Day two of the Chautauqua Hike

To recap day one. I hiked the Enchanted Mesa Trail at Chautauqua Park.

A bit of a grade, but despite not having hiked for over a decade (or exercising), I made the 1.8 mile hike at a rate of about 1.2 MPH. It was a well maintained trail. Nice and wide and nothing at all perilous except for a short stretch of ice that was easily navigated. I probably didn’t need my hiking boots but I had them with me so I used them. A lovely day.

Day two

I prepared for the hike. I had my cell phone, which has a compass app. A compass is a good thing to have. Just a plug for the Army Knife for Android app. Lots of good utilities in that app, including a compass. I packed my 13,000 Milliamp hour battery in case I needed to charge the phone several times. I had a yarn scarf, a Polartec vest, a pair of gloves, lots of water, fig bars, flannel-lined jeans, a warm hat, a jacket, and an awesome attitude. It turned out I was missing some stuff. Like a crash helmet for one. I didn’t need it but it would have been reassuring to have had. Hiking boots would have been a good thing to have had. Knee protectors, like the kind that construction workers sometimes wear, would have been nice to have had, but I didn’t really need them very often. I’ll get to some other useful supplies later.

The adventure started rather ominously when on the way to the park I realized I had forgotten to change from my tennis shoes into my hiking boots. I decided to continue to my destination anyway. Ominous changed to auspicious as I noticed hikers returning from their hikes in tennis shoes. The Chautauqua trail was wide and paved… until it wasn’t.

I really didn’t want a paved trail anyway. That’s not hiking, that’s walking down the street. But then the trail turned into a wide dirt trail. More like a dirt road still. You could drive it two cars side-by-side. Eventually it turned into a genuine trail. Quite a nice trail too for someone with no hiking skills or hiking experience to speak of.

And then came the mud and ice. The mud was superficial and the patches of ice were short and had been walked on several times. After a couple of short patches of wet trails, mud and ice, I asked some hikers who were coming down the path if it got worse. They said it wasn’t bad and there was just one more patch up ahead before it cleared up. I navigated the short patch of mud and ice. By navigated I mean I went around what I could and gingerly walked on the ice which had already been trod on quite heavily. Most of these patches of ice were 6 to 15 or so feet long. I slid a tiny bit but I didn’t go down… until I did. I slipped on some mud ice and fell. I caught myself really well and didn’t actually fall completely down. My hands prevented me from dropping enough to get muddy for the most part. There was a bit of mud at on the lower leg on one side. Not much. As it turned out it could have been much worse. Nobody saw me fall so I wasn’t embarrassed. I was up in less than two seconds and totally unhurt. Not even the palms of my hands.

At one point I was looking at a patch with ice and mud wondering how I was going to approach it, when some other hikers went past me. Being rather clever at times, I decided to watch where they stepped and follow suit.

I ended up going down about four or five times on the hike. I don’t think anyone saw me, and if they did I was up and going so fast that they wouldn’t have been concerned. As for “what if I fell and got hurt?” I don’t think I ever went more than 3 minutes without encountering other hikers. It was busy. It was a beautiful day for hiking in that park.

Next I turned on to the Flatiron 1/2 trail. I knew this hike was a good bit beyond my hiking skills but I figured when it got too rough I’d just turn around. I hoped I didn’t have to because I wanted to make it to the end of the trail and turn around where the rock climbers would have gone next. The trail wasn’t too terribly steep but it did have a decent grade. Parts had rocks that needed to be used as stairs, or at least needed to be traversed.

 

I walked and the trail and it got progressively rockier. Not much in the way of mud or ice though. I eventually decided I had gone 25 to 50 feet beyond where I should have turned around and so I headed back down the path with no problems. When I got to a trail crossing I decided to take the Flatirons Loop Trail which went to the Flatirons climbing area. Again, I decided I would turn around when the going got too tough. Again, I survived some short patches of mud and ice. Eventually I had to turn around sooner than I would have liked to. It kept getting rockier and rockier. When I got to the point that I could no longer discern the rocky trail from the rest of the rocks I decided that if I kept going I would be a menace to the rocks... Sometimes you regret not pushing yourself farther. This wasn’t one of those times.

I hiked back down to the Bluebell Mesa Trail and the Bluebell Spur until it crossed the Bluebell Road. I think it was along those paths I took one or two more harmless spills. At the junction of the Bluebell Spur and the Bluebell Road there were two public restrooms. Not feeling like I particularly needed to stop I did anyway. I had been drinking a fair amount of water so it seemed like a good idea to avail myself of the facilities. OK, here’s where it is a good idea to add some more items to the supplies list. Toilet paper, Purell, and especially for women toilet seat protectors. There were four empty cardboard tubes that once had toilet paper on them. There was no sink and no hand sanitizer. Sorry if that is TMI.

Again, the Bluebell Road is a road and that is not what I signed up for. It probably was getting late enough for me to take the Bluebell road anyway and head back, but there was still plenty of time and I was determined to keep going even if it meant finding my way back in the dark with nothing more than the flashlight on my mobile phone, a compass, a yak, and a Sherpa. I would have done that, but as it turned out, the yaks and Sherpas had the holiday weekend off.

I turned right and headed on to the McClintock upper trail. I had read that there was poison ivy alongside some of the trails and I came to a point where the ice looked a bit treacherous. If I walked on the dry ground just of the side of the trail I could bypass that stretch of ice and mud. But I saw plants that I deemed may be poison ivy. I had three choices. Head back, walk on the side of the trail and risk contact with poison ivy, or brave the ice and maybe risk falling and using my hands to catch myself and plant them firmly in some poison ivy on the side of the trail. Even if those ones weren’t poison ivy there is poison ivy along the trails I hiked. You can call me paranoid, but yeah I was paranoid. I chose the icy patch and did fine. Sometime after that I took a spill and I think that was when I hit the inside of my knee on the ground or a rock. It didn’t hurt enough to warrant an “ouch” at the time and it wasn’t a problem at all for the rest of the hike. The extra bit of padding that the flannel lining added probably helped soften the impact a bit. Getting out of bed was not pleasant. It took a while to walk it out in the morning. It wasn’t long after that that my ankle began to itch, but that happens anyway. It did in the morning before I left. Nothing unusual there. I bet you thought I was going to say it had something to do with poison ivy :-)

The last slip was awesome. I hit some ice and fell rather gently. As I started to try to get up I slowly started to slide some more. There was going to be no stopping it for a ways, but I was able to get my feet under me and I crouched down to where my calves were touching my thighs. I was firmly centered over my feet, which were flat on the ice I was sliding down. I put my hands down behind me to stop myself from falling backward. Evidently I got my center of gravity just right. I kept on sliding down the ice crouched with my feet under me and my hands behind me ready to act if needed. I went about 6 feet like that before the ice ended. That was incredibly fun. I was bummed there wasn’t twenty or thirty more feet of ice to keep sliding down. I even tried to push for a little more sliding when the ice was coming to an end. It was seriously fun.

On one of my falls my butt got a bit wet. I don’t know if it was the last one or another one, and I don’t know if it was just from ice or mud or both, but I really didn’t feel like putting my phone behind me and taking a selfie of my butt, so I didn’t.

I finally made it back to the ranger station where I put my emptied plastic water bottles in the recycle bin and threw away a couple of pieces of trash I picked up off the trail along the way. From there I went across the street to a nice small grass park and started wiping the mud off of my shoes. As I was picking the mud off on the soles of my shoes I discovered that my favorite pair of tennis shoes had almost no tread left. The part of the soles at the ball of my feet and on the heels were smooth. Damn, I might not have fallen at all if the tennis shoes had any tread. Of course I might not have had the seriously fun slide on the ice either.

I cleaned all of the mud off of the tops and sides of my shoes, and as much as I could off of the bottom of the legs of my jeans. I couldn’t see if it made any difference, but I tried to brush of the seat of my pants too. As I was walking around waiting for the mud on my pants to dry so I could scrape it off, I saw what was by far the most beautiful site of the day. An ambulance went by and it wasn’t for me! It actually didn’t seem to be for anyone at that moment. No sirens.

I got cleaned up as best I could and when my Lyft driver showed up I put my jacket on the car seat and sat down on it to protect the seat. It just seemed like it was the considerate and respectful thing to do. It would have been so rude not to try hard to keep the car clean, especially for a rideshare driver. Especially for that rideshare driver. Her other job involves taking elderly people who are not mobile out for daytime activities. She talks to people who are often alone with no human contact. That is a beautiful heart. What a way to wrap up a wonderful day by talking to such a gem of a person. She still laughed when I told her why I was sitting on my jacket.

So, there are still a couple of more things I should have brought with me. Sunglasses. Even though my prescription lenses get very dark in the sunlight, it wasn’t enough. Next, whether they are hiking boots or tennis shoes check the tread depth first. Also a brush to brush the mud off would have been handy. Perhaps I should have brought a bit more good judgment too, but hey I survived. I went 1.8 miles on the first hike and about four miles on this hike. I stretched myself a bit and had a great time. Maybe a hiking buddy would have been good too. Someone to laugh hysterically at me when I fall… as long as I don’t hurt myself… much.

Oh my, what a gorgeous day to view the Flatirons.

So what did I learn? Even after two consecutive warm sunny days after it has snowed and got down to nine degrees Fahrenheit a couple of nights earlier, mountains have an uncannily innate understanding of the theory and application of thermodynamics. Also, shade is not always your friend.

I’ll be back!