Colorado Bound

The first rule of Fight Club is you never talk about Fight Club.  But the rules are broken every week, as more guys show up, and it’s partly the paradox of that discipline which enthrals them, and us.

On her 11^th birthday, the Colorado Trail wasn’t one of Charlotte’s options.  Yet to the CT we’re bound. 

She chose to hike the Haute Pyrenean route, which straddles the border of France and Spain from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean.  We’d done our homework, and that was the choice.  Nevertheless, in our rite of passage recipe, which is meant to provide Charlotte with lessons in discipline, courage and resilience, we’ve added a dash of flexibility.

We have Grandpa to thank.  Early this year, my dad suggested we find someone online who’d hiked both the PCT, for which we had a true taste last summer, and the HP.  Great idea!

So dad found this wonderful German lady named Christine who has hiked twenty-two 1000-mille+ hikes around the world (!!!), and both the PCT and HP are among them.  She has more experience in her little finger than we’ll ever have.  She was incredibly helpful, but her report was grim.

Apparently, as beautiful as the HP is, it’s not maintained like the trails in America, such that certain sections have dissolved into fairly steep scree which can be technically difficult, and dangerous, to traverse.  She also reported the campsites themselves are often overrun with teenagers having a jolly time – I guess the mountains aren’t THAT remote in Europe – which leaves the weary backpacker sometimes trying to sleep through the sounds of their merry-making.  And finally, the towns just don’t stock so many hiker-friendly resupplies. 

Clearly, the first was the only red flag we needed.  Even after last summer I consider myself a novice hiker, and this is meant to be fun.

So a new plan was needed.  Charlotte and I looked at both the Colorado Trail, and the Washington State section of the PCT, and Charlotte decided on the CT.  I won’t go into the minutiae of every detail we discussed, but I will share which was her deciding factor.

The Colorado Trail is on the east side of the Rockies, and just to its east are the plains of the American Midwest – a massive bread basket.  So every day of the summer you have this cold air coming over the Rockies meeting the heat coming off the grasslands of American farming.

We all know what happens when you get cold and hot air meeting, especially at this scale - big, bad thunderstorms.  Apparently, really exciting ones.  And although my dad championed the state of Washington for this reason, my Charlotte wanted to be near the action.

I am so excited.  I love thunderstorms.  I just love the crack and the flash and the rumble. The fat sheets of rain that come layering down on you like buckets.  The fierce winds that cut through everything, and send branches flying through the air.  I just love the incredible majesty of mother nature, expressing herself.  

I know they’re genuinely dangerous, so no, I will not pull a Lt Dan in Forrest Gump, and stand on the summit of anything daring the powers of the universe to impress me.  I will be respectful.  But I am SO excited.

So that’s why, this afternoon, we’re practicing setting up our tents.  As quickly as possible.  I know these storms can appear out of nowhere, leave you just seconds to scramble everything together, fighting to tie down every line.  You both have to have a job to do, and get to doing it quickly.  So we're prepping.  Like we're prepping for our own fight club.

:)