The Trek to The Boulderfield (Page 1) |
|||
|
by Jerry Cates |
|||
|
It was time to organize the backpack for the trip to the Boulderfield, the next campsite on the list, located--at least figuratively--in the shadow of the Longs Peak summit. My backcountry permit scheduled two full days at the Boulderfield, which gave me two shots at the top. Only the amount of food needed for two days went into the backpack. Water filtration gear, cooking equipment, and other hiking accessories were set aside to take along. Everything else stayed behind in the duffle bag, which was hoisted high into the air. My last night on the mountain was to be spent at Goblin's Forest, and I planned to pick up the duffle then. So far, so good. I took a few minutes before heading out to take stock of the stuff going to the Boulderfield. That's when I made an important, but disturbing, discovery. My rain gear was missing. By accident, I had left my waterproof jacket cover and trousers at home in Round Rock, Texas.
I was wearing a good mountaineering jacket that was made to breathe, and though it would repel some water, it had to be supplemented by a waterproof shell in heavy rainstorms. Unfortunately, its sturdy appearance gave me a false sense of security. The more competent rain gear had been left behind. It is hard to bring everything you might need, especially when your pack already weighs more than 60 lbs. But rain gear is not optional. It was regrettable, but nothing could be done about it now but feel stupid. So I took a moment, felt stupid, and got over it. Finally, everything was ready to start hiking to the Boulderfield. I strapped the pack on and started down Goblins Forest trail, crossing over Alpine Brook, and linking back up with the main trail to the peak. Turning west on the main trail, I was pleased to recall, from earlier visits, that it was still relatively level here. I knew that would not last very long, and soon the beginning of serious uphill hiking was heralded by the crashing waters of Alpine Brook and Larkspur Creek, just ahead. A narrow wooden footbridge crosses over Larkspur Creek. It is a beautiful, picturesque spot. Just beyond the bridge the trail trends ominously upward before turning right to begin a series of six switch-backs that the rangers installed to help hikers make it over the steep terrain. The average slope here is 36%. The switch-backs stretch the distance out and produce a modest slope of only 8.3%. The rub is you have to hike 2,400 ft. (0.45 mi.) of trail to travel 700 ft. (0.13 mi.) as the crow flies, and as you execute each switch-back the trail below mocks your puny progress. At the top of the 6th switch-back, the trail leads up to Alpine Brook, crossing it via a strikingly picturesque mountain bridge. The view into Alpine Brook's gorge is even more striking, flush with green shrubs and trees. Ahead, the vegetation thins out markedly. Treeline is nigh. The elevation at the Goblins Forest turnoff is 10,240 ft. When I crossed the Alpine Brook bridge at the top of the 6th switchback I was just short of the 10,600 ft. mark, had hiked 6/10ths of a mile horizontally, and ascended 350 ft. (average incline: 11.7%). No photos were taken of the tree-line, where the vegetation suddenly shifts from serious trees to low-lying shrubs and tundra. I especially rue the lack of photos of the Bristlecone and Limber Pine trees at this location. But it couldn't be helped at the time. My supply of floppy disks for my digital camera (a Sony MVC FD-91, at the time a state-of-the-art digital) was dwindling. As it was, that supply ran out before the trek was complete, but not before the most important part of the expedition--the trek to and from the summit--was photographed. After crossing over Alpine Brook the trail straightens out and heads south-southeast for the next quarter-mile but holds to an incline of 11.4% (1,400 ft. across, 160 ft. up), crossing 10,720 ft. elev. at the tree-line hairpin. Here it makes a sharp turn to the west. The sickly, stunted appearance of the live trees at the tree-line hairpin are misleading. They consist of species that have adapted to the high winds, low temperatures, and reduced oxygen levels that predominate at this elevation. Limber pines (Pinus flexilis), and Rocky Mountain Bristlecones (Pinus aristata) are found here, but the casual hiker is often unaware of the deep respect these ancient, hardy trees deserve. I paused to pay homage to the humble survivors that look over the trees destroyed in a forest fire long ago. Some of these trees have stood guard at this location for hundreds of years, some more than a thousand. One species of bristlecone, Pinus longaeva, whose common name is the Great Basin bristlecone pine (the species is limited to the White Mountains of California, and is not found in the Rocky Mountain National Park, but its cousin, Pinus aristata, is present here in ancient, still living, specimens) survives in specimens of extreme age. One, tagged "Methuselah"by Dr. Edward Schulman in 1957, was discovered in that year to be 4,723 years old. It remains, today, the oldest living unitary, i.e., non-clonal, organism on earth, though an older tree of the same species, known as Prometheus, was cut down by a graduate student in 1964 and found, at the time, to be about 5,000 years of age. A few of the limber and bristlecone pines at treeline here bear grotesque scars from lightning strikes and the combined ravages of a thousand indignities... yet they still stand. Even those that are dead have wood so dense and resinous that their silver skeletons will likely remain upright for centuries, unless something unusual brings them down. Going up the trail above tree line was slow. It wouldn't be good to poop out with altitude sickness like on the three previous trips, I took my time and stopped for a short rest every fifteen minutes. At each stop, I drank several large gulps of water. Knowing that the most common cause of altitude sickness is dehydration, I carried three 32 oz. bottles of water, two in the backpack and one on my belt. At each stop I also ate a handful of GORP, dispensed from another Nalgene bottle carried on the other hip. GORP, as every hiker knows, stands for "Good Old Raisins & Peanuts". These staples were supplemented with my own recipe of dried cherries, cranberries, blueberries and pecans. Sometimes I add some dried banana chips; if you try that, make sure the banana chips are thoroughly dry--I got a bad batch once that was still slightly moist, and it got funky and ruined the rest of the GORP. All those dried fruits and nuts supply lots of carbs for quick energy, plus a quantity of high-quality fats- from the nuts- that act to stretch the energy source out. Drinking lots of water has its consequences. You can only perspire so much liquid out; the rest has to be voided. City folks tend to think of urination from a negative viewpoint, but experienced hikers know that urine output is the ONLY reliable gauge of a person's hydration. If you are not urinating regularly on a hike, you are--without a doubt--dehydrated, whether you feel thirsty or not. Dehydration on a hike is very, very unhealthy; on a long hike it can, in and of itself, become life-threatening in a big hurry; in the mountains it can be life-threatening in a multitude of ways, by causing your brain to lose its ability to reason properly, and by making you physically and mentally sick. At least 50% of altitude sickness is caused by dehydration. Being properly hydrated, on the other hand, creates its own problems, like making it necessary for you to find a good place to void, on a regular basis, hopefully without making too much of a spectacle of yourself. Below tree-line the larger trees are excellent makeshift urinal screens, but when the trees are gone things get more challenging. Just beyond tree-line the urge commensurate with a full bladder came once more, and I was able to find a U-shaped set of waist-high boulders on the south side of the trail where thick shrubs allowed me to let fly without being seen. The eau de toilet fragrance of the place confirmed it as a popular "watering" hole... As I hiked higher and higher, such spots dwindled to practically nothing, so it was necessary to become more inventive with each relief stop.
Eventually I reached the official latrine overlooking Peacock Pool (annotated as PPL on the map, above, and shown above in the photo on the right). The purpose of this building is to allow hikers to offload their spent GORP without having to scrape a cat-hole in the fragile tundra. It is a small, brown building just to the left of the lower center of the photo, and is really just a sturdy Porta-Potty attached to a composting device that magically converts poop into harmless sludge. Harmless except for the stench, that is... The Porta-Potty is perched on a mountain ledge. The topo map indicates the ledge is almost 500 feet above the floor of the Roaring Fork valley. Not all is a sheer drop, but the first 50 ft. or so is. There's not much danger of anybody going over the side, since the concentrated fragrance of the composter forcefully guides you away from that area. I took off my pack, opened the door and went in. As I sat there, on the pot, I speculated on the competence of the engineer who installed this scientific marvel. Maybe it wasn't an engineer... There was a stiff wind outside, and the structure was shaking pretty good with each gust... The Peacock Pool Latrine was the last "official" latrine before the Boulderfield. Many hikers find their intestinal fortitude so enduring that they don't need to take a No. 2 potty break at this point in the trek. It's still a good idea, though, because if the urge comes on strong between here and the Boulderfield, there aren't any private spots along the trail to hide in, and if you have to leave the trail to skulk behind a large boulder, you will do untold damage to the fragile botanicals that form the tundra you are stepping--not to mention defecating-upon. Below the latrine in the valley at the base of the mountain ledge, lies a beautiful body of water known as Peacock Pool (shown in the photo on the left). It is said to be very deep, and to be an excellent fishing hole. In the photo shown below on the left, a trail (the thin light brown line in the right side of the photo) leads to a much larger body of water that cannot be seen in the photo (Chasm Lake). That trail is also the way to the Loft route up to the summit. One day, I plan to hike that trail. Today, however, I stuck to the trail to the Boulderfield. The summit on Longs Peak is the highest point in the upper right section of the photo. The Notch just left of the summit is next to the Home-Stretch. The ridge that extends to the left from the Notch, then shifts downward in the center of the photo and back to the right is the Ship's Prow; it borders the Loft on this side of the mountain like the Palisades borders it on the other side.
A small section of the Loft can be seen extending from the extreme left of the Ship's Prow to the northwest slope of Mt. Meeker (the prominence in the extreme left of the photo). The Indians who inhabited this region before the white man arrived called Longs and Mt. Meeker "the twin guides." They kept traps on top of Longs to catch eagles for their feathers. Next: Trek To the Boulderfield Pg. 2... Longs Peak Menu ... Bugsinthenews ... Books About Longs Peak |
|||
