A kilted weekend in the mountains

[wildrover]

This past weekend, I went to Creede...a small town in the San Juan mountains, in Colorado. Our goal was to make it to a place called the Wheeler Geologic Area.

Saturday morning, we drove off in a borrowed Jeep, making our way toward a 14-ish mile bumpy road. I was wearing pants at the time, because the last time we borrowed a Jeep from that lender, it had a bikini top and no doors, and it was very windy. This time, it had a soft top and doors, so a couple miles down the trail and I kilted up. The seat was a lot more comfortable, on that drive...it's bumpy enough you think you'll piss blood later.

A couple hours of banging around on the rocks, and we were ready to get hiking!

Heading up the trail...


Getting somewhere interesting, now. My dog looks like he's thinking, "what's taking you?"


Before the interesting part, a side trip to the shelter, and a couple photos during a break in the hail...it was coming down pretty good for a bit, which is why I have the jacket and no sporran.


Contrary to what you may have heard, there IS a spoon, and it is right here in my hand (really blurry). Someone must have done something here "using mainly spoons."


Back to the interesting part...


There's a trail that leads in to the formations. It's still hailing, by the way...also spitting a bit of snow now and then. This was an interesting route. It's probably not often used, but there's still a distinct path, and one spot where there's actually a step cut in the rock. Sort of reminded me of some of the back passageways in Fiery Furnace, in Utah.


Exploring one of the side trails...some snow drifts still there.


Back on the trail, crossing one of the features. This is indeed "the trail"...it took a bit of looking around, but it's a human trail, not a game trail...tho it may have started as the latter.


Heading back from that side of the area, playing "The 79th Farewell to Gibraltar". It was a little awkward playing with the pack on, since the shoulder strap is heavily padded, but leaning a little funny kept the drones in place. Kilt police may notice that my kilt is riding a bit high . I'm still amazed by the difference an inch makes...and for those of you who think like me, "that's what she said".

[Standard]

Great day for a hike, thanks for sharing the photos with us. Looks like a beautiful area. I've not been hiking there, will have to put that on my "to do" list.

[wildrover]

We hiked around to the other side of the formation, and the weather finally cleared up to the point that it was t-shirt...or no shirt...weather. This looked like a good place to play Battle of Waternish.


Next day, we took the Silver Thread Scenic Byway...great drive, would probably be even better on a motorcycle. It was still overcast, with a bit of hail and a little snow, and fresh snow on the ground at Slumgullion Pass, around 11k feet. For the record, pipes are hard to tune and act funny at high altitude. I had to mess with the drone reed bridles as well as the seat height of the chanter reed...as soon as the chanter sounded, the drones cut...so it ended up being a workout to play, once I sorted it all out. An easier reed at altitude would probably be a lot better, I think.

Looks like a good campsite! Most of the day was spent in the car, and the weather was less ornery, so I wore my new sporran from Custom Celtic. This day was its first "public appearance". Yes, that's fresh snow.


Just an aside, the web host I'm using for photos has some really oddball sponsors. On a related note, I'm amazed and impressed at the variety of physical appearance in Russian women...I suppose that's what you get, when your country spans a continent that large. Ok, back to the topic...

It's time to play a tune!


"Playing" might be too kind a term, here. With the drone bridles set back farther than normal, I'm back to octopus wrestling, so after butchering a 2/4, I settled down with Sands of Kuwait, a beautiful 6/4 slow air, and only choked the chanter a few times. It's been a while since I played with the bridles that far down, and also I suspect swapping in the other Canning tenor reed would help, up here.


A brief stop further down the road...excellent view of the San Juans, in the heart of Colorado.


Really spectacular. From the colorfully adorned mountains in the foreground (left), to the snow-dusted peaks of Wetterhorn, Matterhorn, and Uncompaghre (I think that's Native American for "really hard to climb") in the background (center), to the hundreds of years old Slumgullion earthflow (right). Actually, it's young in geological time...800ish years old for the main flow, 350ish for the smaller, later flow, and still moving downhill at an estimated 20' per year, it blocked a river and formed the San Cristobal lake.


We also noticed how well the sunlight brings out the red in this sporran.


Upper end of Lake San Cristobal.

[Woodsman]

Yes it's great to be kilted in the outdoors. It's as if the kilt were made for hiking-warm when it needs to be and cool when it needs to be. Ventilation and gathered warmth from the same basic design.

[wildrover]

Time to go for a drive!

We noticed the cutoff for the Alpine Loop, along the Silver Thread, and saw that a good portion was "2WD". While that isn't exactly a misnomer, it's hardly an invitation for the family sedan to go wandering about in the hills. I'd like to get a bumper sticker that says "Only in a Stratus", and I'd also like to emphasize the "90% driver" rule of pounding about in the outback.

So...off we went, with the plan that we'd drive as far up as it was possible to safely take the car, which turned out to be American Basin, as listed on the map.

A couple of historic structures and a vault toilet, at the trailheads of three of Colorado's 14k' peaks.


The end of the 2WD road. We certainly received a lot of strange looks on the way up, not because I was in a kilt, but because every other vehicle we passed was either a truck, SUV, or Jeep. There were several rock outcroppings to cross, a water crossing, a couple steep uphills, and a lot of potholes and chatter. It's a good little car, and this wasn't the first time I'd driven it in similar conditions (the first time was to the top of the Outback lift, at Keystone Resort, via the gulch road). Anyway, we had to turn around here because of a 6-8" deep runoff rut crossing the trail. Anything with decent tires and ground clearance would have been fine, and I had the opportunity to witness a Jeep being comically maneuvered through the rut as though it were a major rock crawling endeavor. Wish I had the truck handy, but it's not done. Back to the photos!--"Only in a Stratus."


Looking back down American Basin.


Dog is my co-pilot.


Gratuitous "I drove this all the way up here" shot.


Heading back down the road. Most of the road is like this...smooth with potholes. It's only a few spots that require a meticulously planned line. The snow-covered peaks to the left are a pair of 14ers, Redcloud and Sunshine. I don't think we got a picture of Handies, which is on the other side of the road. The reddish peak in the foreground isn't as tall as the other two, it's just perspective.

[wildrover]

This is the road, the car, and the car's adorable, understanding, and trusting owner!


Looking back up the valley. Reminds me of Alaska.


Girl's got a good eye...she spotted the remains of what appears to be a foot bridge, down this steep gulch. Click through for the fullsize image, and look in the middle...only the stringers and one or two planks remain.


Then back in the car for a while...gotta butt-iron the pleats beyond all recognition...and over to Buena Vista for a bacon cheeseburger and a porter. There's a great hydraulic feature in their waterpark. Here's me, and the girl, and the dog...a great weekend.


I heartily recommend hiking in a kilt, over all else, unless it's blinding snow and high wind, well below freezing, and you're sliding around on your butt or something. Much more comfortable than anything I've worn in the past, and to quote someone or other, "ask a Highland man which way the wind is blowing, he'll tell you he doesn't know where it's coming from, but he sure knows where it's going!" For class 1 and 2 hikes, definitely going kilted from now on.

Also, it's time for more kilt socks. Those big wooly things were awesome, but I had nothing to wear to dinner after Wheeler, since they were pretty wet. The great part, tho, was once they were dry, they were ready to go the next day, and smelled a lot better than any synthetic long underwear I've ever used, and certainly better than any pair of cotton socks I've thrashed on a day like that!

The shoes I'm wearing are just a pair of Docs I picked up at the mall, originally for wearing with The Legs Of Woe. Like Matt (I think) said, kilts and Docs go together like peanut butter and jelly .

-Sean

[BoldHighlander]

Looks like a great time & beautiful country to hike.

Thanks for taking us along.

[Rex_Tremende]

Kilt police may notice that my kilt is riding a bit high . I'm still amazed by the difference an inch makes...

I thought I recall seeing here examples of kilts designed for hill walking that were a bit shorter, anyway.

Cool pics.

Regards,
Rex.

[Rollo]

Very nice pics in the mountain !

[McNulty]

Holy cripes, Wildrover, those pix look nice. Thanx for the travelogue, I now know where our next weekend jaunt will be. We've been to Creede once, and will plan a weekender there later this summer. Thanx for sharing the pix.
Nulty