Summer of 2012 Backpacking in Review

A taste..

Most of the following photos and reports are from either the Holy Cross or Eagles Nest Wilderness areas which happen to surround my home of the Eagle (Vail) Valley.



We spent hours fishing the creek in what I can only decribe as harmony. This is one of the times in which I love life the most. This photo looks to the south end of the Cross Creek Valley and its headwaters. I’ll be standing on top of this point two more times later this summer. Our trail continues on here the next morning and crosses the snowfields to Missouri Pass.





Thee Holy Cross Mountain and the only 14er in Eagle County. I love it here. I filled my afternoon with lots of off-trail exploring and scrambling... getting myself into sometimes delicate situations.





Making my way around the beautiful Bowl of Tears was great despite being fed up with constant bouldering and scrambling on wet rock. Sucking it up and enjoying the good is what it’s all about. I tend to just laugh at my circumstances and my surroundings in these instances.





Eventually after some long stares and negotiating we managed to trade sides of the pass.



One of my favorite photos of the season.

Edited by timdcy on 02/19/2013 17:00:21 MST.

Tim, Great photos! I lived in Avon for a year and miss the area dearly.

You are making me jealous! Several of your trips are on my "To do" List for the next few summers when I'm out there. I especally want to get into the eagles nest for a few nights. Your Holy cross reports make me want to go back there to do some more exploring. Looks like you are living right!!!

Thanks for sharing!!

Also, I saw you are using a tarptent rainbow, have you ever had a situation arise that the rainbow couldn't handle such as heavy rain or a strong wind storm?

Ben

Edited by bwortman on 02/20/2013 22:35:08 MST.

Eric,

Thanks! I ended up moving away from the valley several years ago, but missed it so much that I had to come back.


Ben,

I was actually going to PM you the link if you hadn't seen it on here as we've discussed my area over the years. There's much exploring to do in the HC Wilderness and a lot left to be discovered!

I probably have around 70 nights in the Rainbow and there's only been a hand full of times where I've been slightly disappointed. I incorporate my trekking poles and only bring two ti stakes so I believe that skipping the four stakes on the sides reduces the strength. Rain is never a problem except for a little bit of dampness that comes through the mesh in downpours. Also I've noticed that when pitched on a surface that has a lot of small gritty dirt material; in heavy rain some of the that will dirt can cake the mesh with wet dirt and water. The water that actually gets inside the tent is usually minimal.

While you can position the rainbow in heavy wind to improve stability, I've learned that it proves useless in heavy SWIRLING wind. It isn't built for central Iowa...

See example from my CT trail journal:



I had to quit writing several times as one of my tent stakes came out of the ground causing one whole side of my tent to slap me in the face as the rain began to fall as well. The wind is now very intense. Right now my tent is staying up right with the help of 6 big boulders. I’m cold and my nose won’t stop running, but I’m still in high spirits.

I’m confident that when I leave my tent before the sun rises that the sky will be clear and the wind calm. Fourteen hundred feet to the summit then it’s down to Creede for the remainder of the day. I now zip up my bag and get ready for hopefully a quiet night.

August 14th – Day 21

I could have not been more wrong. The first time I checked my watch it was midnight and I still hadn’t got any sleep. As I tossed and turned the wind pounded against my tent causing very loud flaps, whips and cracks. Every hour or so I’d get up and check the sky only to see an overcast blanket. I wasn’t in a particularly sandy area, but when I turned on my headlamp I saw a thin layer of sand on the tent floor that obviously got there through my “no-see-um” screens.

The cold wind crept through my tent as I curled up inside my bag. Around 3:30 am the wind sped up on the vestibule side of my tent. I used four volleyball sized rocks on each of the four corners of my tent to support its tautness, two rocks sat on top of the only two stakes.

Around 4:00 am the wind go so intense that I started to get hit again by the inside wall of my tent. I remedied the situation by propping one of my trekking poles vertically along the vestibule side wall of my tent. It was probably around this time I decided not to summit as it was already around the same time I was hoping to start the climb. Six rocks and one trekking pole later I started sleeping decently and awoke at 7:00 am to a sky full of clouds.