother me much what other people think – I was just trying to set the record straight; not everything you see is to be believed. Everybody does it there own way, and that’s fine with me. You have to do what you think is right.
But, don’t be mistaken – when doing big routes Mainliner (or anything in Lumpy for that matter), I wouldn’t recommend going with out a helmet…
Lucky you on going to Rocky Mountain. Bummer about the helmet.