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Snowshoeing in the Colorado Rockies
By Mike Laliberty
It's wintertime in Colorado. Time to crawl into
a cave and hibernate, huh? Wrong! Not for Outpost 129; it's time
to grab those snowshoes and head for the mountains.
The first shadows of dusk were just settling in
on a late Friday afternoon in mid-February as another Rangers leader
and I waited for the Trailblazers group of Outpost 129 (Twin Peaks
Church, Longmont, CO) to arrive for our first winter outing. As
the boys arrived, they loaded their gear and snowshoes in the back
of my pickup and started talking about the overnight activity.
Although it wasn't in the plan, a few of the boys
were saying, based on the good weather we were having here in Longmont,
that they would probably be sleeping outside tonight. There was
an element of excitement in their voices since this winter overnighter
was the final goal of 5 weeks of work at the outpost meetings.
As soon as everyone had arrived, we headed our
two vehicles west toward the Front Range of the Rockies. Our destination
for the overnighter was the small mountain town of Meeker Park.
It was located at an elevation of 8,500 feet, just outside the eastern
boundary of Rocky Mountain National Park.
The snowshoeing idea had all started a few months
earlier after I was asked to serve as the Trailblazers commander.
I learned during one of the first meetings the group had never been
on any type of winter outing. It was a young group of Trailblazers
and a small church (less than 100 people), so the boys (five of
them) had little cold weather gear, and neither did the church.
After some discussion and planning with the Pioneers
commander who would join us, the decision was made to introduce
the boys to the feel and concepts of winter camping without camping
overnight in the snow. This would be accomplished by staying overnight
in a small, rustic log cabin built in the early 1940s, and then
going snowshoeing the next day.
As soon as the Christmas holidays were over, I
started the winter camping skills program features, and everyone
in the Trailblazers group started making their own set of snowshoes,
including me. The snowshoe project was an excellent team building
activity, since we had to work through some design problems and
come up with solutions together. I remember being thankful for the
teachable moments that presented themselves.
Hey, enough of that outpost meeting stuff, let's
get back to the mountains.
We arrived at the road leading to the cabin after
dark and shoveled out enough snow to get the vehicles off the main
road. Once that was done, we loaded up our packs and carried our
gear the short distance down the road to the cabin. It was already
a cold, crisp night. I looked toward the heavens and could see the
stars. There was no cloud cover. That meant it was going to get
a lot colder.
When we got to the cabin, I flipped on the circuit
breaker, and we stepped into the cabin. Well partner, it "weren't
no" ski resort, which suited us just fine. Since the cabin was only
used in the summer, it was not insulated or heated, and the water
had been shut off and drained at the end of summer. Who'd ever "hear'd"
about taking a bath in the middle of winter anyway?
The boys soon discovered that their breath fogged
inside the cabin too. The jackets and stocking caps were going to
stay on awhile. There was a large stone fireplace near the center
of the cabin and a loft above. As soon as the boys spotted the loft,
they claimed it as their sleeping area and then headed directly
for it.
Once their gear was stowed, a couple of the boys
were given the duty of getting a fire going in the fireplace. Then
the cooks prepared supper. Maybe it was the cold mountain air, but
I remember those chili dogs being delicious. By the time supper
was over, the fire had warmed the cabin enough so we weren't able
to fog our breath anymore. In fact, those near the fireplace could
feel comfortable with their gloves off and coats unzipped.
Later that evening, we had our council fire service
right there around the fireplace. It was a good time for everyone.
Next came the roasted marshmallows and S'mores. Naturally, the boys
discovered that the loft was the warmest place in the old cabin,
so they willingly headed for their sleeping bags, although we all
know that the "S" in sleeping bag actually stands for "stay up"
and talk awhile.
Of course, this was a good time for me to ask
which boys had volunteered to sleep outside earlier. There was a
whole lot of backpedaling and no volunteers. With a smile, I dropped
the subject. In the meantime, the Pioneers commander had laid his
sleeping bag out on one of the beds in the back of the cabin. I
found a cozy spot in front of the fireplace and dozed off.
The sunrise was awesome the next morning. Since
we had arrived at the cabin in the dark, the boys didn't realize
until morning that the cabin was located about 5 miles directly
east of Longs Peak. The sun dropped its reddish-yellow light down
its sheer face like a lowered veil.
The 14,255-foot peak is the unmatched king of
the northern Front Range. Colonel Steven Long made the first recorded
American sighting of the peak that now bears his name in 1820, but
it remained an unconquered mountain until 1868. Its fame spread
quickly, even to the extent of becoming the fictional site of a
280-foot telescope in Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon
in 1866.
We ate breakfast looking at the mountain, awed
by God's creative power. During breakfast the boys had started asking
about when and where we were going to try out our snowshoes. In
order to get the best snow conditions, it was decided that we would
travel another 30 minutes by vehicle to the trailheads at Bear Lake
in Rocky Mountain National Park.
With that goal in mind, the boys quickly finished
breakfast cleanup, prepared the sack lunches for the noon meal,
loaded up their gear, and straightened up the cabin in record time.
They were being beckoned by the "call of the wild."
We arrived at the Bear Lake trailhead about 9:30
a.m. It would be another beautiful day in the Colorado Rockies.
The sky was clear, and the sun, bright. We got out the sunblock.
Sunburn occurs easily at the 9,500-foot elevation.
Within a few minutes we had our snowshoes strapped
on and were heading up the trail. The boys felt awkward at first
because of those big pontoons on their feet, but within a half hour
they were getting the hang of things.
The trail we were on was packed powder, so I motioned
the boys off the trail to test their snowshoes in the soft powder.
The snow was 3 feet deep, but the snowshoes only sank a few inches
into the deep powder. A couple of the boys put their snowshoes to
the ultimate test by jumping up and down to see if they could drop
deeper into the snow.
The effectiveness of the snowshoes was quickly
demonstrated a short time later when one of the boys accidentally
stumbled into the deep powder. It took a couple of his patrol mates
to pull him out of the hole he had gotten himself into and onto
his feet again.
By the time the lunch hour had rolled around,
we had snowshoed a 3-mile loop to the backside of Bear Lake. We
came out of the woods onto a large flat cliff, which dropped 30
feet straight to the frozen lake below. The sun had melted the snow
off the rocky area of the cliff, so we took off our snowshoes, and
found places to sit and soak up the warmth of the sun.
This was a scenic spot to have lunch, since we
had a great view of the lake and the wooded valley that stretched
beyond it. We stayed at this location for over an hour, while some
of the boys found creative ways to enjoy the snow or the snow depth.
Others just stretched out on the cliff area to doze in the sun.
The boys were really enjoying this break, so some were disappointed
when they found out the time had come to get back on the trail again.
On the return to the trailhead, we took a short
loop down the gentle slope on the north side of the cliff. Then
we cut directly across the frozen lake to its mouth, which takes
us down to the trailhead.
By the time we reached the vehicles, the boys
were ready for the cold pop and candy bar that awaited them. Everyone
agreed it had been a fun-filled day, but that they were ready to
head back home for a hot shower and a warm, home-cooked meal.
Aaaaahhh, home sweet home!
Home is sweet indeed, but it's not a place to
hide out during the winter. It's the time to get out and enjoy the
wonders of nature, the friendship of other Rangers, and the challenges
of winter activities—like snowshoeing!
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