Mountain Joy, Part 1

Mountain Joy, Part 1.

(August 4, 2016): Eastbound Amtrak, near Kalamazoo, MI

When we finally get off the westbound train in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, we are tired and smelly.  The ride through the midsection of the country during the night was smooth, but it was hard to sleep.  The air conditioning was blasting cold air, and I was grateful for the fleece my mother had sent me.  Wes used his linen jacket for the wedding as a pitiful blanket and both he and I struggled to sleep in our seats without straining our necks. 

We were not rested as the train climbed into the mountains, then made its way through the deep, rugged, majestic canyons carved by the ever-growing Colorado River.  We were to pick up a rental car just a few blocks from the train station, then make our way to our room.  We would drive the 120 miles to Steamboat Springs the next morning.

We called the car company to let them know we were coming.  No answer.  We called the 800 number. No answer.  We spoke to a representative in a different time zone who confidently told me they were closed for the day and was genuinely shocked when I told him they were supposed to be open for the next two hours.

Bemused and hungry, we call the only taxi in the region, who promises to arrive in five minutes.  25 minutes later, a young woman picks us up.  As we are driving to the motel, we see that the car place is open, and drop Wes off.  I should have gotten out as well, as the 1.5 mile ride to the hotel costs $20.  Sigh.

The first room we are shown is hot, small, and substandard.  We can upgrade for an additional $10.  Sigh.  We do.  Crawl into our room, take showers, and fall asleep in what proves to be very high quality sheets and blankets.

Up early the next morning, we take a nice exploratory walk into Glenwood, the highlights of which are seeing two bald eagles and finding an apricot tree full of fruit.  Along the way to town, for more than mile, we see dozens of business cards strewn along the path. This, of course, provokes speculation and storytelling.  Did Les Durkee “Get more with Les” at Defiance Auto Repair, quit his job and throw his cards out the window in a fit of pique?  Perhaps his four color cards with a sports car curving around a highway were blown from his dashboard as he flew down US 40 just outside Glenwood Springs.

The wedding festivities will not begin until tomorrow, so we want to take the long way through the back country to get to Steamboat.  When we ask for a backcountry map of the Flattops, the tourist agent is apologetic. When we tell her what we want to do, she runs over to the big map on the wall, and tickled, points out a small dirt road going from New Castle to the White River valley settlement of Buford.  She gives us detailed verbal instructions to get to this forest road, and promises we will love it.

We do. The Flattops are anomalous volcanic mountains in the northwest corner of Colorado.  Unlike the peopled, touristy, granite massifs of the rest of the state, these mountains are isolated, pristine, and untrafficked.   Up top, we are reminded of the parks and upland spruce/lodgepole forests around Fox Park, Wyoming—with one major difference.  The trees are alive here.  The miles of grey and red trees, killed by pine bark beetle and now burning in multiple fires in Wyoming, are not here.  It is a joy to be in a healthy, living forest. 

Even though it is almost August, the meadows are full of arrowroot balsamroot, lupine, brown eyed susans and many more flowers we cannot identify.  In this high flat country, there are few streams.  The snow must sit late into the summer to support these miles of yellow, purple, blue, and white.

When we leave the highlands down a twisting turning track, we enter the wonderland of the White River valley.  The settlement of Buford is marked by a tiny dot on our Colorado map, and we hope to get a bite there.  We don’t find any town, but are surprised by the number of mansions edging the valley.  The closest place for services is Meeker, twenty miles away, in the wrong direction.  What the hell, we say, and follow the river down lush hay fields and historic ranches.  This is the Colorado we remember from our youth, when it was still cow country, long before the days of spandex and endurance fitness races.

After a quick stop at a grocery store, we turn around and follow the river back into the mountain valley.  After about 25 miles, the road turns to dirt and we track higher and higher into theseremote mountains.  The two peaks we see, Pyramid and Pagoda, point to these mountain’s volcanic heritage, as does the incredibly fertile black soil around us.  We find out that White River National Forest is the 2^nd named reserve in the US.  After a while, even the massive ranches disappear and we are winding our way through primeval, uncut forest. 

Two passes later, we curve into the funky little mining town of Oak Creek, where the small houses and the barefoot children remind us of West Virginia.  However, just beyond Oak Creek, we feel the backwash of Steamboat Springs.  Trophy houses dot the path and the traffic is faster and more aggressive.  The ski town in packed; it takes 20 minutes to go 3 miles from the condo-maxium sprawl around the ski hill into the downtown of the former cowtown.

We are in a small motel on the north side of town, run by a gregarious Pole, Greg and his American wife Emily.  We settle in quickly, then go to meet the family for lunch on the banks of the Yampa River, at the local favorite SunPie Café.

The backyard is full of pre-adolescent boys in full baseball uniforms.  The majority are wearing soiled red and white uniforms bearing the logo “Oklahoma Fuel.”  As I wait in the long line to order a drink, I visit with a couple who tell me their son is participating in a fast pitch tournament with 25 teams from around the country.  They are using their travels (to eight locations this summer alone) to scope out schools and build the possibility of their son receiving a college baseball scholarship.  The softening, brown haired dad remarks, somewhat ruefully, “We might be better just saving money for his college.”  His pert, blonde wife, with a twangy Oklahoma drawl, objects, “Oh, now honey, at least we get some sort of vacation this way!”

After mountainous plates of fried food and sticky drinks, the wedding party, now numbering around 30 people, goes next door to take a tube ride down the rocky, low, quickly flowing Yampa River.  Wes and I make our way to the river, where the first thing I do is fall attempting to get into my tube. My older brothers’ family stare at us, as we fumble and stumble our way into the tubes.  They pop right in and wait for the two flat land idiots to achieve the simple task.

The river is both very low and very crowded.  The ride is punctuated by collisions with other tubers and numerous rocks.  At one point, my tube becomes high centered on a rock and I make a strategic error.  I get out of the tube to free it, lose my balance, fall, and watch my hat slip away.  While reaching for my hat, my tube slips away and starts floating down the river without me.  Our group is out of sight and I am in a precarious position.  Walking among the slippery rocks and swift flow is difficult

I am relieved to see that some kind soul has secured my tube on some high rocks about 50 yards downriver.  I stumble along, fall several times, and work hard to keep myself calm and focused.  My water shoes have come undone and I struggle to keep my feet in the soles.  When I finally get to the tube, I step on a submerged rock to to reach the perching tube.  I slip off the rock and hyperextend my left big toe backwards in a searingly painful move.  After several tries, I make it back into the tube and back into the flow of the river. 

After some time, I am surprised to see Wes and my brother’s family waiting for me, worried and wondering what could have taken me so long.  I tell them I had lost my tube and it took a while to get it back.  They are surprised, as am I when I realize it, that I have never been tubing in my entire life.  My 30 year old niece can hardly believe it.  What have I been doing with my 60 years on this earth?

The rest of the ride is uneventful, although there is one nervewracking moment when the river jumps a small rapid near the outflows of the mineral springs.  Numerous 13 year old boys are playing in the rapids and one decides it will be funny to jump under my tube as we go over the 2 foot drop.  He gets caught, but jumps up free and gasping, a few feet below the rushing dip.

At the end of the trip, my toe is visibly swelling and already turning purple.  Every step hurts and I wonder if I have broken my toe…just what I don’t need a few weeks before beginning our hike on the Camino de Santiago.

To be continued….