Trust Your Instinct (Colorado)
- [second draft: May 13, 2004]
| 2004/03/27 | |
After a 3 month quest of trying
to
Beat Car Dealer (and making up my mind and
justifying a replacement for my
Cherokee, a friend of 4 years), I was in
the mountains again. At 8000ft only a few clues remained of the waist-deep
snow from 2 weeks ago. The weather was pleasantly warm at 4pm -- a late
start, and yet -- there is no late start. If I didn't come at all, this
would be early.
Within minutes of walking uphill,
i noticed something on the ground -- it was a camouflage-colored arrow.
Something to mark on my GPS -- will it still be here a year from now?
I noticed the bent metal tip and the bend in the arrow as i stuck it into
a tree stump. My trail lead me uphill in between trees. It was so much
easier now without the snow. But it's all good, with or without snow.
I haven't even walked for 20 minutes when i arrived at a relative peak,
EAT -- which was a perfect spot to eat at.
Afterwards there was a sort-of
trail to follow in the new flat terrain. LIE8000 was a spot from 2 weeks
ago.
At EOT (End of Trail or my last
spot before turning back), the sun slowly hid behind the horizon, and
the approaching darkness signaled a need to return. I decided to navigate
by intuition. Let's see if i need the GPS other than for drawing pictures
of paths traveled. I wanted to put myears of outdoor experience to a test.
Not that I actually trained my senses, or had to use them before. I was
nevertheless confident that the eyars of night wandering and getting lost
rubbed off some path finding abilities.
As I backtracked my footsteps,
one step at a time, the sun was already behind the horizon. I couldn't
actually see any of my footprints, but my sense of intiution confirmed
my direction of travel. It was an easy path from the car, and I have been
following an easy path now. Sure I wanted to head at 90 degrees left instead,
down and up the hill, but i couldn't see an easy path that way. So I'm
ok. Just fiiiine. Peace of cake.
After an hour of walking through
somewhat familiar territory, I saw something particular ahead of me --
a house. A house? Holy schnikes where did that come from? There was no
house closeby before. Hmmmmmm, was it hidden by a hill? Maybe i am a little
bit off, maybe? I heard voices and a barking animal, but in a different
direction than the house. Okkkkkkkkkk, time for Mr GPS. I was way off
-- the car wasn't anywhere close. My GPS dictated walking straight towards
the barking -- just a dog hopefully? As i approached the barking, hardly
making out a dark shape 200 yards ahead, it turned out to be a dog by
another house. "Cora Bella!" ............. "Cora Bella!!!!!!!"
A nice name for a dog. The owner's voice didn't calm down the dog which
must have thought her favorite bone was in my leg.
I was now on a road which was
tracked while i was driving. Finding the car without a GPS would have
taken more time. But is that a bad thing? Would i have turned left or
right on the road? Getting lost is not always a bad thing. A little fear
in your eyes never hurt anyone. Adventure comes in many shapes and sizes.
................pictures..........September maybe :-)
The day's statistics were:
| Distance: 3.38 miles |
|
Moving Time: 1h 25min |
|
Stopped Time: 1h 22min |
|
Moving Average: 2.4mph |
#Pursue Passion#
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