Grizzly Peak

The fun part of this trip actually started the night before.  I was hanging out at a campsite a few miles back a dirt road.  As usual, I was sitting in the back of the car cooking up some delicious Bean with Bacon soup, when I looked up and saw some freakish animal waddling across the road nearby.  It took me a second to realize it was a porcupine – I’ve never seen one in the daylight, but man are those thing ugly.  He waddled off into some bushes only 30 yards from the car.  Now porcupines are known to be a major problem at trailheads – they like to get up under your car and can chew through all sorts of things like water hoses or brake lines.  I’ve been woken up in the middle of the night before to the sound of them chewing on my car, so I was immediately concerned.  About 20 minutes later, just after I had finished my soup, I looked up and there he was about 10 feet away slowly approaching the car.  It just so happens that I still have a can of Grizzly grade pepper spray in my car, so I pulled it out and quietly slipped on my shoes.  When he was about 4 feet away from the vehicle I hopped out the back and gave him a quick blast.  Unfortunately he had turned away and it didn’t hit him very well, but the noise caused him to go waddling off for the bushes again.  I knew if I didn’t teach him a lesson he would just be back later that night.  So I went running after him and caught up with him on the other side of the bush.  From about 5 feet away I gave him a full blast right in the face.  That sent him waddling off again, but this time I could hear him wheezing in the bushes.  I actually felt a little bad for him…..for a few seconds.  I may or may not have a smile on my face as I write this.  The good news is he didn’t bother me for the rest of the night.

After not sleeping very well through the night I had pushed back my wake-up time for an hour.  When the alarm went off, I pushed it back for another hour.  I finally roused myself, packed up, and headed up the trail around 8:30 AM.  It was a fairly short hike and the weather has been abnormally good this week, so I wasn’t worried about an early start.  The day’s goal was Grizzly Peak which has the honor of being the highest 13er in Colorado and being only 12 feet short of being a 14er.  What this means is that Grizzly sees only the tiniest fraction of the traffic that the 14ers see.  The route follows an old jeep road to its end at an abandoned mine at 12,000′ in McNasser Gulch.  It is a very quiet valley that doesn’t even see the usual ATV/jeep traffic on the roads like a lot of other places in Colorado.  In fact, I wouldn’t see any human or vehicle the entire hike.

Beyond the road to the mine you continue up into McNasser Gulch.  Since it gets so little traffic there is no trail up there – it’s just open alpine cross country travel.  From 12,500′ at the upper end of the basin, you then climb steeply north to gain the east ridge of Grizzly Peak.  Once on the ridge, you simply follow it to the summit, dodging a few towers along the way.  The view from the summit was….superb.  I’d like to officially take back all the mean things I have said about the Sawatch Range – the northern part of the range is really nice.  Grizzly sits right near the middle of this northern section, and it has a feeling of remoteness to it that few other Sawatch peaks do.  I sat up there for a while picking out all the peaks that I knew, counting over 20 14ers and a horde of 13ers.  I eventually wandered back down, enjoying the peace and quiet of the valley and the fields of wildflowers that are still going strong (usually they would be tapering off by this time of year, but with the late snow this year everything has been pushed back a bit).

Now I’m back in Buena Vista, one of my favorite little towns in Colorado.  The past week was spent in the Aspen area.  Over the course of the week I got to explore the town a little bit more and talk to some of the locals, all of which confirmed my initial opinion of Aspen – it is a stupid town.  Thank goodness for BV.  Heck, I may even treat myself to a $3.50 shower.  Oh, for those who may be concerned, I have greatly upped my shower frequency this year.  I’ve more than doubled my 1 shower a month average from last summer.

–Pictures–