Well, just as I do triathlons but have no interest in doing an Ironman (because those people are crazy), I like to hike but not get too high up there. That said, today I set out to conquer the scariest of the hikes on the to-do list I have stuck to my refrigerator door. Other hikes on my list are longer, but this one, Byers Peak, has the greatest elevation gain (and over the shortest distance, comparatively!) and just in general makes me anxious.
It doesn't help that I see Byers Peak every day on morning walkies with Wiley:
Yeah, that's it, the big brute in the middle, towering over other middling mountains and cows and pretty much everything around it (keep in mind that it's more than ten miles away in the photo). Unlike the mountains along the Continental Divide, which tend to form a wall of Big Rock but not stand out as individuals, Byers is on its own, not part of the Divide.
Also, you can drive nearly up to many of the mountains on the Divide, getting 12- or 13,000 feet up in your car and then doing the last thousand feet on foot. Not so with Byers.
I fell in love with Byers the first time I saw it because it stands out like that, and also because to me it's the Lord of the Ringsiest of the mountains around here. It just has presence.
Of course, once I decided to climb it I felt it was out there saying "You wanna piece o' me? Come and get it."
My response: "Is that all you got?"
(Of course, it's easy to say that now that I'm back at home with my feet up!)
Byers Peak is 12,804 feet at its summit. Not a 14er, not even a 13er, but, as far as I'm concerned, an official Big-Ass Mountain. The trailhead was at 9,809 feet, meaning an elevation gain of about 3,000 feet over about four miles. It would also be the first hike I did that started below timber line (around 11,400 feet) and ended above it.
Criminy! Why can't I learn to enjoy playing video games like everyone else??
Anyway, the first mile or so was along an old logging road before the trail got steeper, ascending through lodgepole pine forest. The smell was fantastic.
Here's a shot (below) as the trail emerged above timberline, with the first of many false summits ahead of me.
An aside... at the trailhead, there was a sign that said "MANY FALSE SUMMITS ON MOUNTAIN. IF DUBIOUS TURN BACK. MANY LIGHTNING STRIKES ON MOUNTAIN. IF LEERY GET OFF THE MOUNTAIN."
I should have taken a picture, but didn't think the lighting was good. In any case, up much of the increasingly steep trail, I asked myself "are we dubious and leery yet?"
Does the shot below convey how freakin' steep the damn trail was above timberline? Good.
Below, one of many, many false summits (I stopped counting after five). If memory serves, this was the false summit where, upon reaching it, I sat down on a rock and exclaimed aloud "if this is a false summit, then I'm false-climbing it."
It was just below here, at about 12,000 feet, where I had something odd happen to me. I don't think it was altitude sickness, but I was getting dizzy and disoriented and doing dumb things. Like when I noticed I was carrying both my trekking poles in one hand (instead of, er, actually using them on the steep grade), or when I became convinced I had lost my camera even though I felt it in my back pocket.
I noticed right at about 12,000 feet that I was having real problems breathing, too, and at first thought it was just trying to haul my jiggly ass up the damn mountain. I had those same problems descending, though, which makes me think it was the altitude. Once I got below 10,000 feet on the way back (sort of "my zone," since I live and work at 8500 feet above sea level), I was fine. Weird.
To be continued...
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