On Thursday afternoon I went down to the local heartland communications station center to do an interview with Jay Charbonneau of the Keweenaw Report and Copper Country Weekend Magazine about the kayak trip that Matt and I took this summer. The interview covered the key points of our trip, from preparation to the daily grind of paddling to how our personal relationship fared throughout the trip. If you’re interested in listening to the interview and live in the Houghton area you can tune in to 97.7 WOLV FM or WHKB 102.3 FM at 9 am tomorrow, Sunday November 1st during the Copper Country Weekend Magazine segment. If you want to hear the interview and don’t live nearby you can listen to the live streaming broadcast online at http://www.kbear102.com/ the “listen live” button is at the bottom of the left-hand toolbar. We might be able to get a copy of the interview to post on our website at a later date.

Please follow both Matt and my twitters at twitter.com/mattabbotts and twitter.com/hannahabbotts.

Since we started this website and started planning our kayak trip we have been kicking around the idea of joining twitter. It seems like such an easy way to keep people updated when you are adventuring and come in contact with a fair amount of new people. But every time we got close to registering we shot down the idea for any number of reasons; we didn’t like the idea of people having THAT much access, we didn’t know if we would update enough, we didn’t think our lives were interesting enough to bore people with more frequent updates, and on and on. We saw other people use it to great success and occasionally regretted our decision not to use it in conjunction with daily journals.

When we got back we launched a new site containing this blog and just dropped the idea of Twitter. It didn’t seem pertinent anymore. Our blog would inform people enough about the adventures in our lives and we could just post the interesting stuff. Maybe we would consider it again when we started gearing up for the PCT.

Then Matt went out west last week with his brother. Chris used twitter and twitpic the entire time to make updates on his blog, Inside the Outside. Matt came back excited about the possibilities and finally talked me into it.

So we joined twitter. But now what. Well first off we need some friends so if you are on Twitter check us out. Matt’s twitter can be found at twitter.com/mattabbotts and mine can be found at twitter.com/hannahabbotts. Please follow us. We also need to follow others so if you have an account let us know and we will follow along. We have no idea how this is going to go. We know we will use it when we are out and about as an easy way to make micro posts and keep people more up to date and informed about our adventures, whether we will use it in our daily lives and daily adventures is yet to be seen.

I finally got a good nights sleep after suffering with only a handful of hours since leaving Houghton four days before. The temperature was perfect, the elevation not too high and the dogs sufficiently tired from the day before’s hiking. We got up and slowly packed the truck with the intention of visiting Rocky Mountain National Park. We were hoping it would be late enough in the season or early enough in the day that we would be able to avoid paying the 20 dollar entrance fee. As we neared the gate and saw the attendant we realized that this wasn’t the case and we began discussing whether it was worth it to pay. We decided we had seen an abundance of the Rocky Mountains already this week and seeing a few more wasn’t worth the extra expense.

We headed out of Estes Park and made our way up to Cheyenne, WY. It has become a tradition on these road trips to visit the Sierra Trading Post outlet. The drive up was foggy and I was a little sad to leave the mountains behind and head back out into the flatlands. We stopped at China Buffet in downtown Cheyenne for lunch. My brother and I had eaten there before and remembered it as one of the better buffets we have visited. Our memories didn’t let us down. The food was far above your average buffet cuisine and the lunch buffet price fit easily into my budget. I stuffed myself and as I walked back to the car I decided to start writing a guide book to Chinese Buffets around the country. I am not sure anyone would buy but I think it would be a must have road trip reference.

After lunch we hit Sierra Trading Post. I have bought a fair amount of stuff from their catalog and online stores but nothing compares to walking into the actual store. It is like a Shangra-La of discount clothes and gear. Rack after rack of jackets and shirts. Piles of gloves. Bins of hats. And all at a steep discount. I have seen seconds for sale all over, stuff with a messed up seam or one sleeve slightly longer than the other, but nowhere else have I ever seen thirds. You can buy one shoe. I don’t even know why you would want that but you can buy it at the Sierra Trading Post. I found tons of stuff I wanted, from ice climbing boots to wetsuits but nothing that fit into my quickly tightening budget. I even found an amazing sleeping made by Selk with arms and legs; like an outdoor Snuggie. I called Hannah but she wasn’t as impressed as me and I had to sadly leave it behind. I settled for new pair of gloves and bought Hannah a Smartwool hat. My brother bought an unbelievably ugly Patagonia R4 fleece. It looked like someone skinned a hunter orange Sasquatch.

We left Cheyenne with sadness in our hearts and a long, boring drive across the plains ahead of us. We headed north east into Nebraska toward Rapid City, SD. We discussed how we could possibly make the drive less boring. There was no way we could make it to Wall Drug, which is about the only interesting thing on the plains. Just as we were about to give up and reside to 20 hours of flat we remembered Carhenge. Carhenge is a piece of automotive sculpture that resembles the famous Stonehenge in England. We did some quick research on our smart phones and found out that Carhenge is in the town of Alliance, NE and wasn’t out of our way at all. We pulled onto a dirt road and saw the circle of cars from miles away (Nebraska is really flat). It was everything we dreamed it would be. There were cars stuck in the ground all over in the field. It was just what we needed to brighten up our drive. I even bought a t-shirt.

The rest of the evening was a long, flat, boring blur. South Dakota, with the exception of the Black Hills and the badlands, is incredibly uninteresting. The hours and miles flew by and before I knew it we were crossing into Minnesota and it was my turn to drive. I managed to drive only about 6 hours the whole trip, about 15 percent of the total. I was able to make it all the way to Minneapolis before the fatigue and stress got the better of me. That was about 5AM and I slept on and off all the way home. We pulled into Calumet by 3PM.

This trip left me with mixed feelings. On one hand, the hiking and climbing was kind of a bust. We bagged 2 of the 5 peaks we had intended on and struggled on those even though they were supposed to be fairly easy. My fitness wasn’t as good as I would have liked and the weather never seemed to give us a break. On the other hand, I had a blast on all of the non hiking parts. My brother and I have never gotten along so well on the road and having Andy along added a great new influx of ideas into the conversation. Andy bagging his first 14er was a definite highlight. Despite all of the hang ups I believe I will call this trip a success.

My brother has one long account of the trip which you can see on his blog Inside the Outside. My friend and climbing partner Aaron Wykhuis just started a blog and wrote about his experience with us on the Maroon Bells. You can read it at live-play.blogspot.com. For more photos from the trip check out our Picassa Page.

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Kite Lake campground sets right around 12,000 feet above sea level and is ringed by very tall peaks. That being said I did not sleep well due to both the elevation and the wind that was gusting down from the mountains around us. A bad nights sleep was the last thing I needed after an almost sleepless last three days. I crawled from the tent at about 7AM feeling a lot better than I expected after not resting in what felt like weeks. The air was mild but the blustery wind gave the air a serious chill and I was glad for my down jacket. I sat in the for a while with my brother talking over the days climb and waiting for the sun to crest the horizon and bring some light and warmth to the frigid mountains.

Our plan was to bag four 14ers in one shot. Mounts Lincoln, Bross, Democrat and Cameron are some of the easier of Colorado’s 14ers and are pretty commonly wrapped into one trip. We were anxious to get some peaks in since we got shut down the day before on Maroon Peak.  Andy, who is an avid smoker, was going to attempt at least one peak with us. He was looking for a new experience and challenge and thought this would fit nicely into both categories.  The dogs too were joining us for this hike. Yukon has summited three 14ers already, during a trip we took in 2007, but Rainy had never been up that high so I was excited to climb with her.

We packed up and set out for the peaks climbing steeply from our campsite.  The weather was fine with a mix of sun and clouds and a stiff breeze. I am not in my top walking shape after a reletively sedentary fall and a summer spent sitting on my butt in a kayak so the climb was tougher than I expected. Andy’s fitness was also being challenged but his ability to stick to his slow and steady mantra was impressive. We crested the saddle between Lincoln and Cameron and sat for a while waiting for him. Rainy’s paws were getting a little sore so I put her boots on and she seemed happier than ever.  The push to the summit of Mount Lincoln was easy, gaining only a couple hundred vertical feet. The false summit was a bit disheartening but an obstacle easily overcome.  The summit was cold and windy, as you would expect and my coughing was getting out of hand.  The sickness I had been fighting was not doing me any favors at 14,000 feet.  I was a little tired and sick but feeling pretty good about getting to the top. Rainy couldn’t have been happier. She was obviously cold but she was running around and wagging her tail like mad. I was really proud of my mountain dog. My brother and Yukon came up a few minutes later and we had the obligatory summit photo shoot. We waited for Andy for about 20 minutes but the cold was getting to us so we grudgingly moved off the summit.

We met Andy just below the false summit moving steadily toward the top. I felt bad that we couldn’t be up there with him when he bagged his first peak but if we were going to do three more we had to keep moving. We congratulated him preemptively and moved back toward the saddle.

Next we set off up to Mount Cameron, which technically doesn’t count on the official 14er list due to the fact that it doesn’t rise more than 300 feet above the saddle with the next nearest 14er.  The wind seemed to rise up almost immediately. It was blowing with such intensity that Rainy was sliding across the snow even when she sat down. The strength was just being sapped from both Rainy and I as we fought through the wind to the top.  The wind chill was well below freezing and it was pretty miserable. We didn’t linger on the summit long. It wasn’t anything special, just a mound of gravel, and the wind was unrelenting. We got a few photos and set off for our third peak of the day.

Image Courtesy of 14ers.com

The descent into the saddle between Cameron and Bross was getting windier as we hiked and Rainy was getting pretty unhappy.  When we got to a sign that said the trail was closed due to private property we decided, much to Rainy’s relief, to turn around and head back down the way we came, bagging only two of the four peaks we had intended on.  We knew the private property sign was coming before we started, it has been a point of contention on these peaks for years, and we just intended to continue on but this seemed like an appropriate time to retreat from the weather and do what was necessary for the dogs (not to mention I was miserable too).

I was a little disappointed to bag only two of the five peaks we wanted to but you can’t fight the weather and you just have to make the best decisions at the time. It is one of the big troubles with our adventures. We tend to go during the off seasons, late fall and winter. The weather is unpredictable this time of year and it just becomes another challenge. Sometimes it is great, sometimes it creates epic hikes and sometimes it simply shuts you down. There isn’t much arguing with it.

Rainy and I caught Andy just as we got back to the car. All three of us were exhausted. Andy made the summit of Mount Lincoln but was too tired to even get a picture. I am going to try to talk him into writing a guest blog about his experience on the mountain since his perspective as a new hiker is so much different than mine.  I was super proud of him for fighting through the pain and exhaustion and achieving a tough goal.

We rested at the parking lot for a while, repacked the Jeep, ate some left-over pizza and talked over our next move.  We were all pretty tired, Rainy was unwilling to even move and just laid in the grass.  We decided to head north toward Rocky Mountain National Park to a campsite my brother and I had stayed at a few years back and visit the Park in the morning. I was a little leery about this because this campsite is where the now infamous fist fight took place and this area always seems like it breeds contention between my brother and I. But what the hell, I decided that the fist fight wasn’t that bad and it least it gave me a story to tell so why not.

We ate another meal at Fatty’s in Breck, an absoluetly monsterous burger and heap of fries and all for a reasonable price. I was feeling full and sleepy as we set off and drove a very scenic stretch of highway through the mountains to a spot just south of Estes Park. Unfortunately it was dark and we really couldn’t enjoy any of it.  There was some confusion as to where this campsite actually was and tensions began to rise as weariness turned to irritation. Fortunately, we found the site and settled in before things boiled over and we retired to our tents in fine spirits and fist fight free.

View Directions to Co Road 82E in a larger map

The night’s sleep couldn’t have been any shorter. It was cold, 20 degrees or so,  but I was comfortable in my down sleeping bag. I used Hannah’s tent because mine still had a bit of a smell from the summer’s kayak trip. I do not like the Marmot Aeolos. It is too short, tough to set up, not free standing and catches the wind like a sail. It won a bunch of awards a few years ago and she seems to like it but I am not a fan. I was exhausted from the drive and was really looking forward to at least a few hours of good sleep but it never came.  Rainy was fidgeting all night, partly due to the cold and partly due to being in a different tent than Yukon.  I have been down and out sick for few days before the trip and wasn’t even sure I was going to make the trip. I was feeling better so I risked traveling and was doing well until I laid down to sleep. My stomach was upset all night and I kept feeling like I was about to cough up a lung.  I may have gotten 45 minutes of sound sleep bringing my total since leaving Houghton to about 3 hours.

I was out of the tent about a half an hour before my alarm went off and wandered around in the dark with the dog while everyone else slept.  At 5AM everyone rolled out of their sleeping bags and started to gear up. I ate a quick breakfast of Pop-Tarts, which my stomach wasn’t thrilled about and we headed up the trail by headlamp. We decided to follow the standard South Ridge route up to Maroon Peak and it seemed simple at first but it wasn’t long before we realized we missed our trail and had to back-track a ways. This really set the tone for the day.  After about three miles we left the dogs with Andy and headed toward tree line.  We once again missed the trail and ended up about a half mile off route.  Another bit of back-tracking led us to a faint trail through some bushes that no one had been on since the snow had fallen.  We set off down the path and left some foot prints in the untracked snow.  The route immediately became almost impossible to follow. It wound it’s way across a boulder field scattered with snow. It was tough to navigate by the cairns people had built because they were scarce and hard to see amongst the snow. The trail wandered in and out of the bushes and was barely a trail at all. We had a difficult time staying on course and wasted a lot of time deliberating and route finding.  We climbed a short class 3 scramble and made our way up a long talus and boulder slope to tree line.

Image courtesy of 14ers.com

By the time I hit tree line the lack of sleep and sickness were really starting to wear on me.  I felt tired and my lungs were burning, not from elevation but from the constant coughing and hacking. We rested a bit and evaluated the situation.  The wind was blowing up spin drift on the peak and I was intimidated by the steep ascent ahead of us.  My brother took this opportunity to inform me that he had been perusing 14ers.com, THE source for info on Colorado’s peaks, and that no one had ever logged an October climb of the Maroon Bells. Great.  It was getting late in the day and prospect of some hard, technical climbing on tired legs and sick lungs was not appealing. We discussed our situation and everyone danced around the idea of just calling it and descending but no one wanted to admit defeat. We eventually came to it after much back and forth and we headed down.  I wasn’t going to make the summit, I know it, but I think if we wouldn’t have repeatedly gotten lost my brother and Aaron might have had a shot.

The descent was easy enough and went much faster than going up.  We talked about the climb and all of us decided that this was not a climb to be missed and we would all be back at some point. Maroon Bells is spectacularly beautiful. The views, both above and below treeline, are amazing. The climb was fun and the hiking below treeline was great.  This is definitely one of the prettiest areas I have been to in Colorado.

Below treeline we found the trail, which was empty in the early light of morning, was crawling with hikers. It was like a small highway and the closer we got to the parking lot the more people we saw. The area around the lake, where you can take a classic Colorado post card image, was packed.

We found Andy taking a nap with the dogs in the Jeep and scared him when we walked up. We loaded up, organized our gear and headed back into Aspen. Did I mention I hate that town? We ate another fast food meal and left as quickly as we could. We headed back through Independence Pass and bid the Dutchman farewell. He had to drive back down to Texas and we were headed over toward Breckenridge for some more climbing.

We headed back through Leadville and stopped in Breck for some dinner at Fatty’s Pizza. One thing I love about going west is that I can get beer that just isn’t available in Michigan. I had a pint of Fat Tire with my pizza. The food was good and the beer was cheap so I would say that this restaurant was a winner.

We headed south to the town of Alma, where they have a general store called the Almart (in the same font and logo as Walmart).  The drive up to Kite Lake was nice, gaining 3,000 feet over 6 miles of rough and rocky road.  We camped at the end of the road at the Kite Lake campground which sits at about 12,000 feet. It was the highest elevation I have ever camped.  It was dark when we arrived and we set up the tents in the wind and settled in for another cold night.

View Maroon Bells to Kite Lake in a larger map

You can My brother’s account of the entire trip on his blog at Inside The Outside and you can read the Dutchman’s point of view on our climb of Maroon Peak at his new blog Live & Play. You can see more photos from our trip at our Picassa Page.

Fall is probably my favorite time of year. The warm, dry air, the cavalcade of colors and the bustle of animals preparing for winter make this a wondrous season in the woods. And so it was with some trepidation that I agreed to join my brother on a road trip to Colorado for some hiking and non U.P. time. The leaves were just nearing their prime when I took Rainy for a walk into the Swedetown Trails on Thursday evening, the night before our planned departure. The weather was perfect and it was a beautiful 9 mile walk. I was feeling a little bad about abandoning my beloved Keweenaw during the best time of the year, then I remembered I am going to COLORADO.

My brother and I have been taking these trips for a few years now with varied success. They always seem to have some sort of extraneous challenge, weather, time constraints, fist fights, you know the usual vacation troubles. Even through all the cold and black eyes I look forward to these trips because I love the mountains. There is nothing I get excited for like time spent above treeline.

This trip was to include a 24 hour mad dash drive from the U.P. to Aspen, an attempt at Maroon Peak, an attempt at the combo of Mounts Lincoln, Bross, Democrat and Cameron and some general hiking and camping. My long time friend and roommate Andy Hallfrisch was to join us and we were going to meet a friend from MTU; Aaron “The Dutchman” Wykhuis in Aspen. In addition to the human element we were bringing Rainy and my brother’s dog Yukon. Andy had never been to Colorado before and we wanted him to experience his first 14er, plus he agreed to watch the dogs while we did some hiking that was a bit too much for them. Aaron lived in Colorado for a while and has since moved to South West Texas and is looking for any excuse to get back to the mountains. Unfortunately, Hannah couldn’t join us due to her class schedule and duties at school. I felt a little bad about leaving her behind while I went off adventuring… but not too bad.

Andy and I spent a few days getting our gear ready and making sure he was prepared as he isn’t really a hiker and has spent most of his outdoor adventures hunting and fishing. When noon Friday rolled around we could barely contain ourselves. We knocked off work early and stopped by Down Wind Sports to pick up the last of our supplies. We caught a ride to Covington Junction with our friend Dan where we were to meet my brother. Loading his Jeep Cherokee to the brim with tents, packs and other gear the excitement was reaching a breaking point. With all the equipment loaded and the dogs anxiously waiting in the back seat we set off.

The next 27 hours were a blur of rest stops, interstate junctions and state lines. I couldn’t sleep a wink. I am not much of a driver. I even used to lie to people, telling the I didn’t have a driver’s license so I could avoid getting behind the wheel but I knew I couldn’t dodge the bullet this time. After about 9 hours in the car it came around to my turn in the captain’s seat. I was nervous to say the least. I hate driving. Heading east on I-80 out of Des Moines, IA I settled into the situation and began to feel more comfortable. There wasn’t much traffic at 2AM and the road was almost entirely mine. Then it started snowing. And the wind picked up. Then it started whiting out. I was freaking out and everyone else was sleeping. When they woke up I tried to play it cool and save some face but I was visibly shaken. Much to my relief my brother took over just after Omaha, NE as the weather continued to deteriorate. We crept along at 30 mph across most of Nebraska listening to the truckers chatter away on my brother’s CB radio. This really slowed down our progress and we were way behind the schedule as the ice on the roads finally melted off and we made our way across the Colorado line.

View from Independence Pass, CO

It is always great passing through Denver and heading up into the mountains after what seems like a lifetime in the flatlands. We headed down through one of my favorite towns, Leadville, and drove up into Independence Pass on our way to meet The Dutchman in Aspen. The pass is the second highest in Colorado and winds its way steeply and rather precariously up to 12,095 ft. The view from the top was amazing.

We got to Aspen around 6PM Mountain Time and met Aaron on the edge of town. Aspen is a nightmare. It is by far the worst city I have ever been in. The town holds an aire of pretension that makes me feel bitterly unwelcome. Upon our arrival Aaron was anxious to move on because, as he said, “There is no room for vagrants in Aspen” We ate a quick dinner at McDonald’s after a parking nightmare and headed out to the trailhead. We stopped for gas before heading up into the hills and were appalled to find it more than 70 cents per gallon more than outside of town. One last nail in the coffin for my distaste of Aspen.

After a bit of confusion about permits and campsites in the Maroon Bell’s Wilderness we set up camp at the trailhead and packed up for an alpine start. I set my watch for 5AM and climbed into my sleeping bag, exhausted after a whirlwind day and preparing for a short lived night of sleep. I felt like a kid on Christmas Eve.