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An adventurous day

July 2nd, 2006 by Kenric

There’s nothing like thinking you’re gonna die to make you think about what is really important. Ok, I didn’t really think I was going to die but for some others out there I was pretty worried.

Let me backtrack to 2002 in Crested Butte. Back then us city boys were a wee bit unprepared for biking in the rugged outdoors. I saved the newspaper article the next day, yes that man in question in the article was with us. Up in the mountains it can be sunny one second and snowing the next. We learned to always be prepared whenever we go hiking or biking and since then we carry alot of winter gear.

Back to today, since it was a Sunday and a holiday weekend, we encountered many many other riders and hikers going up the trail about the same time as us. It was overcast and about 70 degrees outside, we could see lightning and hear thunder in the distance. While riding up the hill we encountered a couple bikers wearing just a short sleeve jersey, one woman was wearing a sports bra. We also came across two ladies and a dog who were in short sleeve bike shirts and spandex shorts.

That was all fine and dandy until the rain came. The temperature dropped to high 40′s and it was a downpour. When it started hailing we had to stop, nothing hurts more than riding and getting pelted with pea sized hail in the face. We made the cardinal mistake of not getting our rain and winter gear on quick enough. Always put it on at the first sign of rain. Half of our group ended up huddled under a small pine tree. Picture that scene from “Without a Paddle.” But at least we had ponchos, arm & leg warmers, fleece and light jackets. We had no idea what was going on with the other people we had seen.   

Huddled up under a pine tree in the cold rain certain things don’t seen to matter. I sat there and looked at my backpack, which I left in the rain, I remember seeing my bag with my mp3 player, camera and cell phone getting drenched, but at that point in time I couldn’t care less. All I had to do was lean over and pull the bag in, but being warm was so much more important. We had our bikes in front of us and we’re just thinking, “I hope we can make it back to the car before we literally freeze to death.” Let’s just leave the bikes.

The women bikers with the dog that we had seen prior had actually did what we contemplated, they ditched their bikes and were running back to their campsite. When the met up with us, they joined our warm huddle and we gave them one of our fleeces and some leg warmers. After about 30 minutes in the huddle we came to the conclusion that the rain wasn’t stopping so we decided to make a break for it and ride.

In the meantime, the other half of our riders continued down the trail and encountered the other group of riders, they were standing under a tree shivering so they gave them a blanket and extra arm warmers.

When we got to the bottom it was nice to see a campfire going. There were a bunch of campers that had set up camp near the end of the trail. They also had cars which were running and had the heaters at full blast. The cars were filled with cold hikers and bikers. We came real close to get an ambulance for one of the women, but she warmed up quickly in the car. We stayed by their fire for a while to warm up and dry off and headed home.

The others that we encountered had not been on the trail before, they did not know how far the end was. I don’t know what went through their minds when it started raining, but I’m sure to them it was life or death. Luckily we knew this trail and figured we had about 4 miles to go and the fact that most of it was downhill was great. We weren’t that worried this time, but back in 2002 it was truly scary. It’s moments like these that make you reflect and realize what is really important. There is no thinking about real estate, money, personal problems… it’s just, let’s get off this mountain in one piece.

PS. I was at REI Sports buying more raingear yesterday. Being the cheap ass that I am, I was debating shelling out $55 for a new rain jacket. I actually thought back to 2002 of us in the mountains… what would we have paid for a rain jacket at that time? I ended up buying the $55 rain jacket and a $4.50 poncho. The rain jacket served me well. At the end of the ride, my friend, who used the poncho says to me, “the best $5 ever spent!” My only regret is that I had an extra rain jacket and did not pack it because my pack was getting heavy. You just never know what’s going to be important and it’s hard to bring everything all the time. On another day, 100 oz. of water was way more important than an extra jacket.

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