The comment might have originated from any one of the dozen men trading sturdy hiking shoes for flip-flops at the trail’s eastern terminus. Already nursing sore muscles and swollen feet from the previous day’s climb of nearby 14,150- foot Mount Sneffels, the group followed up with an early summer ascent of 14,017-foot Wilson Peak over a less-traveled route spanning nearly 15 miles and 5,000 vertical feet.

So the words carried an additional element of satisfaction coming from Bowers, a mountain guide by trade working with the Ouray- based and highly regarded San Juan Mountain Guides. Reaching the summit of one of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks is always gratifying. But sharing the associated sting of 10 hours on the trail with a hardened pro somehow sweetens the deal.

“For a lot of the peaks in our area, it’s pretty common for people to get a guide,” said Clint Cook, who owns and operates San Juan Mountain Guides with his wife, Ryan. “As people start getting down ‘The List’ to the last seven or eight technical ones, it’s a pretty big step up. The Wilsons, El Diente, Wetterhorn, Crestone and some of the peaks in the Aspen area definitely offer some exposed scrambling. They aren’t just hikes.”

“The List,” as most Colorado outdoors types are aware, refers to the elite peaks of the Rocky Mountain chain rising above 14,000 feet. By most accounts — including the U.S. Geological Survey and the Colorado Mountain Club — there are 54 such mountains within Colorado’s borders, interspersed among more than 1,500 points rising above 12,000 feet and 637 separate summits higher than 13,000 feet.

Colorado is the undeniable apex of America, containing nearly 80 percent of the 68 fourteeners in the contiguous United States.

California rankssecond with 13. Washington offers 14,411-foot Mount Rainier.
Mountains, of course, constitute only a portion of Colorado’s diverse geography, but since Zebulon Pike’s 1806 attempt at achieving the first recorded summit of the fourteener near Colorado Springs bearing his name, it has been the snowcapped Rockies that first come to mind whenever the state is mentioned. And now that the vast majority of the mountain snowpack has melted, the season for fourteener climbing is in its prime.

“June through September is pretty much the prime season,” said Cook, a year-round guide who is among the few Americans to have achieved full international certification through the International Federation of Mountain Guides Association (IFMGA). “Once we get into the main summer season, we stay pretty busy every day. It’s as popular now for people to climb all those fourteeners as it has ever been, really.”

Reasons for climbing mountains are as varied as the peaks themselves. For some, it’s the challenge of achieving a set goal — be it a single summit or 54 of them. Others are focused on the fitness found through mountaineering. Still more are drawn to the isolation and allure of nature, with almost all the state’s fourteeners residing within established Wilderness Areas.

“I think a huge part of the appeal is that it’s such a great way to be a part of the natural environment, to get away from the hassles of everyday life,” Cook said. “It’s a great relief for the average person in society, and it offers both a physical and mental challenge.”

The fourteeners sprawling the state vary considerably.

Ranging from Colorado’s highest mountain range — the Sawatch Range concentrated in Lake and Chaffee counties — to the technically challenging Sangre de Cristo Range spanning the New Mexico border and the Elk Mountains near Aspen, all offer their own personalities.

Yet it may be the steep and dramatic San Juans bulging into the southwestern portion of the state that offer the greatest appeal to fourteener seekers. Second only to the Sawatch Range in concentration of the state’s tallest peaks, the San Juan Range offers an entire season’s worth of mountain climbing in relatively close proximity.

Among the most alluring summits is Mount Sneffels, accessed via the Yankee Boy Basin, just south of Ouray. Sometimes called the “Queen of the San Juans,” Sneffels’ towering summit stands prominent among the grandiose alpine walls greeting visitors approaching the range from the north. A 6-mile, round-trip route can typically be completed in less than six hours and can include some moderately difficult scrambling near the summit, varying with route selection.

“This is one of the classic fourteeners,” guide Cory Jackson said. “It’s a pretty chossy ridge, so it’s fairly hands-on. But you don’t get climbs like this in a lot of places.”

The reward for those who complete the scramble to the summit is a rarified view of surrounding San Juan peaks including Tea Kettle, Dallas and Kismet, valley views of the stunning Blue Lakes and the Telluride ski area.

Wilson Peak — not to be confused with nearby Mount Wilson, another fourteener — offers a stout follow-up hike. The iconic peak featured on the Coors Light beer label is best approached from the Bilk Creek Basin near Telluride, since the traditional (and much shorter) route in the Silver Pick Basin has been closed to public access by a private landowner.

As a result, the lengthy trail sees somewhat light travel through a more pristine basin below Lizard Head Peak, but is probably best approached as an overnight trip.

“Bilk Creek is a bit longer but a lot more scenic,” said Cook, who once led actor Tom Cruise to the Wilson Peak summit. “It doesn’t take triathlete fitness or anything like that. Climbing fourteeners is a pretty open activity for people who can walk for a few hours. More than anything it just takes a good head, taking it slow and knowing your own personal boundaries. A good sense of adventure and positive attitude are most important.”

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Located inside the new Summer Adventure Center on the Starbucks plaza level in Beaver Creek Village, the hiking center is open daily from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and offers scheduled and private hikes and biking tours in Beaver Creek Resort, around the Vail Valley, and in the historic Leadville area, all within the White River and San Isabel National Forests.

Tours take hikers to pristine alpine lakes and Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks.

Hiking options are varied and include a free, hour-long hike on the Spruce Saddle Loop for beginners and the full-day ascent of a Colorado 14er for an advanced hikers. For a complete list of Hiking Center offerings including international trips a new Monday Mixer hike to 12,000 and 13,000 peaks in the area visit www.BeaverCreek.com.

All hikes include transportation, a professional guide and the use of Salomon packs and boots, Leki hiking poles, and rain gear as well as snacks and beverages. Picnic lunches are available upon request, and additional hiking equipment is on hand to rent.

For more information on the Beaver Creek Hiking Center, call 970-754-5373.

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Our five-day stay at Yellowstone, the country’s first national park, was full of vibrant vistas and wildlife encounters that made for some indelible memories, memories maximized by a balance of planned activities and spontaneity.

Yellowstone National Park spans more than 2 million acres in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho and contains more than half of the world’s active geothermal features from small puddles of warm, bubbling, oozing mud to the iconic Old Faithful geyser. Those features and the abundance of wildlife attracted a record 3.3 million visitors in 2009, President Barack Obama and his family among them, making it the park service’s fourth most-visited site. Keeping all that in mind, I don’t advise you to jump in your car and head West without some forethought.

Before you go

Spring is the best time to spot baby bison and elk; while in the fall you’re likely to spy animal mating rituals. But hey, we don’t call it summer vacation for nothing. The weeks from late June to early August are when most families visit the park, and we found ourselves here in late July 2009.

Reservations for tent and RV sites at seven of the park’s 12 campgrounds open May 1 and are handled through Xanterra Parks and Resorts, a contracted firm that charges no service fees. Because some of the campgrounds can’t handle large campers (hairpin turns and the like), if you’re driving or pulling anything longer than 30 feet, advance reservations are recommended. The 300-plus sites at Fishing Bridge are exclusively for RVs and other hard-sided campers. The remaining campgrounds are first-come, first-serve.

We ended up at Bay Bridge, the largest campground at roughly 425 tent and RV sites, situated in the central part of the park at the north end of Yellowstone Lake. My Grizzly Adams-esque husband would have preferred a more intimate campground (the smallest, Slough Creek, has just 29 sites), but our plans were to meet up with my father and his wife who were pulling a camper from Northern California.

Bay Bridge had its amenities: a nice amphitheater with ranger-led evening programs and bathrooms with flush toilets (though no showers). Plus, plenty of families with kids camped here, so our sons had the opportunity to share animals stories and s’mores with their new friends.

The hum of RV generators and bustle of activity wasn’t enough to deter mule deer from ambling through camp or a lone bison from making himself right at home in between two campers (more on bison later).

Bay Bridge served as our base for five days, but plenty of people stay one or two nights at the other campgrounds around the park, allowing them quicker access to features like Lewis Falls or the park’s 1,100-plus miles of hiking trails.

If a soft bed and hot water is more your thing, Yellowstone has nine lodges, including the grand and historic Old Faithful Inn and Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel. Lodge reservations opened in February, but don’t think a lodge room is out of the question.

When searching the website for rooms, don’t plug in a block of four nights, for example. Rick Hoeninghausen, director of sales and marketing for Xanterra, says if three of those four nights are available, the search will come back as unavailable. Instead, he suggests searching for individual nights and being open to the idea of staying at more than one lodge in the park during your visit.

A Colorado family we met had a brilliant idea: two nights in a tent followed by one in a cabin then two more tent nights.

If you can be flexible, traveling in the spring and fall will give you a greater choice of lodging and camping sites.

It’s big

Yellowstone’s grand size – it’s as big as Delaware and Rhode Island combined – means getting from Point A to Point B, or from Tower Fall in the north to the east side’s Lower Geyser Basin is going to take time. Keep the kids busy by picking up a copy of “Who Pooped in the Park” by Gary D. Robson (a fun guide to identifying wildlife and their scat), or a Junior Ranger Kit ($3) at any of the visitor centers. If you’ve checked out nps.gov/yell before your trip, you can print out a number of coloring and activity sheets.

Of course the most interactive drive-time activity is wildlife spotting.

The famous grizzlies of Yellowstone eluded us – we apparently slept too late to catch the mama bear and her cubs in Hayden Valley, but not a day went by when we did not see bison, and a lot of them.

Bison are the largest mammals in Yellowstone, the male bulls weigh in at 1,800 pounds while the females cows seem demure at 1,000 pounds. Through protection and breeding efforts, the bison population has grown from 50 in 1902 to 3,500.

Bison may look like gentle beasts, what with their big brown eyes, but posters throughout the park warn that they are the cause of more visitor injuries than bears. They also are the cause of the majority of traffic jams. During an evening ride from the west entrance, we witnessed a several-mile backup of oncoming traffic caused by a furry fellow who decided to rest in the middle of the road. And on our final day, we were quite literally caught in the middle of small herd of bison crossing the road. If we had put our windows down, we could have touched the mangy creatures.

Traffic jams are common as well as people pullovers – not always at the designated viewing spots – to snap photos of young elk resting alongside their mothers or the sun fading behind the Gallatin Range.

These slowdowns also can change your plans. Instead of heading for a picnic near Sheepeater Cliff, you might detour north toward Mammoth Hot Springs and find yourself, as we did, at the Boiling River. For these spontaneous adventures, always have your bathing suits handy. The Boiling River, near the park’s north entrance in Montana, is the area where hot springs flow into the icy Gardner River creating natural hot tubs where you can soak muscles strained from a four-mile, 800-foot vertical ramble along the Elephant Back Loop Trail. Keep in mind there are no changing rooms and it’s a brief, level walk to the bubbling pools.

No matter what your day’s itinerary holds, keep binoculars and fishing poles close by as well. The former will help you spot a bald eagle in the Swan Lake Flats or big horn sheep ascending Little Quadrant Mountain, while the later (a three-day fishing license is required for anglers older than 15 costs $15) will allow you to tempt rainbow trout along a meandering meadow stretch of the Nez Percé Creek if the mood strikes.

Natural wonder

No trip to the park is complete without watching Old Faithful do its stuff.

In recent years, the park service had installed wooden walkways and benches along one edge to accommodate the crowds who watch the geyser expel a powerful jet of 3,700-plus gallons of steamy water some 130 feet into the air every 94 minutes or so.

The show is so impressive the boys and I stopped to see it a second day while my husband fly-fished the nearby Firehole River. The second time we viewed the eruption from a trail on the back side of Old Faithful; a perspective I found made for dramatic pictures.

Should you arrive after Old Faithful’s display, take the opportunity to hike some of the nearby trails to see smaller geysers in the basin (and still within sight of Old Faithful). It’s also worthwhile to stop in the visitor center and gift shop for a short, informative film about geysers or grab an ice cream cone and roam the antlered halls at Old Faithful Inn.

There are plenty of organized activities in the park: scenic cruises on Yellowstone Lake, photographic safaris and stagecoach rides through sagebrush flats, a full-day interpretive coach tour of the park’s most popular vistas and geysers and ranger-led hikes.

Fight the urge to do it all in one visit to the park – better to pick a few options, and use a first trip to scout out others. For your next trip to Yellowstone, of course.

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What to bring

A warm sleeping bag, sturdy tent Even during the summer, the night air can get chilly, Mueller said. Having good shelter and warm covering is important. “Don’t sacrifice a good night’s sleep when you’re out there with kids,” Mueller said. “You need to have your wits about you when you’re making decisions in the outdoors.”

A first-aid kit Cuts and splinters can easily happen out in the woods, so be prepared, Mueller said. A first-aid kit can prevent an infection. Be sure to include sunscreen and bug spray as well.

Clothes that breathe “There’s an old saying that ‘cotton kills,’” Mueller said. Any physical activity that causes perspiration can make cotton clothing detrimental in the heat or cold. Visit your local sporting goods store for some items made of moisture-wicking material; it will dry faster than cotton, meaning better comfort and less chance of a rash.

Healthy foods and plenty of water Outdoor activities can be taxing, so it’s important to eat well while camping. Staying hydrated also is important. And if canned food is on the menu, don’t forget the can opener!

A latching cooler Many animals – raccoons in particular – can easily get into a flip-top cooler, Mueller said. Bring one with an extra latch, and store it in the car overnight or when out hiking to keep critters out of food.

What not to bring

Your electronics Leave the iPods, electronic games and, yes, parents, even the BlackBerrys, at home. Those distractions can take away from family together time and the enjoyment of nature. “In many families, this is the only time they all unplug,” Peter said. Bring one cell phone just in case, but be aware that out in the woods, it may be hard to get a signal.

Packaging Some parks don’t allow any refuse to be left behind, requesting that campers take it home before throwing it away, so don’t take anything that won’t be used on the trip, Peter said.

Firewood While bringing firewood may seem like a good idea, many parks advise against it. Insects that live in wood may get into the wood at the campground and cause problems that didn’t exist before. Most parks will have a list of local firewood vendors.

Sandals A pair of flip-flops for the shower isn’t a bad idea, but for outdoor recreation, wear sturdy shoes or hiking boots only. Sandals won’t protect your feet from rocks and other things on the ground, and they won’t keep you warm when the sun goes down.

What else to remember

Call ahead Check the park’s Web site for rules and regulations. Rangers may have some additional recommendations on dos and don’ts for their campsites. And don’t forget to find out what else is in the area, just in case weather interferes. A rained-out day of hiking and swimming would be much better spent at a museum than holed up in a tent, Peter said.

Safety first The outdoors can be tricky for those who aren’t used to it. When hiking, follow marked trails, and swim only in a park’s designated swimming area. Use the buddy system; no one ventures out alone. And just in case, know where the nearest hospitals are located.

Respect fellow campers Be mindful of the noise you make, Peter advised. If you want to listen to a radio, keep it at low volume; nearby campers may be listening for animal sounds or simply enjoying the quiet of nature.

Respect the land “When you’re gone from your campsite, there should be no sign that you were ever there,” Mueller said. Dispose of all trash properly. When disposing of dishwater, do so at least 200 feet away from the nearest water source to avoid contamination. The Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics has more tips at www.lnt.org.

Campfire activities

1. Download a star chart and look for constellations. A campground is a great place to stargaze.

2. Listen for animal sounds. Try to identify what kind of wildlife lives in the woods around you.

3. Make snacks. S’mores are a camping staple, but so many great treats can be cooked over a fire. For example, try mountain pies. Buy a pie iron at the local sporting goods store, add bread and whatever filling you like, then cook over a fire till you have a toasty sandwich.

4. Play games. Try “Two Truths and a Lie,” in which one person makes three statements — two that are true and one that is false. The others have to guess which one is false.

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Located in the Black Forest, Castlewood Canyon State Park offers visitors hiking, rock climbing, with walls up to 60 feet, and unique sightseeing opportunities in a desert-like setting.

The ruins of the century-old Castlewood Canyon Dam form the centerpiece of the park and leads visitors to hiking trails that wind their way into the deepest regions of the canyon, one of which runs alongside Cherry Creek. Dramatic canyon walls and the unique ruins make up some of the park’s attractions.

Castlewood Canyon State Park is open daily from 8 a.m. to sunset for sightseeing, picnicking, hiking, nature study and technical rock climbing. The park is also popular for bird watching and photography. Castlewood Canyon is a day-use park only and does not offer camping.

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Drink lots of water to ward off heat exhaustion. Wear long pants to protect your legs from thorns and cacti. Secure your food to pre vent nocturnal visits from black bears or the cute little desert peccaries known as javelinas.

But you won’t be told a thing about the burros — domesticated donkeys — that wander across the Mexico-U.S. border into the largest and most spectacular national park in Texas.

So shortly after dawn on New Year’s Day, when a trio of four-legged illegal aliens wandered up to my campsite overlooking the Rio Grande, I thought it was a bright idea to stick my head outside my tent and say hello.

The burros weren’t impressed. Steam escaped from nostrils as they snorted aggressively and made pawing motions you typically associate with territorial stallions, not comically cute donkeys that nonetheless stand almost as tall.

Since I’d been charged by large mammals before — once by a feral horse and another time by a bison — I knew enough to retreat into my tent. I sat and listened to my heart pound in my chest until the clip-clop of retreating hooves signalled the end to this unlikely donkey terror.

“Nobody warned us about burros,” muttered my wife as we packed up our gear in record time, donned our backpacks and began our trek out of Boquillas Canyon, a 250-metre deep valley that encloses the Rio Grande in the southeastern corner of If you’ve never heard of this park, you’re in good company. Only about 350,000 people visit Big Bend every year, which means an average of less than 1,000 people a day are present in a park that’s larger than the state of Rhode Island but easily rivals better-known southwestern destinations such as Grand Canyon, Zion and Death Valley National Parks.

Located in a relatively isolated corner of West Texas, along a large curve in the Rio Grande, Big Bend National Park offers hikers, paddlers and wildlife watchers not just solitude, but a surprisingly diverse array of desert, mountain and canyon scenery. The park is basically three wilderness destinations wrapped into one.

Big Bend’s outskirts are dominated by the stark beauty of the Chihuahuan Desert, the driest of North America’s four true deserts, where yucca stalks, prickly-pear cacti, creosote bushes and the claw-like lechuguilla plant poke out of the otherwise rocky landscape.

But in the centre of the park, the tree-covered Chisos Mountains rise out of the desert to a height of almost 2,500 metres, which is comparable to smaller peaks in the Rockies. The pinyon-and-juniper forests near the top of the citadel-like Chisos are home to mountain lions, white-tailed deer and a spectacular network of hiking trails.

The third component of the park is the Rio Grande itself, which passes through impressive chasms such as the Boquillas Canyon and the Santa Elena Canyon, the latter easily reached on a short trail in the southwest corner of the park. Even though the river serves as an international border, paddling trips can be arranged, and you can camp along the banks without ever noticing a border patrol. While burros cross the river with impunity, the desert terrain is too treacherous for most human interlopers.

Most actual tourists who visit Big Bend head straight for the Chisos Mountains, home to both easy walks and relatively strenuous climbs. If you’re in decent shape, you must make the 20-kilometre return trek to the South Rim of the mountains, where a nearly sheer face drops 800 metres to the desert below. From the rim, you can see the entire southern half of the park and well into Mexico, if the smog that wafts in from the twin border cities of Ciudad Juarez and El Paso — 400 kilometres to the northwest — isn’t too thick.

Black bears and mountain lions are occasionally spotted in the Chisos. But the animals you’re most likely to see in Big Bend are white-tailed deer in the mountains, roadrunners and kangaroo rats on the desert floor and the pig-like javelinas near the Rio Grande.

Wildflowers are in bloom in March and April, which is one of the busiest times of year in the park, in terms of tourist traffic. But “busy” is a relative term in such a big place: The early spring is still the best time to visit, as the midday sun isn’t too brutal and nighttime temperatures are more than bearable, especially for winter-hardened Winnipeggers.

Midsummer hiking, on the other hand, is dangerous in Big Bend due to the extreme heat, lack of shade and absence of water. And the dead of winter, when I visited, will require you to prepare for sub-zero nighttime temperatures and the possibility of snow.

But the amazing array of scenery more than compensates for the extremes of the desert climate. Laurence Parent’s Hiking Big Bend National Park lists 47 trails in and around the park, ranging from easy day hikes and to gruelling multi-day treks.

If you have a tent, backpack and a good pair of hiking boots, I strongly recommend the Marufo Vega trail, a 22-kilometre loop in the southwest corner of the park. This overnight trip, which includes a couple of extremely steep sections, takes you up from the desert floor, over the Dead Horse Mountains and down to the Boquillas Canyon, where you may camp along the Rio Grande, in the shadow of the Sierra del Carmens. You can purchase a detailed Marufo Vega trail map at one of the park’s four ranger stations.

If you encounter any burros along this trail, keep quiet and you should be OK. And I don’t just mean in the presence of the donkeys.

On my way out of the park, when I told a ranger about my encounter with aggressive asses, he couldn’t help but chuckle. “I’ve never heard of burros behaving like that,” he said. “They usually run away as soon as you approach them.”

IF YOU GO

Big Bend National Park: Open year-round. Entrance fees, good for seven days, are $20 per vehicle. Official park info: www.nps.gov/bibe. Also consider Hiking Big Bend National Park (Falcon, US$14.95) and Trails Illustrated Big Bend National Park (National Geographic, US$11.95).

Get there: After flying from Winnipeg to either Austin or San Antonio, you’ll need a day to make the road trip to Big Bend. From Austin, drive west on State 290 and Interstate 10 to Fort Stockton, then head south to the park on State 385. Give yourself eight hours. From San Antonio, head west on State 90 to Marathon and then head south on State 385. Give yourself seven hours and keep an eye on your fuel gauge. You may also combine these routes to make a round trip.

Camping: Big Bend National Park has three developed campgrounds, at Chisos Basin (at 1,700 metres above sea level, the best staging ground for mountain hikes), Cottonwood (near Santa Elena Canyon in the southwestern section of the park) and Rio Grande Village (in the southeast, near Boquillas Canyon). Nightly fees for all three are $14 per site.

Backcountry campsites are $10 per night and require a permit, obtainable at one of the park’s four visitor centres. In the busy Chisos Mountains, you must camp at designated sites. You can camp almost anywhere you like in other areas of the park, provided you keep away from roads, trails, water sources and historic sites.

Hotels: The only hotel in the park is the 72-room Chisos Mountains Lodge (chisosmountainslodge.com, 877-386-4383). Rooms and cottages run from US$108 to $137 per night. There are motels outside the park in the towns of Terlingua, Marathon and Alpine. The most upscale is the historic Gage Hotel (www.gagehotel.com, 432-386-4205) in Marathon, which has 36 rooms (US$90 to $291), three detached houses (US$320 to $381), 10 hectares of gardens and a bar menu that includes smoked brisket sliders.

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We would stay at the campground near Phantom Ranch our first night. Then, we would follow the well-traveled trail to Clear Creek. From there, we would hike up an intriguing route that would take us above the Redwall formation to the saddle between Wotans Throne and Angels Gate. The former is the dramatic mesa that dominates the view from the popular Cape Royal viewpoint on the North Rim. The latter, or at least half of it, is often referred to as “Snoopy Rock.”

From this saddle, we would contour over to Hall Butte, a formation named for one of the men on Major Powell’s trip down the Colorado River in 1869. There, we planned to descend into Vishnu Canyon and continue east, at the level of the broad Tonto plateau, into Asbestos Canyon. After a layover day there, we would turn around and follow the Tonto plateau all the way back to Phantom Ranch.

On the third day, we climbed to the Wotans-Angels Gate saddle, often over rocky outcrops that looked unacceptably fragile. We felt exhilarated when we reached the saddle, but agreed we would never do that climb again.

STEEP AND VERY LOOSE

We worked our way to Hall Butte and found the proper descent ravine that would lead us to the bed of Vishnu. The slope was very steep and the rocks were very loose. As we neared the bottom of the Redwall, the dynamics of our hike changed. Bill was probably some 40 feet below me. With my right hand, I grabbed hold of a large boulder, about the size of a shopping cart. I intended to use this handhold to more lightly step across the ravine. As I took my first step I instantly realized I was in trouble.

The rock and I were suddenly airborne. I crashed hard with my right knee into a rocky surface a few feet away and spun around. I immediately tried to lift myself up on my left leg and my left knee popped. I fell back to the ground and slid a few feet down the slope. Then, I could see that the boulder was thundering down the slope toward Bill. As he tried to move out of its path, the boulder clipped the lower corner of his backpack, spun him 180 degrees, and sent him tumbling down the slope.

After four or five complete rolls, Bill landed in a small patch of rocks. I feared for the worst, but shortly after coming to a rest, he called up to me, “Dennis, are you OK?” Miraculously, he hadn’t broken anything, although he had bad scrapes above his eye, on his left arm and had hurt his right leg.

LIMPING TO WATER

I slid down to his position and we dragged ourselves over to a well-protected spot where we assessed our injuries and spent the night. The next morning, we could see water in the drainage down below us. We decided it was crucial to get there, so we limped and hobbled our way down to the bed. We probably covered about a half-mile. It took us three hours.

This spot was perfect, with flowing water and terraced rock surfaces where we set up our camp. Appraising our situation, our default choice was to wait here until our itinerary was over. Then, our families would contact the Park Service and a search would ensue. We had plenty of food and water, and neither of us seemed to need immediate medical attention.

The next morning, I felt strong enough to hike, even though my left knee was still swollen and, with too much pressure, would buckle. We decided I would try to follow the Tonto Plateau back to Phantom Ranch to get help. Even with good opportunities to pick up water along the way, I carried seven quarts with me.

I was able to do much better than I had hoped. Two and a half days after leaving Bill behind, I reached Phantom Ranch, where I met up with Ranger Bil Vandergraff. He was able to contact the park’s SAR unit, and a helicopter picked up Bill at about noon and flew him up to the South Rim. I stayed the night at the campground, and hiked out the next day — my eighth day in the canyon, and five days after our brush with tragedy in the Grand Canyon.

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My dad has always been the rugged type, but not in the REI-clad, bivvy-packing sort of way (“Joe Campers,” as he used to call guys like that). My dad camps with a sort of escapist obsession, hitting the road despite the state of his external frame backpack, his finances, or his human relationships (or, frequently, because of the state of them).

When I was five, my father got into a car accident and seriously injured his neck, forcing him to give up his job as a carpenter. With unemployment came debt and free time, both of which led him to spend every free second travelling the coastline and wilderness areas of California. He used to say that only in nature did he feel at peace, and so my early elementary school years were dedicated to day trips and camping expeditions to every nearby state and federal park.

Our favorites were Manchester State Beach and Point Reyes. Long weekends merited a trip to the Lost Coast in Humboldt County, and during breaks we would make our way down to Navajo Nation, Zion, and Joshua Tree. The Pacific Coast Highway was our religion, and the silence that governed our drives an implied adherence. My dad would only break the quiet with random memorized bits of historical knowledge about past Native American tribes and ecological novelties he remembered from reading plaques a previous time through the area and observations about the weather.

When we set up camp in frequently uncharted territory is when things got magical though. I grew up wandering aimlessly on rocky river beds, and trudging through the sand on driftwood-strewn beaches. My father used to call me “Pokey” because my slow poke tendencies led me to trail a bit behind him on hikes, transfixed on the entangling roots and decaying leaves beneath my bright maroon hiking boots (a birthday present one year—my coolest childhood possession).

My wanders provided fodder for my already wild imagination, if not fostering a complete ignorance of time orientation. I took a dead butterfly to be a sacred sign from my ancient ancestors, sitting on a decaying log, stroking its wing over and over until it dissolved in my hand. I counted the number of pebbles I ate, in hopes that one day they would magically turn me into a fairy (and no, I don’t know if they’re still in my digestive system). After being warned by my father about the undertow, I spent hours standing on the edge of the beach, imagining an elaborate scenario of being pulled out into the ocean and claiming my rightful place as queen of the Mer Kingdom. I also developed a symbolic system of morality by imagining the power balances between the plants in different ecosystems: I hypothesized ivy to be a dangerous and powerful conqueror, swallowing fences whole, while the gentle, but courageous, ferns fought on behalf of the soil and its inhabitants.

But the wilderness was both scary enabler and sole refuge to a first grader who could not develop the attention span to complete more than three addition problems in a row, but could spend hours intimately studying the ridges and indentations in a piece of obsidian. The more we camped, the more I didn’t understand the need for friends, when there were perfectly good rolly pollies to play with. I dreaded lining up for 8 a.m. assembly as much as I longed to hit the road on another adventure with my father. Nature was just easier.

I was an awful liar and a blabbermouth, so at the end of each trip, every tale of my father’s irresponsibility would come out to my mother: flyaway tents, wild boars, thunderstorms, and trespassing (my dad justifying, “Nahh, it’s not closed. I came same time last year and it wasn’t closed. It’s fine,” before picking me up and climbing over a gate). I’d attempt to sleep peacefully, while I listened to my mother scream at him, “All she ate for two days was Cheez-Its?!” “I can’t believe you let her get a tick! I told you to keep her away from bushes!” and my dad’s weak responses,“She said she wanted Cheez-Its so I got her Cheez-Its.” “I don’t know, Lynne, she wandered off! What was I supposed to do?” and the self-assured “I’m trying to raise her to not be a tenderfoot. She’s learning life skills.”

I spent the remainder of elementary school in my dreamlike state, observing life go by from the fringes of the socialization process. But middle school was a wake-up call, and it came in the form of blaring bells that indicated first period, recess, lunch, and dismissal. Since then, I’ve developed a grudging respect for the necessity of alarm clocks and speed reading, and come to understand the perils of spacing off during lecture and over-wandering between classes. But I can never really quell my internal first grader, the one that would remain unresponsive to a solid five minutes of “Earth to Devin” on repetition while she stared at a moth.

When I called up my dad and mentioned I was planning on going camping, his elusive enthusiasm begin to shine through as he made a case for Otis Pike. In the following days he would call me randomly to lecture about choosing an ideal site to protect against the wind, and advice about cooking with a propane stove. The last time I talked to him, he said: “The thing is, in life, you have to worry about time, but when you camp, you don’t have to worry about time. It’s really liberating, you know, not having to worry about time.”

I laughed. “Yeah, I know, Dad.”

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“They see these signs for Ring the Peak and it encourages them to walk a little farther,” said Mary Burger, director of projects for the nonprofit Friends of the Peak. “It makes them feel like things are a little less hazardous, a little more organized.”

Ten years ago, Burger’s group set out to build a network of trails, a 70-mile route encircling Pikes Peak below treeline, great for a series of day hikes or a multi-day backpack or bike ride.

But it remains a ring in name only. While Friends of the Peak built 4 miles of trails between 2000 and 2006 and put signs along the rest of the established route, huge gaps remain, and after recent decisions by local and federal land managers to protect a herd of bighorn sheep by prohibiting trail construction, a big question remains:

Will the circle ever be unbroken?

Breaking trail

When Ring the Peak was conceived in the late 1990s, it was seen as a way to take some of the load off Barr Trail, the main hiking route up Pikes Peak.

Most of the work had already been done, thanks to the complex trail networks already in place.

“We knew immediately we were, like, 85 percent on existing trails. We just had these few little holes,” said Burger.

Group members drew lines on maps to connect existing trails, and, with U.S. Forest Service approval, began building. They built a trail near the North Slope watershed on Pikes Peak, one from Raspberry Mountain to the Crags area and, on the west side of the peak, connected Putney Gulch with Horsethief Park. Around 2007, they turned their eyes to the south side of the peak, where a huge gap existed.

They haven’t built any trails since.

Watching sheep

Bighorn sheep are rugged, shy animals, symbolic of the Rockies, yet declining due to disease and habitat loss. To see one on a hike is a treat.

A large herd, once thought to number 375 animals, moves between Pikes Peak and the Dome Rock State Wildlife Area south of Divide. From the early planning of Ring the Peak, the U.S. Forest Service has been concerned about how a trail would affect the herd.

Recent research has shown that the herd may be as small as 106 sheep, according to a December study by the Forest Service. The study also determined that close contact with humans could lead to an increase in predator attacks, stress and disease.

After receiving the study, Brent Botts, Pikes Peak district ranger for Pike National Forest, told Burger the agency would not conduct an environmental assessment on extending the trail from where it currently dead ends near Pancake Rocks.

“I said, ‘Mary, based on everything that biologists have said, the science is just so sound on that there would be a detrimental impact on the habitat and sheep,’” Botts said.

Asked why the agency can’t institute a seasonal closure, as the Colorado Division of Wildlife does at Dome Rock, so humans don’t interrupt lambing season, Botts said there would be only a three-month window, June through August, when the trail could be open, and it would be difficult to keep people out the rest of the year.

Utilities decision

Botts’ decision was the second in a double whammy blow to hopes for a trail encircling the peak.

Colorado Springs Utilities in January released its long-awaited proposal for recreation in the South Slope watershed of Pikes Peak. The Ring the Peak Trail currently ends at Forest Service Road 376, near where a locked gate keeps the public out of the South Slope. People on the trail who want to keep going west must then slog for many miles on Gold Camp Road, and then Colorado Highway 67, until they reach Horsethief Park.

Friends of the Peak had long hoped that when Utilities opened the area to the public it would include a trail across the area, to the western edge, connecting segments of the Ring the Peak Trail. But the plan released in January called for just two trails, a loop on the west side of Mason Reservoir and the Lake Moraine Trail that would connect with an existing trail that runs to the Cog Railway. The two would not connect, and no trail would run to the west side to accommodate Ring the Peak.

“The original alignment they wanted to see through South Slope just isn’t possible, based on the research, the biology, the restrictions with that proposed area,” said Utilities spokeswoman Patrice Quintero. She said Utilities consulted the Forest Service on the decision.

Something positive

Still, there was good news out of the Utilities access plan for Burger. The city-owned utility agreed to allow a trail through its land along U.S. Highway 24 at Ute Pass, which will connect the Ute Indian Trail with Ring the Peak in Cascade, long considered a crucial gap where hikers on the ring to and from Manitou Springs must walk along the highway for a mile.

But huge gaps remain on the west and south sides, and Burger doesn’t know how to bridge them.

“We have to go back to the drawing board and look for another alignment that doesn’t go so high,” she said.

One possibility is getting approval to build a trail downhill from Pancake Rocks, and finding private landowners who will agree to let the trail pass through. But such an endeavor could take years.

For now, the only people making a ring around the peak may be the handful of bicyclists who have ridden the trails and used roads to shoot around, a bypass few backpackers would attempt.

“Will we ever be able to move off Gold Camp Road and make it a nonmotorized ring?” asked Burger.

“I think it’s always going to be an imperfect circle.”

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REI Adventures, a leader in worldwide guided active adventure programs, today announced its collaboration with Conservation Volunteers International Program (Conservation VIP), a nonprofit organization dedicated to conserving iconic destinations and cultural sites around the world, to offer Volunteer Expeditions that blend adventure, service, cultural appreciation and unforgettable experiences for travelers.

“Collaborating with Conservation VIP is a natural fit for REI Adventures as we share the commitment to take care of the outdoors for the enjoyment of all outdoor enthusiasts,” said Cynthia Dunbar, REI Adventures manager. “Offering Volunteer Expeditions aligns with REI’s core purpose of stewardship, and provides an option for people to travel while making a difference in restoring and protecting these amazing destinations.”

The first of two itineraries includes the Machu Picchu Volunteer Expedition beginning in June, available to book now. This 13-day trip will focus volunteer efforts in Peru’s Machu Picchu Historic Sanctuary and the Sacred City of the Incas, its main archaeological complex. Volunteers with Conservation VIP, currently the only group authorized to conduct volunteer work in the Sacred City, work closely alongside park rangers to help restore architectural integrity by removing exotic or unwanted vegetation along the trails or the stone walls of buildings and agricultural terraces, maintain ancient Inca trails, restore areas impacted by visitor use or fire, plant trees, collect native plant seeds to be used in restoration projects, or monitor restoration study plots.

The Torres del Paine Volunteer Expedition to Patagonia begins in December and is also available to book now. The 14-day trip provides volunteer travelers a unique opportunity to work alongside local park rangers in Chile’s stunning Torres del Paine National Park to help restore trails, clear overgrown vegetation, angle trails to help shed excess water, remove rocks and widen trailheads, as well as restore wildlife habitat in areas that have experienced over use. Travelers may also use their rest days to hike along the shores of Lago Grey en route to the massive Grey Glacier, the southernmost tip of the giant Southern Icefield, or to watch for the Andean condor or the elusive huemul deer.

“We are proud to team with REI Adventures on this endeavor,” said Rich Tobin, president and CEO of Conservation VIP. “Blending our conservation and service values allows like-minded people an invaluable opportunity to experience or return to some of the most incredible destinations around the world while simultaneously helping to preserve them.”

Although REI’s Volunteer Expeditions trip pricing reflects a more basic style of lodging and amenities compared to REI Adventure’s active vacations, volunteers will work alongside local experts, gaining extensive insight into regional culture and geography, and helping to protect some of the planet’s most iconic and treasured destinations. All ground transportation, lodging, meals, expert leadership and necessary equipment to complete projects are provided. Each trip will incorporate rest days to allow travelers the opportunity to explore the destination in a more relaxed manner. No previous volunteer experience is required.

About REI Adventures
REI Adventures has been a global leader in worldwide guided active adventure programs since 1987. The company offers unique itineraries focused on sustainable, human-powered outdoor adventure; hiking, biking, kayaking, climbing and more. Guests will experience iconic destinations as guides take them off the “beaten path,” and provide opportunities to explore a destination, get to know the local people, their culture, the flora and fauna and discover things they would not be able to duplicate on their own or with another travel company. For more information and available destinations, please visit www.rei.com/adventures.

About Conservation Volunteers International Program
Conservation VIP is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that promotes “Green Diplomacy,” international cooperation that builds capacity for environmental protection and community economic development by creating partnerships between volunteers, public land managers, private landowners, local communities, non-governmental organizations, government, universities and businesses. The organization does this by strengthening sustainable development and protection of parks, wilderness areas and cultural and historical sites. For more information, please visit www.conservationvip.org.

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