June 10, 2012

The Perp:

The Victim:

The Scene of the Crime:

That shoe looks innocent enough, doesn't it?  Don't be deceived.  Not only is it super ugly (I'll get to that in a minute), it mangled my feet and left me hobbling back to the trailhead at the end of our 9-hour day on Saturday.

Here is what is super lame about the whole thing: I didn't want to buy those ugly-ass shoes in the first place.  Why?  Because they are ugly.  And that became the very reason I did buy them - I felt like I would be overcoming some shallow, superficial quality I possess buy purchasing shoes that, yes are very comfortable in the store and yes, very sturdy and yes, highly recommended buy a friend.  And you know what I overcame?  Common sense.  I'm sure Sister is reading and saying to herself: Why would you buy anything you don't like?  Well, my insubstantial reasons are listed above.

We set out with a goal of summiting all 3 peaks above, Dolores on the left, Middle and Dunn in the center of the range.  And look at what a beautiful day it was!!  We started up behind Woods Lake an somewhat quickly gained and upper basin of the range.  I was super tired, I just hadn't been sleeping that great, which for those of you who know me, know is unusual.  Here is Super Tired Kathryn with the Wilson Range in the background:

It was around this time that I had swaddled my heels in band-aids and thought, How bad can it be?  Just a couple of hot spots.  It turns out that my ugly-ass shoes were not responsible for our inability to summit, although I would have welcomed the opportunity to blame something on them.

What turned us back was the frailty of two routes: 1) a super-steep snowy pitch that was warming by the minute, or 2) a super-steep shaley scree pitch that was sliding with each step.    JC even gave me the opportunity a few times to turn back, based on the deteriorating condition of my tender hell skin, but each time I thought, Well, it's not getting any worse and I really want to finish my day with theses 3 peaks under my belt.  I was so tired I actually considered lying (gasp) about how bad my feet were because all I could think about was spreading my 0 degree bag in the sun and collapsing into a sun-drenched slumber until dark.

We made it above the dark rock band on the peak that I have renamed Dun-Dun-Dunnnn... 

...before we got too spooked and descend.  The rocks sounded like porcelain dinner plates crashing around our feet.  So close!!!!!  Ugly-ass shoes were up there in all that beauty, gnawing away at my tender young feet.

Anyway, we ate a bunch of food and had a really pleasant walk down with some cool areas of snow:

Like I said, I was pretty much hobbling by the time we got back to the Forester, where I gingerly removed the perpetrators and saw the damage done.  Flip-flops and lounging were in order, as we had been hiking pretty much from 9 to 5, yet the wind conspired against us, leaving us no choice but to utilize the bumper of the car for our own version of a tailgate party, where I invented a new way of consuming veggie burgers, by layering a piece of cheese in between two patties!!!!  That peak in the background is the one we had hoped to do on Sunday, but it was evident that I would not be putting those (or any) ugly-ass shoes on any time soon.

We also had baked beans, a delight at any time.

The wind made a valiant effort at robbing me of sleep again, but I would have nothing of it, and jammed a couple of earplugs into my waxy little canals, and slumbered well into the morning, as the sun warmed the tent and the birds came alive with songs of summer.

I lay around naked half the morning, while we over served ourselves coffee and Norwood eggs, slaying the New York Times Crossword and just loving every minute of it.  

Because or hiking plans were wrecked we decided to drive to Beaver Park and out below Lizard Head, basically circumnavigating the very range that thwarted us.  We ended up drinking tea and coffee by the Kilpacker Trailhead late in the afternoon and entertaining the notion of staying out another night, returning to town early enough to shower and get to work on Monday morning.  I think our collective desire for greater quantities of food compelled us to drive back to the ski chalet in the evening and ready ourselves for our work weeks.

Oh, and check out the incredible art we encountered in the aspens on our drive:

Classy.