Colorado Almost Killed Me

“Help!”

How did this happen? Here I was wedged up against a wall of boulders, one arm around a dead, waterlogged tree. At the end of my other arm, I gripped one of Meghan’s pack’s shoulder straps with such force that an F5 tornado wouldn’t separate us. And worst of all, we were both being buffeted by the intense current of the chilly North St. Vrain Creek.

We were at the tail end of a fourteen-mile hike to Lion Lake No. 1, a longer walk than we have taken in maybe ten years, but we had worked up to it with shorter hikes earlier in the week, a nine-miler to Sandbeach Lake on Wednesday, and an off day on Thursday. We had certainly challenged ourselves with this hike, which rose about 2300 feet from trailhead to destination (and most of that altitude gained over the last two miles of the hike).  Honestly, with a mile or less to go, our legs were pretty spent. At least mine were. As we made our way toward the trail head, the trail as level as a parking lot, we got that spring in our step that only the end of a long trail can give you. It had been a rough start to our hike, and some worry during our ascent, but we felt pretty good here at the end.

We’d left the trailhead at about 5:45. A bit later than we wanted, but we decided to eat some cereal before we left the cabin, figuring a few extra minutes at 5 am was not a big deal.  We were on vacation, we had plenty of day ahead of us, and we knew we had some time to play with. We would be up and down the trail well before any bad weather would come in. In addition, I underestimated how long the drive to the trailhead would be, which set us back a few more minutes. Again, no big deal.

As we got out of the car, I realized I had forgotten my ball cap. I was annoyed for having forgotten it. Sure, it was only a ball cap, but forgetting anything showed a lack of proper preparation. I didn’t like being poorly prepared, even a little bit. But Meghan had a spare hat in the car that fit me, so I wore that and thought little more of the missing hat.

About six minutes into the hike, Meghan realized she had forgotten her sunglasses at the car. We hesitated for a second, but decided to turn around and go get them. It was still early morning dim, but she would eventually need them. As we walked back, I thought to myself, the superstitious part of my mind rising up, “That’s two screw ups, today. What will the third be?” I contemplated suggesting we forget the whole hike. I was getting a bad feeling.  I laughed it off, the rational part of my brain beating the superstitions into submission. 

We passed a quartet of older hikers setting out as we made it back to the car. We got what we needed, made one last double check that we had not forgotten something else, and started back out. It was about 6 am.

At a trail junction about three miles into our hike, after watching a cloudy and windy sunrise break into a cool and beautiful blue morning, we caught up to the four hikers ahead of us. They were considerably older than we, but they were all in excellent shape. Their apparent leader seemed knowledgeable, as, every time we had been in ear shot of them to this point, he was pointing out some sort of lore or information about something along the trail. We speculated that he was an off-duty or retired ranger. As we met and passed them at the junction, they asked our destination. They were headed to the same place—Lion Lake.  The leader said, “They spotted a mountain lion up there last week. Maybe we’ll get lucky.” That was all I needed to hear.

There are three words that make me antsy on the trail. One of them is “bear.” I respect bears. I love them, as much as one can love any abstract concept of a wild creature. Yet, I do not want to encounter one on the trail. No, thank you. I have a similar attitude toward the other two words: “mountain lion.” Honestly, if I had to pick my animal encounter on the trail, I would pick bear over mountain lion every time.  There is a stealthy ferocity to a mountain lion that a bear just doesn’t have. Plus, for whatever reason (probably a general lack of interest in cats), I don’t feel the same way about mountain lions as I do about bears.

So, as we proceeded up the trail, knowing we were about to encounter what one trail guide refers to as an “unforgiving gradient,” now all I could think about was the impending mountain lion attack. Every rock hid a lion. Every chickaree scurrying through the underbrush was a catamount stalking us through the trees. Just as we reached the turn off for the worst of the vertical hike, I saw something large cross the trail behind us and move through the downslope trees. It was colored like a mountain lion, but I only saw glimpses of its hindquarters. Surely it was an elk. Mountain lions aren’t that tall.  It was moving down the slope; surely a mountain lion would attack from uphill. I was rationalizing in a big way. Most likely, at any rate, it was an elk, and, obviously, we were not attacked by a mountain lion.

We reached our destination, a beautiful alpine tarn, surrounded by snow banks, wildflowers, mountain peaks, waterfalls, rocky slopes, and mosquitoes. Truly, it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. I mentioned to Meghan as we approached the lake that it reminded me of some mythical Bavarian place I had in my mind, something right out of Heidi. We took a few photos, ate our usual trail meal, PB and J, relaxed for a few minutes (not easy with all the skeeters), and made our way back down the trail. It was about 10:30. We had plenty of time to make our way back to the car.

On the way back down, I didn’t worry quite so much about the lion attack, or bears, for that matter. I was wary, but not to the extent that I was on the way up. After all, I had seen the whole trail. There was no more mystery, no more surprises. We were just retracing our footsteps. What could happen?

So, as we walked that last mile, approaching Copeland Falls and the gaggle of walkers making their way up and down the trails near the trailhead and ranger’s station, tragedy and misadventure were the farthest thing from my mind. The trail bent close to the creek, with a gentle rocky slope leading down to the cool rushing water.  My general “safety-first” mentality left me momentarily, and I said to Meghan, “You want to stick your head in there and cool off?”  She said she did. And I walked over toward the creek side. I took off my hat and sunglasses, and crouched down by the creek. It was a bit slippery.

Meghan approached the bank, and, as she did, I warned her that it was slippery. The words left my mouth just as her toe hit a wet part of the rock. Her foot went out from under her, and she lost her balance. I reached out to grab her and in an instant, we were both being carried by the force of the current, like mere grains of sand.

In one’s life, the people you love experience difficulties, tragedies, sadness. We see things in other’s eyes that we hope never to see. As Meghan went into the creek, I saw in her eyes such fear and helplessness, that I know I will never forget it. Of all the things that happened in and around that creek in those minutes, that is the thing I wish I could forget.  I don’t know what I looked like, but I know how I felt and what I was thinking. One of my first thoughts was, “Is this really happening?”  These things don’t happen to Meghan and I, they happen to other people.  We are relatively experienced hikers; we do okay in the woods.  We are careful. We don’t put ourselves in these situations. Of course, given time to consider, we did put ourselves in that situation. We didn’t belong on that creek bank; we belonged on the trail. We had made a mistake, and we were paying for it.  While being propelled through the water, however, my only thought was, “This is not really happening.”

But it was.

After that initial question, I was focused on one objective: saving Meghan. I had no idea what to do as far as an exit strategy, but I was sure that if I could just grab ahold of her, I could get us out. This is really absurd when you think about it. We were both at the mercy of the water, a ripping current of white water that bounded over boulders and rocks, fell a few feet in several places, and, just a half mile along the current, descended precipitously at Copeland Falls.  We were in a pretty desperate situation. I wasn’t thinking of any of that. All I needed to do was grab Meghan. 

We went over one small drop. Meghan went under. I swallowed some water, but did not completely submerge. As a matter of fact, and don’t ask me how, I managed to eventually get back on dry land with dry hair. Weird, at any rate. After that first drop off, I managed to grab ahold of Meghan’s pack. We had tumbled down river about a hundred feet, but it felt like forever. We missed a few limbs that might have stopped us, but we were moving really fast. We eventually, by sheer luck, I am sure, managed to get pushed up against several rocks, where I grabbed a tree that seemed relatively stable.  I told Meghan I wasn’t going to let her go. “Okay,” she said. We looked around for a few seconds to see if we could extricate ourselves from our position and get into some slow moving water. Even though we had stopped moving, the power of the river was amazing, and we could both feel the rocks we were wedged against roiling and shifting slightly as the water pounded into them. We knew we were not in anything close to a stable situation. It was clear that if we tried to get out ourselves, the water would simply carry us farther down stream, bouncing us off of more rocks and scraping us up against more limbs, so we did the only thing we could think of. The trail was only feet away. People were passing, but had no idea we were there, so, I yelled for help as loudly as possible. In a moment, Meghan started yelling, too.

A young man, maybe fourteen, poked his head through the trees.  He had long brown hair under a ball cap.  He looked at us with surprise, a “what-are-you-doing-there?” kind of look. “We need some help down here,” I said. He nodded and turned back toward the trail.

An older guy showed up then, with the young man. He was short, but muscular, and all I can really remember was that he was wearing these wild green and yellow shoes. He looked around on the bank and grabbed a limb. “Did somebody go for the ranger?” I asked. He nodded and sent the kid up to send somebody to the ranger.

The older guy, the long-haired kid, and one or two other guys made a daisy chain, linking arms, and the older guy waded carefully out and extended the limb out into the creek. I grabbed it, and we just sort of stayed that way for a few beats, the four guys on the bank at one end of the limb, and Meghan and I at the other end. The rushing water was so loud that communicating was not easy. We could barely hear each other, and, I think, everybody was sort of wondering what was going to happen next.  Was Meghan supposed to make her way along the limb? That was not going to happen, because I was not going to let go of her.  Were we both supposed to crawl along the limb?  I wasn’t sure that limb was strong enough to handle our weight and the force of the water. I looked back at the older man, he looked at me, and he started to pull on the limb.  Within seconds, we were out of the torrent and belly down in an eddy of slack water.

We were safe. Cold, soaked, bruised, and scratched--maybe a bit in shock--but we were safe. We thanked the people that pulled us out, and were surrounded by another crowd of people asking how we’d gotten in the creek, whether we needed clothes, help, etc. Two women gave us emergency blankets to keep us warm. It was warm enough that hypothermia was probably not a risk, but let me tell you, brothers and sisters, those mountain streams are cold.

Our packs were soaked; our phones and cameras were ruined. Meghan lost her damn sunglasses in the creek, and I lost a shirt that was cinched on my pack and my Zip-loc bag of homemade beef jerky. I felt pretty stupid for needing to be pulled out of the creek.  However, considering what had happened and what could have happened, wet and bruised and standing on the trail was about the best way that whole situation could have ended. 

The ranger met us on the trail as we hiked out. Meghan and I had two Samaritans with us, Sally and Granger (I think was his name…maybe Garret). The ranger asked us some questions about what happened and how severely we were injured (not too bad, really).  He mentioned that we were the fifth and sixth persons to be pulled out of the creek that week.  That didn’t make me feel any better, but he also mentioned that some of them were far more seriously injured than Meghan or I, so I at least felt even more fortunate than I already did.

At the trailhead, we stripped off as much of our wet gear as decorum allowed, got in our vehicle, and headed home.  It felt like a weird sort of anti-climax (maybe that’s not the right word). We had been in this desperate situation; this moment in my life had just occurred that was far from ordinary, and now I was going to do something as banal as go home and take a shower?

Never in my life have I been happier to do a boring, mundane thing.

*****************
For Meghan's perspective on this story, please visit Life Refocused.