I’m Sill Alive – Fairview Peak

I’m writing this Saturday morning on Windows Live Writer for posting when I can get an internet connection. We’ve had some rain for the past day and a half making it unsafe to try and climb the mountain. Right now we’re scheduled to give it a try starting at 11 am….but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I left Gunnison first thing Thursday morning with a full water tank, empty waste tanks and a full charge on the house batteries. It only took 90 minutes or so to get to Pitkin and find the Forest Service campground that was to be home for the next 5 days or so. I had never been to Pitkin so I was excited to explore a new road. Pitkin lies about 15 miles off one of the main Colorado highways up a beautiful valley. The valley contains numerous ranches and farms and the hills surrounding the valley are dotted with mines and mills dating to the early 1880’s.

Pitkin itself dates to the 1880’s as well and is a charming old town consisting of one paved street and 8 or 9 short dirt streets. Today there is only one going commercial concern, a general store that has the normal tinned food, snacks, sundries and 1 gasoline pump. There is even a “hotel” of sorts that I haven’t had a chance to look at inside. I know it will be rustic at very best.

The team met at 8 am on a clear and sunny Thursday morning and proceeded in 4WD vehicles to the jump off point. I can tell you that I was nervous about my physical ability to make the climb to 13,000 feet. I became even more nervous when the Forest Service archaeologist told us that each of us had to carry about 25 lbs of sand or lime in addition to our own gear to the top. These items were needed to make mortar to repair the stone walls of the lookout.

As you can tell from the title of the post, I survived. It took about an hour and a half to make the summit and I was pretty exhausted when I got there….but I did get there. I’ll let some pictures do the description. 

There is a payoff for the physical exertion. The view is probably the most spectacular I have encountered in my 62 years on this earth. I suppose the view from the top of Mt. Everest might rival it, but I don’t think I’ll ever experience that. The fire lookout is just mind boggling in so many ways. What kind of effort was required to build this tiny shack to begin with. There was also a telegraph in the lookout which required those original builders to plant telegraph poles down the mountain to a mine some three thousand feet below…and string the telegraph wire. It must have been incredibly difficult to stay on top of this mountain for long periods. The can be wind is absolutely viscous. With all the rocks around, and the sheer cliffs, it is  extremely difficult to just move around safely.

By the time we were halfway to the summit high clouds moved in and made it pretty chilly. We could see rain storms all around us but we got lucky and dodged all of them. We spent about four hours tearing down part of one stone wall and rebuilding it. This required mixing mortar on site. The archaeologist had visited the lookout in May and filled up five gallon buckets with snow to use as water for the mix when we arrived. We also had to find appropriate sized rocks to use in the wall…..easy…and carry them to the hut…very difficult. After about four hours it was time to start down. The descent was a little easier but it still was plenty strenuous. No need to say that I slept like a rock that night.

It rained hard all Thursday night and was still raining Friday morning so we scrubbed the project for a day. Even though the day was not the best, I went with another of the volunteers for some sightseeing in her truck. We went over Cumberland Pass into the little town of Tincup, around Taylor Canyon, Gunnison and back to Pitkin. It was a great loop and we saw lots of scenery and the remains of numerous mines and mills.

It rained again this morning about 6 am so we’re going to wait a couple of hours and see if the weather will break….Gotta go for now. Stay tuned.

Thanks for visiting.

A Look At Fairview Peak in Google Earth

Thought you would enjoy these pictures of Fairview Peak that I snatched from Google Earth. The black arrows point to the trail up the side of the mountain and in one picture you can actually see the fire lookout on the very top of the mountain….a black arrow also points to that. Google Earth is amazing!

Thanks for visiting.

Across The Wide Prairie

As much as I really wanted to get on the road Wednesday morning, I knew that if I left before 9 am I would have to fight rush hour traffic getting to the Interstate. That’s something I do not like doing anytime much less when I’m driving my RV so I restrained myself. Promptly at 9am however, I pulled out towards Granada, CO and my date with the Lesser Prairie Chickens.  It was a gorgeous day and I had that “gut grin” that I get when my mind tells me “You’ve got it good!”. Everything seemed to indicate a great trip was ahead and the light traffic on I-25 seemed to confirm that.

I got off the interstate at Pueblo, CO and headed east into the heartland of the high plains. I wasn’t in any hurry so I kept my speed at 55 mph and drove through the back streets of all the little towns along the way….Fowler, Manzanola, Rocky Ford, La Junta, Las Animas, and finally Granada.

I have been over this route a number of times and have stopped in the little towns before but it seems like every time I do I discover a little something I hadn’t seen before. This time it was a grand old theater in Rocky Ford. Rocky Ford is the melon capital of the Rocky Mountain West. It is located in the Arkansas River Valley and it sure doesn’t look like prairie here but travel north or south 5 or 10 miles and you’re back in the prairie. It’s a bustling little community and I knew there had to be some interesting signs somewhere around town. Sure enough, this trip I discovered the old but still functional theater, several blocks off the main drag. If you look closely you can see my RV parked around the corner in the lower right corner of the picture to the right. By the way, click on any picture to see a larger copy of it.

Next stop was La Junta. I mentioned in a previous post that one of my goals this trip was to find a petroglyph site in the general area called Hicklin Springs. It so happens that there is a U.S. Forest Service office in La Junta and this office has a Forest Service archaeologist stationed there…..whom I just happen to know from my volunteer work last fall. I was hoping that she might be able to give me directions to the site. Fortunately she was in the office. Unfortunately she couldn’t give me directions. She had heard about the site but didn’t know where it was…Rats!

The next stop was Bent’s Old Fort. This is a great piece of western history. An exact reproduction of the 1830’s trading post built by the Bent brothers and Ceran St. Vrain to trade with the Indians and mountain men. The fort straddles the Santa Fe Trail and was an important stop for anyone travelling to the southwest up until the 1860’s.

I had been to this landmark before but it’s always an interesting stop and I wanted to get a National Park Pin for this site. I have begun collecting these pins and display them in the RV to show the places I’ve been.  I also wanted to try some HDR photography there.

I spent an hour or two wandering around and taking pictures and then went to the little store in the back of the fort to get my pin. While there I decided to ask the attendant if she knew anything about Hicklin Springs. As it turned out she also had heard of the site but had never been there. She did however have a sticky note stuck to her computer with directions to the site! She gave me the directions with the proviso that if I got there I would call her and give her a report….Done deal.

Between Bent’s Fort and the site was John Martin Reservoir and State Park and to get to the site I’d have to take a long detour. Besides that it was now about 3pm and I decided to do this on my way back home. I needed to get to Granada.

The rest of the trip was over narrow back roads that every now and again went through a small defunct farming community. The last 6 or 8 miles was over dirt county roads until I came to my guides ranch house.

Fred and Norma Dorenkamp do what a lot of “country” folk throughout the nation do. They do what it takes to make a living and raise a family. They are proud of their local heritage and have never even considered leaving this place they call home. In raising their six sons and one daughter they have farmed, ranched, worked for the wildlife department, managed rodeos….and taken city folk like me, out to see the natural wonders of the prairie. After meeting them, Norma showed me where to park my rig. A flat spot right next to the calf corral would be my spot for the night.

Norma told me that if I wanted to walk to the field back behind the corral I might get a glimpse of some burrowing owls that had taken up residence in old prairie dog dens. That sounded like a perfect way to end the day so I did and was rewarded with the picture to the left.

Norma also said that we would leave at 4:30 am the next morning….and oh, by the way, a tornado watch was just issued by the local weather station! Let’s see, I’m in a tornado magnet, RV out in the middle of the prairie in a tornado watch. This is going to be a trip to write about, if I survive.

Seriously, looking across the plains I could see the storm they were talking about and it looked to me like it was tracking to the south and not coming my way even though the wind started blowing pretty hard. I battened down the hatches and settled in for the night.

I’ll stop the story here but stay tuned for the next chapter. Incidentally, the picture to the right is the storm we were watching to the east of my RV.

Thanks for visiting.

Over On Our Own...

Well, The Bride returned on Wednesday night from her trip to see CaJenn and to do "wedding stuff". It sounds like she had a wonderful time and is getting into the swing of this wedding thing. I've got to be real careful about getting information from her as I may not really want to hear all of the $pecifics! All I really know is that three DEADLY serious, giggly women spent a number of days in California depleting the wine supply...and my dollar supply.

Tuesday night I attended the appreciation dinner for Tesoro Foundation volunteers at the Fort Restaurant. It was a very nice affair with buffalo enchiladas for the main course. There were about 20 volunteers present. Holly Arnold Kinney, daughter of the late Sam Arnold and Executive Director of the foundation gave us an update of the Foundations activities in promoting Southwestern culture, art and history. The evening ended with participants giving the Mountain Man Toast....

Here's to the childs what's come afore
And here's to the pilgrims what come arter
May your trails be free of grizz
Yer packs filled with plew
And fat buffler in yer pot!
Waugh!

Thanks for visiting.