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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Original Post - Aug 12, 2010 - 08:09pm PT
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Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Jasper Peak Scramble
At 9:30 a.m. Steve Williams was to meet me here at the house here in Nederland, ready to depart for a modest walk in the high mountains. As I was perusing the maps and fussing about, trying to pick a suitable target, (that fit the dubious bill of both modest and high), the phone rang about 8:30: on the other end was Steve, calling to tell me he wasn’t going to make it.
No matter, I still hadn’t settled on an idea and was conflicted about using the car; likewise I was concerned about hiking too far, this balanced with the idea of actually getting up high enough to see anything interesting, be it high peaks or sprawling meadows, or to reach any such vague feeling of general alpine splendor.
It was a specific feeling of clean clear air and elevation I was after, but year-long infirmities dictated an economy of means and a measured approach.
I thought about Hessie trailhead, but felt that my 3 to 4 mile round-trip limit might not gain much in a way of a high country feeling; just that nice open space in the vicinity of Lost Lake, which isn’t so bad and would be preferable to hanging around the house, scraping away on paint with arms that felt like slender gunny sacks filled with petrified wood and freshly mixed concrete.
Right then, even Arapaho Pass at 6.2 miles round-trip might tip the scales on my weary feet, or so I imagined. So I settled on Diamond Lake which is 4.8 miles round-trip. This also had the nostalgic feature of having by Lisa and I last been visited with her 65-year-old mother and friend Pat, as far back as the year 2001. I figured I couldn’t get into any trouble with that plan and it would be nice.
The trailhead at Hessie was packed with cars. I drove the car very slowly up the road, perhaps only 5mph or 10mph at times. Four miles later I arrived at Fourth of July campground and Arapaho Pass trailhead without a camera or a watch, but well-stocked with a lightweight day pack thinly stuffed with a couple of food bars, and 40 ounces of water along with a map and a Gore-Tex windbreaker.
There were only two parking spots available: and this on a Thursday. I parked two parking slots over from a really cool early 1970s model International Scout. It had a pleasing minimalist rectangular body design, with no rust and a particularly retro metallic avocado colored paint job, two-tone, with a yellow-green top.
Not far up the trail I passed an old man, tall and gaunt, moving along just fine for his age, hiking alongside, presumably, his son, a younger middle-aged dude shouldered with a heavy gray/cobalt blue Trailwise frame pack, while the old guy was saddled with a vintage Kelty frame model, a single main bag in characteristic olive drab with metal zippers: cues from the old ways!
The walking was easy and felt good. I explored a couple of side branches along the way, one of which let out to an old mine; from there I could stand atop the tailings and above the trees see a peak formed by a blunted subsidiary ridge sloping down off of Jasper Peak. I thought about continuing up the broad valley from where I stood and contouring around to this high feature, casting off upwards, but instead held fast to my minimal plan.
Coming up out of the drainage towards Diamond Lake I could feel my left foot a bit; but I had been feeling tinges of pain even at rest at home, so I didn’t worry much. Upon breaching the edge of the forest which opens upon the foot of the lake, I saw an older European couple gathering mushrooms: great big fat orange mushrooms, which they were carefully choosing, cleaning, and delicately setting into their collecting bags.
I was quite pleased to be meandering along, with high mountain wildflowers in perfusion under blue skies and thick green grasses skirting the lake’s glinting edge. To the south rose a buttress with an obvious crack line in it, which I carefully surveyed as I walked along the flank of the lake. Just a little bit of change laterally can reveal the secrets of such a feature. The trail alongside the lake is not marked on the map, but many side trails, sign posted with campsite numbers, appear along the way, as do a number of well formed moderate bouldering walls and a few large freestanding boulders.
The trail goes right beneath one of the walls. To the touch, the rock presented a solid granular surface which was well sealed and not at all scrappy, with no loose grains, offering good friction to wandering fingertips, with enough holds to warrant some on-site high ball activity right then and there, if need be, as it were. But I passed on, having no shoes for climbing and needing a good handful of days rest from the house repair work I had been entertaining.
The path slinked upward through lush meadows, passing between a couple stout walls of rock, shortly to arrive on a sunny bench. At this point the soil was parched and dry, but afforded a nice place to sit and do a few yoga poses amid the arid groundcover. I thought it best to turn around here, so I figured I would linger, enjoy the warm sun and the grand view of the ridgeline above, set beneath blue skies: lazily basking in the solitary alpine setting.
Below this resting spot lay a small lake and above that a long ridge festooned with fresh granite slabs and verdant grasses. It looked compelling and from my comfortable seating position I picked out a line or two; primarily looking to imagine a way to drift up through the slabs, as they didn’t look so great for soloing.
None of this seemed immediately interesting, but nice to look at all the same. The long ridge flanked the entire cirque above and southeast of Diamond Lake: to my left it held the crag I had spied earlier, and to the right it sharply dipped to a handy col and then gently rose up to form peak 12,294’.
I thought about gaining the ridge at the col in order to return to the beginning of Diamond Lake, and scanned this col formed by peak 12,294’. Well, I’d come this far I figured … and a high ridge walk rather than a return down the hiking path seemed like something I could do without hurting my feet. The caveat being I would add a little bit more elevation gain before hooking back along the top of the ridge, heading home in the proper direction.
With this in mind I turned my gaze past the col, then looked further to the right, straight upwards to peak 12,294’. It wasn’t so big, and it had a nice tidy line of talus leading directly to the summit. Shoot, I figured “Why not climb straight up to that handy summit too, then swing downward to the col, surf the rest of the high ridge back down to Diamond Lake and thence to the trail home”.
So off I went, merrily toeing and clawing straight on up the face of the hill!
The familiar feeling of straining the lungs, metering output and choosing steps … this is different than hiking and I welcomed it. It’s the germinal feeling of climbing itself; the place where the body knows, recognizes if only in subtle detail, this distinctly non-agrarian and decidedly elective activity taking shape. The rock climber may not be given to apprehend it as anything other than work, but to the mountaineer, to the lover of the freedom of the hills, it yields an understanding of something urgent, satisfying, something begun.
I stood atop the peak, the grasses at my feet already browning, the light lines slanting at a lower arc through the sky, signifying to the high spaces the coming of fall. “This is the place I so wish to be!” I thought aloud. My body absorbed these surroundings to the bone and my spirit swallowed them whole. From this position the summit was broad and lead outward to the west from my stance, a high platform commanding a generous view down upon tentacles of tumbling streams threaded upon the wizened skin of ancient valleys laid out far below. Perhaps I’m not at the highest point? Well, maybe if I just go a little further I’ll see if this is so, and along the way enjoy my customary absorption into the vertiginous realm.
Before carrying along any further I looked back to the east along my route of intended retreat, atop the jagged ridge alternately beset with parapet walls and lush grasses, then down toward the lake. Obvious choice ... Then I looked ahead to the west, and then down at the patches of rock neatly inserted in circular patterns between the tundra at my boots. Next I tipped my chin upward and beyond, where the line follows along a jagged crest, drops down beyond the toppled slope before meeting the stiff rise at Jasper Peak’s East Ridge.
Jasper!
Not so far away really. I’d been there some eight years ago, as part of a traverse from Arapaho Pass, up Mt. Neva’s north ridge, over Jasper, and onto the peak which holds Devils thumb: a tour along the Continental Divide. Oh well, now I’m where I like to be, I’ll soon be 50 years old, so a treat is in order (rationale). I’ve taken a full year off of any walking and scrambling of a distance more than a couple miles to try to rehabilitate my feet and it isn’t going so well. But now I’ll continue, yes, because its right here, right now… all just waiting and beckoning outside my temporary skin.
I stopped to add some sunscreen to face, arms and lower legs, take a few bites of food and drink a bit from my flagging water supply. Altitude bringing its magic ... Lungs working hard ... The body poised on this rocky sidewalk in the sky, leading out across a knife edged precipice, set far above turquoise colored alpine tarns edged with fractured snows.
It was probably a bit late in the day to be in this spot. I trotted off some shattered rocks down into the saddle where the unbroken ridge began to rise again, heading to Jasper’s summit. Another bite of food, a surge of power, an allotment of effort and a steady pace upward in the rarefied air: it’s good work if you can get it.
From Jasper the view is sublime.
Standing there on the Continental Divide I could see southward along the green rolling shoals which lead out over James Peak; reigning proudly as it does with its formidable north face, black and brooding. Far beyond a clear view gives way to Mount Evans and further still, many miles distant, rises Pikes Peak. Swinging to the west this grandstand seat surveys the striking line formed by the Gore and Park ranges, northwest one looks to the Never Summer range, north to Long’s Peak, and at short range, close enough to hit with a slingshot: Apache Peak, Navajo Peak, and South Arapaho’s western flank, broad rocky and unyielding, save for Skywalker couloir’s melted gash.
Shortly I witnessed a swiftly advancing front extending toward me from above the tops of the Gore Range, stretching nearly over my position, releasing spirals of verga and dropping curtains of rain far below to the verdant hanging valleys of Winter Park and Grand Lake.
The sun shone down onto my stance and warmed my face as I instinctively stretched my arms outward, palms turned up in supplication to the gods. Time to go!
I would take a different ridgeline in return, completing, as is my want, a customary horseshoe shaped tour of two long rock laden spines stretching eastward from Jasper’s summit, down into the Diamond Lake cirque, which abruptly gives way to a steep forested drop leading quickly, but not finally, down into North Fork Middle Boulder Creek.
I had detected no electrical activity in the squalls above the Gore Range and expected none here. Although the front advanced swiftly overhead, what little water it disbursed was wispy and thinly focused. I kept my eyes latched down onto my descending footsteps and bade my lungs take full purchase of the clear and rarefied air.
Thirty or forty minutes of craggy scrambling and ridgetop fascination lay ahead.
Initially I looked to the left and spied a bifurcation which led to the north; dropping downward to form a serrated dragon’s back set with delicate fins of granite, snaking for several hundred yards laterally, only to be blunted at the nose by the peak I had identified from the mine site earlier in the day.
Straight in front of me was a second line, an east trending ridge capped by a broad knoll, a familiar sort of Rocky Mountain aerie, strewn with rubble and dropping precipitously on either side. This scrambler’s path led down and down: out and over all this glorious profusion of wildness, eventually disbursing into the green meadows of Diamond Lake, where I quickly and carefully chose my steps through rain moistened grasses and dancing wildflowers, scuttling between rock walls, stunted trees and plunging streams.
The rain had never really taken purchase and the front was consolidated above but weak in its communication to the ground. The ridgetop’s sturdy arms extended my scant form at its feet and released me, where I plunged into grasses and danced over a maze of checkered boulders.
I followed a path over lush marshes; their muddy hummocks playing suction at my heels. Moments later I picked up the path along the edge of the lake, which carried me between the glassy waters, manicured greenery, chattering flowers and a settled campsite where a little boy in shorts and a rain jacket was tottering about, enthralled with the gifts of the world.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Aug 12, 2010 - 08:18pm PT
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Beautiful! Lovely read for the end of the day. Don't need any photos with this one, it's all there in your writing.
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bluering
Trad climber
CA
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Aug 12, 2010 - 08:19pm PT
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Where ya been, dude? Nice post.
It'd be better with pics though. But you know this!
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Fritz
Trad climber
Hagerman, ID
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Aug 12, 2010 - 08:20pm PT
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Tarbuster: Glad you are getting out and about. However you can do it----out and about in the mountains is pretty wonderful.
Love your prose as always!
Best Wishes!
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scuffy b
climber
Eastern Salinia
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Aug 12, 2010 - 08:22pm PT
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How sweet. Great to hear your voice again.
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Gilroy
Social climber
Boulderado
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Aug 12, 2010 - 09:06pm PT
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Yeah, Roy! Good to see you posting again. Been worried since our conversation at McGuckin's. Thought your health issues had taken a turn for worse what with your online absence. Really sweet to see you're traipsing my favorite area of our Indian Peaks. The August bloom in the high country is in full swing, eh?
Lemme know if you need a partner for a hike. Working retail I can get away on a weekday easily and work a Saturday to fill in the hours.
If laying off ain't helping, maybe you ought to lay into it!
Best wishes,
Keith
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ron gomez
Trad climber
fallbrook,ca
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Aug 12, 2010 - 09:08pm PT
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Hey Roy Boy good to see ya back, I would guess on the voice activated machine, but non the less good to see yer back postin' and scramblin'. Hope all is well with you, take care and say Hey to the Mrs.
Peace
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divad
Trad climber
wmass
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Aug 12, 2010 - 09:24pm PT
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Nice Tar, good to know you're getting out and posting great TRs.
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pocoloco1
Social climber
The Chihuahua Desert
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Aug 12, 2010 - 09:27pm PT
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A breath of fresh air. Thanks Roy.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Aug 12, 2010 - 10:05pm PT
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you know the other day, coming down conness I got into a loose section and felt I had been transported to the Gore range, I thought of you....
Thanks Tar.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Aug 12, 2010 - 10:58pm PT
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Wonderful Tarbuster!
I read this with my morning coffee in Okinawa.
You'll never know how much your visual was appreciated by an old Colorado native now sweating it out in 90 degrees and 90% humidity in the tropics.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Aug 12, 2010 - 11:00pm PT
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Jan Jan, turn on the fan!
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Aug 12, 2010 - 11:00pm PT
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Thanks Roy! That was beautiful. Your love of the high places just shines through. mmmmm mmmm just makes you feel good.
I just spent a wonderful day making new friends at one of my favorite swimming holes in Wawona. The air was warm enough to make you want to swim, with just a slight cool breeze to refresh you. The water was deliciously cold, pure, and refreshing with a slight blue green tinge of bubbling life.
Great day! Thanks for sharing yours. I am glad that you were able to get out and enjoy it and then share it with us.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Aug 12, 2010 - 11:07pm PT
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Probably the first ever Tarbuster TR without photos! Nice!
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BooYah
Social climber
Ely, Nv
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Aug 13, 2010 - 01:13am PT
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My favorite mountain cowboy returns.
Thanks for bringing us along.
That's good stuff, podner.
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Watusi
Social climber
Newport, OR
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Aug 13, 2010 - 06:15am PT
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Great to see you back Roy!! Hope all is swell!! 2C...
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Aug 13, 2010 - 09:48am PT
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Excellent Roy.
Good to see/hear you again.
Thanks for being here.
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Beatrix Kiddo
Mountain climber
ColoRADo
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Aug 13, 2010 - 10:51am PT
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Ahhhhhhh. . . nice one as usual Roy. I'm glad you had a nice day out. Those Indian Peaks are healing.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Aug 13, 2010 - 10:55am PT
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Tarbuster-
A very nice word-image passed through my consciousness as I read your report. It's beem too long since I was up around Hessie and that area; it's truly a beautiful part of Colorado. As an old Boulderite myself, I can only recall with nostalgia the days when there were NO cars parked up ther during the week. The greenery and wildflowers alwqays made Diamond Lake a special place to visit.
Rodger
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TYeary
Social climber
State of decay
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Aug 13, 2010 - 11:10am PT
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Really nice, Roy.
I too, am glad to hear you are out and about.
It made me feel good to hear you feeling good.
Thanks,
Tony
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