Hello!
It's been a while however all I have been doing is work and I don't feel like anyone wants to hear about that. Today all that changed! Well first things first. School and teaching is going very well. Tons of work but I am enjoying it so that makes it worth it. I taught my first lesson for students last week and got really good feedback from my overseeing teacher. I got my first apology letter from a student who I had to take aside and have a talk with. Apparently his mom found out and made him write me a letter. It was quite funny. I also learned a new word. It's a verb..."oops" or "oopsing". He kept saying "I'm sorry for oopsing people in class" and I couldn't figure out what in the hell he was talking about. Well, I have come to find out that "oopsing" means hitting someone else in the testicles with either your fist, or a water bottle in this specific case. Anyway, I figured its important to expand your vocabulary and I didn't figure anyone would know this word...except maybe Matt, he's so immature. He (student) has been significantly better since our talk and he comes to me at the end of each day and asks how he did.
Now to the exciting stuff. Today I had the day off and started it by taking Pat Murphy to the airport at 7amish. Yea Pat Murphy my climbing buddy from OH called me yesterevening and told me his flight was cancelled on a connection through Denver and he was in for the night. So we met up and he stayed on our couch.
Anyway, Jenny and I had breakfast with her mom and sister before they left to go back to St. Charles. After breakfast I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do today. I knew I wanted to take Sharma on an adventure because he had a boring week. I couldn't decide if I wanted to go climbing, or hike something large. I had heard about a hike/climb that combined the St. Mary's glacier with James Peak (13,294) and it sounded quite intriguing. I decided that sounded like fun so Sharma and I packed up our stuff and headed out. It is located in/near a town called Alice CO. When I looked up weather (to see if we were going to get afternoon thunderstorms) I found that Alice CO isn't large enough to be on weather dot com. Yikes. Idaho Springs is close so I settled for that. I did find out that at 4pm there was a slight chance of thunderstorms, ie don't be on the top of the mountain at 4pm. This will come back into play later.
So we set off. The drive was beautiful. Straight West on 70 to exit 238. I realized today that just looking down and seeing my compass read W makes me smile and exhilarates me. So we arrive and start up the trail. It goes for about a mile before you get to the bottom of the glacier. Sharma got attacked on the way which was really nice. Old bitter man and old bitter dog didn't like young happy man with young happy dog. Sharma was fine but a little rattled. My immediate response, if I can recall correctly (and censor) was, "are you f____ kidding me man? If your dog can't handle being out here don't f____ bring him. F___." After I got the dog off Sharma, Sharma ran away up the trail and scared old bitter man's son's kid. He (old bitter man) said nothing although his son responded with "well I could say the same thing to you," in reference to Sharma scaring his kid. Yea right, my dog doesn't have the right to run away from being attacked. Sorry he was in a little bit of a hurry. Assholes. Anyway, minor setback.
We got to the glacier and it really was amazing. Just a huge amount of snow that exists all year long. It sits right above a beautiful alpine lake called St. Mary's lake. Technically is isn't a real glacier however the reasons why it doesn't qualify aren't interesting enough to go into. At this point you climb straight up the glacier to reach an area called the Jamaica Flats. The glacier is probably a mile or so, and steep. When we got to the top and came over the ridge into the Jamaica Flats I was just blown away. Open fields and mountain peaks in every direction, with James Peak standing right in front of us, a mile or so away. Bancroft Peak is also right there and on our list as well. We trudged across the field through some mossy areas and got to the base of the mountain. There was still a bit of snow on it and with as steep as it was Sharma and I decided to find a better route than straight up the South face. We traversed the bottom of the ridge to the North-East to get to a less steep area with no snow. The first few hundred feet of ascent were pretty easy. Rocky but more or less grass. After that it got more intense and was just a boulder field of small boulders and rocks. At about 12,500 feet it changed to large (microwave sized ish) boulders. Sharma did not appreciate this change of pace. He also did not appreciate the distance or elevation gain our hike had included. We had taken several breaks and had water and snacks but he was not having it anymore. It was about 3pm and it was taking a minute or two for him to take one step...literally. I would coax him into taking a step, then he wouldn't go any further...process repeated. We made it to about 13,000 ft or so and I decided to turn back. We were on the summit ridge-line and although I wanted to continue he was really not pleased. It is a good thing I did because going down was worse for him. He usually doesn't have any problem with rocks and stuff like this but I think the difference was how exposed we were. We were on the side of the mountain and even though the scrambling was very easy I think the open air and height bothered him. So the way down was quite interesting. There were literally spots where I picked him up and relocated him because he WOULD NOT move, at all. This is a tedious process when you are on the side of a mountain. Moving on. At this point I was a little concerned and knew we did need to get on our horses because we did not need to get caught in the storm. We did get down with plenty of time however the possibility was concerning. The views were amazing. I will go back, probably without Sharma, to finish the climb. Getting down the glacier was fun because I finally was able to put into practice something learned in Man VS Wild. I was able to glissade down the glacier. This is where you are doing a mix of running, jumping and sliding down a very steep slope, in our case to save time and for enjoyment. So much fun.
We got back and Sharma was just wiped. He laid down behind my car and wouldn't stand up to jump in. I picked him up yet again and put him in the car. He was interested in what was going on up front (as usual) so he kind of leaned his head near the back seat and just rested his chin on the seat. This didn't last long.
I got back, made dinner, and watched a new climbing dvd about highball bouldering in Colorado, and now here I am. Hope things are great for everyone and have a great rest of your weekends!
Tired boy.
St. Mary's glacier.
Mid glacier ascent.
More tired boy.
While I was glissading he protested by not moving.
Looking out over the Jamaica Flats.
Some surrounding mountains.
Sharma and I with James Peak in the background.
Little alpine lake at the base of James Peak.
Looking down the steep section of James. Also why I think Sharma was so freaked out...understandably.
Tired and mad at me.
It was windy, my hair doesn't usually look like this.
It might not look better but it doesn't look like this.
Sharma circa 12,500 feet.
Looking up the steep section of James.
The route we took to traverse past the snow.
James Peak
Jamaica Flats and James.
Looking back down from the top of the glacier
before the Jamaica Flats.
St. Mary's glacier and lake.
St. Mary's glacier.
Waterfall on the way to the glacier.
