August 2002 – Well, I think Tracy and I almost died on this trail. We decided to take the “more rugged alternative” trail, according to the guide book, up to our first 14er. Yeah, not such a good idea. The climb up to the saddle was on a nearly vertical scree field. But we managed to get up, only to be met by bad weather at the saddle below the peak. And we were the only ones still on the mountain. And looking back down the trail, I couldn’t figure out how we would make it down. But we didn’t have many other choices, because it would have been about 14 miles back out to the truck on the other trail, and it was already 2 pm. So we slid down the mountain. I slid down on my feet…Tracy slid down on her butt. Which explained why she stopped me at one point and asked me what her pants looked like in the back. I looked, and there were no pants…just a bloody butt! It was pretty funny. We still had 2/3 of the mountain to slide down, and another 2.5 miles of hiking after that. Yeah, good times! But we made it down, even though we never summited our first 14er.
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