8/29/05

A Good Trip Gone Bad



On Sunday, we decided to FINALLY go to Mt. Evans, the closest fourteener to Denver (to you non-mountaineers, a "fourteener" is a mountain that is 14 thousand feet or higher). It's only about 40 minutes or so from our house (to the base, that is), and I can't believe we've never gone in the almost 6 years we've lived here. Above we are at Echo Lake at the base. It was already cold there, even though it was in the 90's in Denver! I'm not sure what the elevation is there, but enough to make it chilly. It was so beautiful and we walked about half way around the lake.

Here are some more pics from Echo Lake. Note the lollipops we gave the boys to help them with their ears popping during the car ride.





It costs $10 per car to go up the mountain(!). The ride up is the absolute scariest road that I have ever been on. I'm not a huge fan of heights, and the road is extremely narrow with absolutely no barriers and hairpin turn after hairpin. There are numerous times that it looked like if we were just a few inches over, we'd drop thousands of feet to our deaths. I literally felt sick, but had to try to keep it together to not freak out Brian, the driver, or the boys.

Here we are just above the tree line (where trees stop going because the elevation is too high and it's too cold and windy). There was tons of mountain goat poop everywhere. I stuck my hand in it when climbing the rocks. I also "saw stars" after I climbed down, due to the elevation.







Here are some of the poop perpetrators (farther up the mountain):



It started snowing right after I climbed down from the rocks. Here we are almost at the top at another lake. Note Miles frolicking.



The snow started getting worse here and I thought to myself, "We're not going to make it to the top." Little did I know it would not be because of the snow.

We kept going and it got bumpier and more twisty-turny. All of a sudden I heard a strange noise from the back seat, and thought, "Oh, no..." Poor Miles was throwing up all over himself! We were a very short ways from the top, but there was no way we could keep on going--except that we had to since we couldn't pull over on the narrowest, highest road ever (it actually is the highest road in N. America)! We finally found a place to pull over, a short ways from the top, and got him out. We were totally unprepared. We didn't have a change of clothes for him or a bag to put the pukey clothes in. (Note to self: stock car better.) We changed him into the shorts he had on earlier (remember it was snowing, poor little guy) and took off his sweatshirt. There was just a little bit on his t-shirt, so we left that on (I was going to give him mine, since I had a sweatshirt, but Brian said no). Brian cleaned up the car seat as best as he could with some wipes. We then set off down the mountain. I am ashamed to say that we littered on Mt. Evans. Brian accidentally left a travel box of wipes on the roof and they went flying. There was no way to get them. At least they weren't the pukey ones, I guess.

We were absolutely terrified, because we didn't know if this was from car sickness (what I was leaning to) or the much more dangerous possibility of altitude sickness (which is what Brian was leaning to). We just wanted to get him down FAST, but you can't go fast on that road, without dying. Later Brian told me that he saw skid marks that looked like they went right off a really bad drop off (SO glad I didn't see it). I didn't have to worry about being scared of the road on the way down, because I was turned around in my seat trying to catch puke with a sippy cup. He only threw up a little more on the way down.

He was so pale that his lips looked blue, which scared us even more. However, I think the incident was more from car sickness than anything. He's never had it before, but it would be so easy to get car sick on that road, and I think he was pale because he was nauseous (he's so bluey that his lips turn bluish when he's pale). He passed out about half way down the mountain. We then had to ride home in a puke smelling car. Ewww.

He was fine when he woke up about 45 minutes after we got home.

So that's the tale of the "good trip gone bad:" the beginning of the trip was fabulous and awe inspiring, the end of the trip was horrible and frightening!