Mt Elbert Part Deux

So picking up where I left off, we made it to 13,800 feet out of 14,450 ft. We decided to call it quits after we realized we could not go further. It was very cold outside, and with the piercing wind, probably near 0 degrees. There was blizzard like snow coming (it was snowing, but not at the force of a blizzard...yet.) We had no water, and power bars consisted of our diets. My feet went from freezing----->numb--------->more numb, which is not good. I think I suffered from moderate hypothermia, as is described here

"As moderate hypothermia takes over, normal activity becomes uncomfortable because your blood vessels are severely restricted. At this stage, you have poor coordination and trouble keeping your balance. Your speech may become slurred and you will appear to be in a state of intoxication. You will no longer be able to make responsible decisions and will experience feelings of apathy and confusion. Your breathing will become shallow and you will experience an overwhelming urge to sleep."

This describes my behavior perfectly. Everytime we stopped to rest, I was sleeping...or trying to. Without my brother TJ, and the other 2 guys, I would have died. There is no joking around with this, I would have died. I could not take care of myself, and I especially credit my brother. He had to make the 9 mile hike down the mountain while watching over me.

Well, we made it, even though it seemed like we never would. The site of that Blue Malibu was comforting to us all. We were all wet, cold, and just wanting to warm up. By this time, I was feeling better, the further we descended. We decided to head back to the hostel we stayed at to see if we could shower. The generous people there let us shower, and we packed the car to start back east, as we were warned that the blizzard was only going to get worse.

This is the part of the story where life gets just a little more interesting...

TJ starts driving back home. Leadville (the city we stayed in) is 25 miles from I-70, then its basically highway all the way back. The speed limit for the road to get to I-70 was 65, and I kid you not, we didn't drive faster than 23. There were many factors into the blazing speed of 23: Extreme Cold, Snow, Ice, overcast skies, etc. TJ had to drive with his blinkers on while natives of the state flew by us in the left lane in their SUV's with snow tires. Poor TJ had to turn the emergency blinkers on, and bless his heart, endured the hour and a half it took to drive 25 miles. Yes, I said it, an hour and a half. That would drive even the most calm person insane, and it got to TJ. On the first exit (Frisco) on I-70, Tj decided he was done driving. So we fueled up, and my idiot self decided that I would drive. Gary (Jarod and Chad's dad) told us we NEEDED to get to Denver, because the blizzard was coming on our backs fast. So really thats why we decided to keep going.

As soon as I got on I-70, it was very clear as a driver that 20 MPH was the fastest I would be able to go. There was 3-4 inches of slushy-like snow on the ground, creating for very poor traction in his car. So the emergency blinkers came back on, my hands clamped on the wheel tight, and I focused as best as I could. From the on ramp we were 13 miles from the Eisonhower tunnel, the NEXT closest exit. We were hoping that once we made it to the tunnel, the weather would get better. With it approaching 6:30, it started to be dark. The highway to the tunnel was inclined, meaning we were climbing uphill by the mile. Remember this, as its an important part later in the story. After 4 miles, it was clear I could not go any further, as I was speeding at 5 MPH, and we decided to pull off on the side of the road, and be towed to the tunnel.

TJ called Allstate, our insurance company, to get a tow. Our insurance company covers the first $100, and we cover the rest. They basically have a local company come get us, yaddi yatta. So they plug is into J.D.'s towing service, a company out of Breckenridge, CO. He says with the weather the way it is, he will be 45 minutes. We say, sure thats fine, see you then. OVER an HOUR later, J.D. comes strolling by, parks in front of the car, and comes to the window. I preceded to roll it down, and here goes the following conversation:

JD- Hey guys, I'm JD, and I'm here to tow your car (in a twangy accent)
Me- Ok, cool. Can you tow us to Georgetown? (Town 5 miles after the tunnel)
JD- Sure, sounds good. Ok, I only have room for two of you in my truck cab, and I can't just leave the other two of ya on the highway. So that means 2 of you will need to ride in the car, which is illegal, but I'm forced too.
Me-Erm....ok...Well, whatever. Thats fine.

From there, Jarod and Chad go get in the cab of the truck, while I am instructed by JD to pull the car up a few inches, and get it lined up with the truck. Its important to note that I had to cock the wheel a little to the left to "straighten" it up with his truck, which was incorrectly parked in the first place. An important note is that good ole JD did NOT put any blocks on our tires, or anything. Remember the part about us being on an incline? Yeah.....From here, JD instructs me to put the E-Brake on while he connects his wench cable to the car. After he gets it all hooked up, and tightened, he comes back to the car. I'm still in the drivers seat, while TJ is in the back. We pick up the convo once again:

JD- Ok, I need you to go ahead and take off the e-brake, put the car in neutral, and then get in the back seat with your brother. I can't tow the car while anyone is in the front seat. (Seems weird eh?)
Me- Well, ok, sounds good.

I release the brake, put it in N, and hop in the back seat with my bro. We are sitting there as JD goes back to his truck to turn the wench on. He turns it on, and it starts to pull our car up onto the bed of the tow truck (its a flatbed). Our car moves slowly forward, as expected....until suddenly I hear a loud SNAP! A quick check of things and I realize that the snap was the wench cable, and our car was suddenly in a freefall BACKWARDS rolling down the highway. Yeah, remember? That highway with 4 inches of slush, the highway thats pitch black, some cars driving 65 MPH even in blizzard conditions. I thank God He gave me the heads up to leap up, stretch my front hand to the foot brake, and push it down. The car finally stopped, and rested about halfway into the right lane of the highway.

Just a few seconds later, our buddy J.T. opens the front door, while I am still stretched from the back seat, hand on the brake. He then says, as non-chalantly as anyone could ever say anything, "Oh, let me get that e-brake for you"......GEE THANKS JT. He didn't say, "Hey, I am so sorry for almost killing you and your brother. Or I'm sorry for snapping a cable thats supposed to hold 8500 lbs."

Needless to say, after catching my breath, doing double take to make sure I was still alive, I became a little peeved at that comment. JD did have the "smarts" to get us out of the middle of the road, and we finally got pushed back to the guardrail. Well, TJ decided to talk to JD, and get his business card (JD got smart, realized WHY he was asking for the card, and casually said "oh, I didnt bring any") From the inside of the car I was able to hear JD say these EXACT words: "I cannot believe I just drove an hour for nothing."

DID HE REALLY JUST SAY THAT? REALLY?

ANywho, we finally got a tow (2 hours later) for being on the highway for a grand total of 4.30 hours. We stayed in a hotel that night, and got up the next morning at 5 a.m. It was another horrendous morning of driving until east of Denver. We finally made it home Friday morning, 6:15 a.m.

The End.

Oh Mount Elbert

Spring Break 09....away from school and all the stresses that come with it. LETS GO TO A BEACH! Thats the words most spoken...however, those words were merely an afterthought on my Spring Break. We decided to head to the Rocky Mountains, square in the middle of Colorado. So TJ (my brother), Jared and Chad (a set of brothers) and I left Sunday 3/22 at 12:30 p.m. heading west on Interstate 70 towards Denver. The drive there was awesome, although 20 hours (22-2 due to Mountain Time Zone), and right smack in the middle we got a pleasant surprise in Topeka, Kansas. We are at a toll service station, filling up, emptying bladders, and buying caffeine, when who else but John Cena walks in. HOLY CRAP. John blanking Cena.


So we are thinking that our trip could not be bad, we just saw a major celebrity in a Po-Dunk State at 11 p.m. at night.....Oh. Boy. Was. I. Wrong.


We get to Leadville, CO at 6 a.m. Mountain Time, ready to tackle the beast they call Mt. Elbert. Elbert is the tallest mountain in Colorado, 2nd tallest in America, only to Mt. Whitney in CA. It is 14,440 ft of pure beauty. We parked at the parking lot, a little ways from the base of the mountain. The temperature in Leadville was around 35 degrees, which would be the fairly constant throughout our stay there. We got packed up (each with around 40-50 lbs of equipment) and headed on the trail, leading to the trailhead. The Sun is shining, although cold yet. Our spirits are high, our ambitions even higher. We are on the first trail for less than half a mile, when TJ and Jared decide, "Hey! The trail looks to bend around, lets cut some time by climbing straight forward (70 degree angle). Against my better judgement, we all agreed, and decided to go forward (Mistake #1). After a very gruesome climb, we continued our trek towards the peak!

By this time, the trail is no where to be found, so we decide to continue making our own path (Mistake #2). By this time, we are trekking through WAIST-DEEP snow, and no, I am not exaggerating. As you can imagine, this was a very tiring process, and completely drained us. So we decided to back track to a campsite where it was a) flat b)dry (er) to spend the night, as it was around 4 p.m., not enough time to make it to the tree-line of the mountain.

Now if you remember, we were going through waist deep snow, which in turn meant that it soaked everything I was wearing. My boots, 3 pairs of socks I had on, and my outer shirt. To make it worse, my camelback (which holds 2 liters of water, and fits in my backpack) broke, leaking water ALL inside my bag, therefore getting EVERYTHING else that was previously dry wet. We set up our tent, tried to get a fire going (which is hard to keep one up in the mountains, oxygen level, etc.) So TJ and I decided to call it bedtime at like 6 p.m., lol; We were already exhausted from our day. So I set my boots, socks, and shirt to dry right by my tent, and went to bed. I went to bed without socks on (remember, its dropping to 20 and below). Oh, and it was snowing fairly bad too...

Lets just agree its safe to say I got next to no sleep. When I "woke" up the next day, my toes and fingers were completely frozen solid, I thought I could be suffering from Hypothermia. I reached to get my boots and socks to put back on, only to find out that they were COMPLETELY frozen STIFF. Normally, shoes and socks are form-fitting to your feet, allowing for comfort. Well, when something is frozen solid, its not so forgiving to form. Ok, so that was the worst night of my life (up until that point of course!)

Fast Forward to Wednesday morning, 3:30 a.m. MST. We wake up in our hostel, ready to tackle the mountain once again. This time, we had dry clothes, a better map, a game plan, and the most important thing, snowshoes. Snowshoes basically look like tennis rackets, allowing for you to float higher above snow (bypassing the trecking through the waist-deep snow problem). We drove back out to the parking lot, got there about 4:30 a.m., ready to FOLLOW the trail this time. We head up the same trail we started Monday, were making really good time as we came to the bridge that lead to the actual path to the peak. Then, finally then, we make it to the actual trail! It sat at the bottom of the Mountain. We continue up the path and trail, still on great pace to make it to the summit by 1:00 p.m. or so. From here it really gets interesting.

This is the point in the story where I would place an Intermission................

We finally come to a fork in the trail, one leading slightly to the left, one leading slightly to the right, and much steeper. This was the point in my life if I had a choice to redo, I would choose the path to the right. However, life usually doesn't allow for redo's, and this case is one of them. We chose the path to the left, and from there our fate was sealed. See, our rationale was the left path was much more flat compared to that of the right. Anyone would have chose the path with less work, right? Right? Tell me I am right!

Well, needless to say, we basically ran into a dead end, and once again decided to make our own path. (Grand Mistake #3). Member how our last climb was a 70 degree angle? Well, we will call this one an 80 degree + angle. No joke. The only way we were able to climb this was due to the very skinny tree's lining this forest. Just think 200+ feet, 80 degree angle, blizzard conditions, snow shoes, and backpacks, to go along with crappy power bars for every meal.

These were the longest 200 ft of my life to climb, and after we made it to the top, I almost passed out. However, Praise the Lord, we made it to the treeline successfully. We only had like 4 miles to go! Yipeeeee! At this point, I was struggling physically, as well as mentally. It was so difficult to want to go on, yet I didn't want to be "that" "guy". You know the wussy guy who has to ruin everyone else's trip by stopping. So I pressed on. (Mistake #4, man, these are adding up)

Fast Forward to elevation height 13,800 ft. I am slipping in and out of consciousness, my toes and hands are completely frozen (due to the snow and extreme wind), and the only thing my stomach has in it are power bars. Not a good combination to be honest......


THIS CONCLUDES THE ENDING TO PART #1. Please Read, and tune in for Part #2 to come soon, which includes 2 near death experiences, and this is not an exageration.

New Year, New Lies

First things first. I have been inspired to put my thoughts on e-paper, hence Mummerts Moments. These aren't necessarily going to be so deep and thoughtful I leave you speechless, so if thats what your looking for, sorry...

We are just a few days into the new year, 2009, and it made me think. As per tradition, every time the calendar flips over to January 1st, people come up with New Years Resolutions. Gee Golly Everyone! I want to quit smoking, get a better job, make more money, drive a faster car, lose weight, yaddi yatta. You hear them all. But in truth, we seem to be kidding ourselves. My new years resolutions for last year, 2008? 

1) Dont Eat fast food more than twice a month

2) Dont drink pop at ALL.

Yeah, those lasted all the way till February! Yipeee! I made it a whole month before I fell back into, you waiting for it?.......Almost......ok, here goes: HABIT! We are creatures of habit by golly! And you know who the arch enemy of Habit is? You guessed it, CHANGE! 

Now on New Years Eve, I participated in a 5k Race called "New Years Resolution Run", where we would run into the new year, promoting health and what not. It was a rewarding experience, even if only 3.1 miles, to complete. I felt this new sense of....freshness when crossing the finish line, and I LIKED it. 

I am not a huge fan of change either, but I'll be darned if I don't try to make it further than a month on this years batch of resolutions! Without further ado, fresh from the oven, my 2009 New Years Resolutions:

1) Participate in a Triathlon (400M swim, 20k Bike Ride, 10k Run)

2) Run a half marathon

3) Continuing to trust God with my finances

No, I don't want to make more money, sell my Nissan for a BMW, or anything like that. I even decided to leave off not eating fast food (Lets just be honest, fast food is a great gift from God). I urge you to think about your "resolutions". See, I don't want to fail. I don't want the thought I might possibly be construed as being a liar. Especially not with the 3rd goal. 

So I urge you, be careful what you make as a resolution. When you have settled down with yours, share them with others. Accountability is a great tool for success.

Thats all for now.