Where are we going for spring break? Getting outta here, to a place where
nature dominates. Going south and hiking in the Smokey Mountains? Oh,
consider that it's just March, it will be rainy and all the greens and
flowers will sprout a few weeks after you left. That's what our guidebook
told us. What else? Going north and canoeing on the lakes in Minnesota?
My feet! They will still be iced. OK, so what? Summer or Winter? Florida
or the Rockies? And how to get there without a car?
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| Kirsten and Daniel. |
Finally, we decided to go to Colorado for backcountry skiing. A friend from Denver had done a cross-country trip from hut to hut in 1997, and she was sold on that. Unfortunately, both of us had no experience in cross-country skiing, so we started with a lot of questions: How long would it take us to make one mile? Is backcountry skiing very exhausting? How deep do you sink into the snow? What are the biggest dangers?
Well, this is the time of our life, where we still have the energy, power and curiosity to learn these new outdoor things, so let's just start!
Saturday morning we walked up to the Illinois bus terminal in Champaign with the heavy ski boots on our feet, the skis in the hand and the backpack with warm clothes, winter camping equipment and food that was really rich in calories—everything we needed for our "survival" in the cold winter mountains.
It should be 24 hours to go from Champaign to Vail, Colorado, the place where we could directly buckle up our ski. But the time we arrived there, it was 6 pm instead of 11 am—well, I should mention that we had taken the Greyhound bus. Yeah, I could make a whole story out of this Greyhound experience, but all I want to say about that is that this was our first and last time going Greyhound.
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| Aerial view of Cosmo in the snow! |
It didn't make sense to start our trip at 6 pm since we wanted to get
information on the trails and especially on the local avalanche and weather
conditions first. So we put up our tent behind a winter parking, just
close to the village.
The next day was absolutely great but very strenuous; we had to climb about 1,000 meters of altitude with some more ups and downs on the way. This trip to our first hut was originally planned for two days, in order to get gradually used to our hard physical work of the following days: skiing uphill in very deep and new snow. But today, since we had lost one day due to the late bus, our only goal was to get there before darkness.
We were lucky. Despite the announced high avalanche danger, the trail was relatively secure, since the timberline in the Rockies is in 3,500-meter altitude, and most of our trail that day led through this dense and avalanche-safe forest. Our second advantage was that the trail was well-marked and that someone broke the trail into the snow about 5 hours ahead of us. Otherwise with this huge amount of new snow, we wouldn't have made it up to the hut before darkness. But how do we climb with those alpine backcountry skis? I will give you an idea about how this works: First, if you go downhill, our ski works like a normal ski. The difference is that—if necessary—you can loosen the binding at the heel so that the boot can move up and down. In order not to slide down the hill while climbing, you fix artificial animal skins under the whole ski. These skins grasp into the snow because the hairs are all coming out in every direction. So the ski usually does not slide in the unwanted direction.
OK, back to our trip: It was great, but exhausting as expected. On the map we saw a steep part with sharp switchbacks. The last 300 meters should look like this and on the way it really seemed endless. On the other hand, after having triumphed over all these switchbacks, we still didn't expect the hut and we were still worrying whether we succeed in arriving before darkness. But suddenly the entrance of the hut was appearing in front of us. This hut was covered by 3 meters of snow, and it's only the regularly changing visitors that kept he entrance free from snow, since they have to dig their way into the hut.
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| Daniel celebrating in the snow. |
Finally we were back in a little island of civilization in the middle of wilderness. Slowly forgetting about our exhaustion, we were welcomed in a friendly way into this warm wooden living room by the other guests. Drinking hot tea made of melted snow and eating our spaghetti we were chatting with the others about, yes, about the things you like to talk about when you are in such a familiar community together with 15 others at 3,500 meter altitude. It was a wonderful and very friendly atmosphere around the fire in the middle of the hut. It has something special which is only really describable to those of you who once have had a similar experience in one of those mountain huts.
All the luxuries like running water, electricity, we didn't miss them for these days. We even found a nice double room for the two of us instead of a big "storage room" that one has to share with all the others and that we expected, based on our experiences in the European Alps.
I just realize that I have nearly exceeded my page limit with the description of only our first skiing day in the Rockies. I could continue like this for all the other days, since everyday had it's own little "specialty." Once, we had a terribly good sunset, at 3,800 meter altitude just for the two of us. Another day, we had a bad snowstorm, so that we were really scared of finding the right trail. Again on another day, there was a small sauna about 500 meters away from our hut, so we went there and jumped into the deep snow after being heated up by the sauna.
When you are out there in the wilderness there are so many small things that make you happy: the track of a bird, trying to walk on the snow; couscous instead of spaghetti on the fourth evening of our trip; a one-minute sunbeam in the middle of our third day, which was totally cloudy.
It was a great experience, our trip to Colorado. Whoever likes this sort of outdoor experience, we can strongly recommend to go there. You will like it. Just do it!