The Sawatch Cowpoke

The clouds above us enveloped the deep valley-like couloir that the three of us stood in. Surrounded by violent, steep walls and rock formations, with scree forming it’s floor, no wonder the area that we had ventured into was affectionately referred to as “the Gash.” I lifted my head slowly and rose my eyes to meet the clouds above and around us. I looked over to Matt quickly and got his attention, “I’m not sure how I feel about this one, chief.” He nodded and looked down and back at me, “yeah, this isn’t really looking too promising.” I could tell from his tone of voice that he really didn’t want to turn back either. We were almost finished with the approach to do an alpine climb on the violently-pointy, dominating monolith before us. It was named “The Sharkstooth.” I turned around carefully on the rocks that I was balanced on among the talus around me and looked down the incline to Scott, who had opted to come with us that day as well. “How’re you hanging in there bruh?” I ...

I tried to look past my headlamp in the very-early morning darkness, and in all honesty I couldn’t. Matt, Scott, and I had met in a parking lot only less than an hour before, three men on a mission to go to one of the most remote peaks in all of Rocky Mountain National Park. By the end of today, with a little luck and a whole lot of skill and toughness, we would summit Hayden Spire. Laying on a ridgeline extending from Sprague Peak and off of the western side of Stones Mountain lays a massive crater-like formation of rock and cliffside. Along that cliffside sits a series of huge spires above Hayden Lake, one of many year-round pockets of glaciated lake that sits quiet among the high peaks in the park. Hayden Spire is easily seen from Trail-Ridge Road, and the Forest Canyon Overlook, but never easily reached by any sort of insertion point into the park. On this particular morning, we had chosen to take the overland approach route to the spire from the Bear Lake Trailhead. This ...

  In all honesty I do not know why his goofy face crossed my mind the other day but it did. Being here in the Rockies among the high peaks and the wide open and deep wilderness, I can’t help but think that he would love to run and play here, and probably trip over something. I was young when we first got him. My first best friend. Tanner was a first-generation Goldendoodle, the cross between a male Golden Retriever and a poodle. His hair was a dark ginger as a puppy, with a slight wave as it spread over the hunches of his shoulders and onto his back. His hair was never curly, but it was never really straight either. As he grew older into adulthood, his hair took a lighter hue of yellow, matching the same colors as a purebred adult Golden Retriever male. He was the best dog that I had ever had. He was the best dog that I had ever met either, even to this day. There are some days when I honestly really do wonder if he truly had the soul of a dog at all, or if he was something a ...

My legs shivered. The room was dark. I woke up to my phone alarm halfway through it’s first crescendo. I shuffled slightly in my bed and illuminated the time on my watch. Three minutes past when my alarm was set for. Goodness was I tired. I got out of bed slowly and made my way to the bathroom as I shook both of my roomates, Isaac and Isaac, awake. Today we were going to conquer giants. By about 1:15AM we were out the door and in Isaac’s car on the way to the trailhead. To normal people, the absurdly early time that we had woken up at seemed crazy. To anyone meaning to summit the high peaks of northern Colorado without being caught in a thunderstorm, or something worse, this was a normal, run of the mill wake up call. We had planned this peakbagging mission for a week before, collecting as much beta (information) as we could to pick the best route for what we wanted to do. We had made it our goal to summit both Mt. Meeker (13,911’) and Long’s Peak (14,259’) through a lesser-travell...

“WHAT IS YOUR PURPOSE HERE?” was typed across the screen in front of me in bold at the top of the list that I was compiling. I had been ignoring the question for a long while now as it seemed. Everytime my eyes rose to read the heading that I had selected, I felt just that much more sick in the pit of my stomach. The words almost made me shiver. I read over slowly the three main points that I had come up with. The first, “ To develop and sustain an intentional and life-bringing relationship with my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through fellowship with others and stewardship of the environment around me.” I nodded gently in approval. The second, “To develop myself to be the best mountain athlete that I can be in preparation for greater goals and tasks than these through the repeated training and practice of running, cycling, climbing, and mountaineering.” I continued to quietly agree. The last point, “To complete my education regarding wilderness medicine, outdoor leadership and gu...