Knowing that the season was drawing to a close, I wanted to get a nice summit hike in before the snow started for real. One of my fellow grad students, Stan, turned out to be a dedicated hiker and outdoorsman, and he thought it sounded like a great idea. He suggested we go to Medicine Bow Peak, which has some great views.
(Now, before anyone says anything: yes, I had a "date" this Sunday with a man. In Wyoming. To go up a mountain and "enjoy the great outdoors". And yes, I have seen Brokeback Mountain. At least there weren't any sheep involved. Now get your mind out of the gutter and enjoy the narrative)
The forecast was 60-70 degrees, sunny skies, but with about three inches of snowfall the previous night. No biggie, I thought, a dusting of snow is nothing I can't handle. I put on enough layers for a pleasant Fall hike, grabbed my hat as an afterthought, and we set off. Unfortunately, "forecast" and "actual conditions" are not always the same. We got an early start to avoid afternoon thunderstorms (people are killed regularly by lightning strike on Medicine Bow Peak), but that landed us smack dab in the middle of the remnants of last night's storm. And as we ascended the range in Stan's trusty Toyota, the sun turned to cloud, the cloud turned to rain, and finally the rain turned into snow. When we reached the parking lot at the trail head, it was so full of snow that the car couldn't make it in, and conditions quickly worsened:
After getting out of the car and being hit by a blast of frigid air, a friendly guy driving a snow plough came by and advised us a bit. It took him all of 30 seconds to figure out that we were grad students, out-of-towners, and completely clueless about local conditions. In the most respectful way possible, he suggested that we at least switch to another parking lot higher up. By the time we got there, it was a complete whiteout, and the weather wasn't going to get friendlier up on top of the mountain. We decided that today wasn't a good day to die, tucked our tails between our legs, and sped down the road to sunnier climes. A few thousand feet further down, we found them:
The short hike around Libby Creek was lovely (and very reminiscent of home), but its absolutely best feature was one we didn't actually get to see: Swastika Lake. Yes, I shit you not, a few miles into the woods, there's a good-size lake by name of... Swastika. We laughed for a few minutes about that, and vowed to come back with Nordic skis later in the season and explore what was obviously Nazi High Country. Really, what were they thinking?
Also, Stan stumbled upon what looked like a good place to go fishing (plenty of trout, even now):
Say what you want, but they don't make the scenery ugly around here.
We stopped in Centennial for lunch on the way back. An ex-logging/mining town, it would barely qualify as a minor village back home. It seems driven by tourism these days:
And of course, by that time the skies had cleared, and the promised beautiful weather materialized. The fall colors are vivid, although short-lived:
In my bid to climb/hike/bike up the side of as many things as I can, I spent most of last weekend in Vedauwoo. In a fit of hubris, I decided to have a go at the real wide crack climbs around here, having been lulled into false security by the amount of tape the locals use. However, you can't tape your whole body:
The rock beat the living crap out of me, both Saturday and Sunday, but I did have a lot of fun along the way. Climbing is a bit masochistic even at the best of times, but climbs like this really highlight that aspect of the sport. But since I'm not slight of build, tall of stature or an endurance monster, I figure this is where I can make my mark. These cracks basically require (in addition to awkward technique) a lot of brute strength, relatively big hands and a willingness to suffer. All these attributes I got. Horn's Mother, here I come!
Harboring further delusions of grandeur, I also went biking with one of the international students, Irene from the Chezch Republic:
She plays basketball for a living (or, well, for a scholarship), and in addition to athleticism brought a lot of youthful exuberance to the enterprise. That was a damn good thing, because it was looking like a long ride:
We set our sights for Pilot Hill, which my good buddy Joe claimed to be "not more than an hour of of town". I knew something was fishy about that advice, since he's coaching the cycling team. That hill also happens to be visible for miles around, which means it's fairly tall. Nevertheless, we biked toward it. We picked up the standard trail after about an hour - that should give you an indication of how good Joe's advice was. The trail went on seemingly forever, always at an infuriating angle: steep enough to suck the life out of your legs, but not steep enough to excuse getting off to walk. Since both me and Irene are flatlanders, we were huffing and puffing like badly treated locomotives all the way. My legs actually cramped out on the final hill, but I tried not to let on. Really, I'm more humble than I once was, but I'll be old and gray before I give up on anything in front of a pretty girl. As luck would have it, we did finally summit:
Was it worth it? Yeah, kinda. You forget the pain soon enough, and it was a damn fine view. The ride down was pretty exciting, too, since it was five miles of fairly steep biking. My shitty Walmart bike was rattling as if it was going to explode at any minute, and the noise scared up a big herd of antelope. Their flight behavior is interesting: typically the does go off first, and then the buck only comes out and checks it out once he's satisfied that the situation is under control. Yeah, real brave...
And work? Oh, it's progressing. My week days are pretty much spent in the lab and in class. When I finally make it home, it's time to eat something and then read journal papers until I go to bed. Which reminds me, I have a big-ass stack of things to go through before tomorrow. Time get to it. Catch you later.
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