fun

Ramblings Of Nervous Energy

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I have been sat the past five weeks locked down in Spain unable to leave the house. I’m not unhappy about this, the opposite is true, I’m quite fortunate in fact.  Things have been sedate but peaceful. The weather one expects when in Spain has been absent and instead I have had been subject to days of mist and downpour which has given me time to collect my thoughts.  What thoughts you ask? Well, sit down with a cup of tea like the good chap or Lassie I know you will be and let me dispense these thoughts.
Part uno.  Most people I know of are growing up and taking steady jobs, along with a mortgage and paying attention to what will happen in 40 years when they retire. This old cockle of life has told them that this is indeed the plateau life comes to. The main and only hinging of their life to which all energies should be focused. Sensible, inevitable and pointless to refute.
Part Dos. A good many of the Stars, idols or what ever we like to call them in life, or specifically with reference to my life and interests, have gone. The life span of mountaineers and adventurers is often snuffed out too soon, the people in their prime leading the way. It raises the ethics of what is this pursuit worth when balanced against life. I know when I tell people what I like to spend my time doing they don’t see a rational man in front of them but an idiot, who hasn’t weighed up their future final years or immediate years that could be. A great folly.
 I was reading a conclusion to an interesting study today. One by the American Cancer Society. 127,000 Healthy people (no underlying conditions at the time of signing up) were questioned for the study over a course of over 21 years. After 48,784 of them had passed away, a connection was made between sitting average of six or more hours per day and a 19 percent increased risk of dying from any of the mentioned -cancer, coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, liver disease, peptic ulcer, digestive diseases, parkinsons, alzheimers,nervous disorder and musculoskeletal disorder. While the study notes this is not the cause of death, and it is wide open to interpretation, I think it does show whether you believe in god or evolution, our bodies are not designed or evolved to be desk jockeys. We are not meant for a corporate machine sitting still like a good boy monotonously processing data only stopping to eat or sleep.  The risk to life increases with the hours sat. Sat at a desk hoping for a pain free retirement but failing to reach it, thus never really living their life.
I have spent a good while not working and travelling or just doing the things I enjoy. When I do work, I work hard, or as hard as I can. I don’t hold much in the way of possessions, I never have a fancy car, usually an old banger of a van, but I have experiences I wouldn’t change for the world. After the 2008 financial crisis and carpentry dried up, I spent a long while on a road bicycle cycling, it brought me joy the whole summer, I wore out bearings and components, replaced them, and wore them out again. I worked at an outdoor centre part time for a while and spent every spare minute I had hiking, running, climbing or kayaking,  then after a while working again I went to Australia and spent a good deal of time on beaches and going around national parks. After a year when it was over and I came home, I had a good part of the following summer off work going to festivals and camping and just being me. The following year I tried the Royal Marines for a few weeks, and after leaving, decided a few months later to hike a trail I read about as a kid in a book called ‘The worlds greatest adventure treks’. I hiked 2400 miles of the CDT at a blistering pace and had never been more content in life. It wasn’t the aim, but it is what I did. A couple of years later a cycled roughly along the same route but climbing peaks I could only dream about as a child. I then met Karli and kept going. We drove down through Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, onto Colombia. We hung around there a while having a blast with friends before shipping the car back to the states, Spending spring and summer in Colorado then heading off again to Colombia to cycle tour North to South. The plans have rarely gone perfect, but the freedom of adventure has not stopped. We jumped across the pond and have skipped back and forth between Britain and Europe climbing and hiking at every opportunity. This has taken ten years to cram in this fun, and only skims the surface.  The point is my life hasn’t fit into a regular life standard for most people, but when my joints are worn out in another 40 years. When arthritis has set in and the cartilage has gone. When I am forced to retire like the rest and I am down to a state pension alone,  I can finally sit down. I can sit and write a book about the life of retirement from age 18. I can write about 60 years of adventures if I am so lucky to get so many. I can write of the hardships, I can write of the lows, the Highs not experienced in the ‘common hours’. I can write of the beautiful people I met along the way.
I don’t want to live normally, I don’t want to be enslaved to a car payment, I don’t want your insanity, I don’t want your two weeks out of each year to make it worth it. I don’t want the lie that is sold every day.  Have you ever read the book and been inspired by the man who took a steady job in an office, saved for retirement, then retired? That will not be my book when it comes to the curtain call.
Naranjo De Bulnes, such a cool peak
waking to coffee
tea on the Cornwall Coast
where on earth looks like this, taken in Colombia south of Bogota
My feet after 900miles on the CDT
in the heat of the climb
karli and henning chillin out at an anchor

Part B on the Way

 

Day 1 of Mexico

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This is the second crossing into mexico. This time there are lots of concrete bollards and loud buzzers and soldiers, we get waved into a booth to be quickly searched before being let in. Immediately in the next town there are police and soldiers in the street armed with loaded automatic weapons. The plan is to drive a couple hundered kilometers (120miles) past the border to safer areas. Inside Mexico, a lot of friendly faces.

Trying to find somewhere to camp we drove into a village in the hills, drove through slowly with locals standing in the road looking at us, then turned around at the end of the village and drove back out. It was slightly embarassing. In the end we stopped yesterday behind a restaurant where we purchased two sodas and sweet bun for the equivalent of 2 US dollars. We asked the restaurant if we could camp around the back. Louis, a local boy didn’t speak any English indicated we would be fine and guided us to a small patch of scrappy grass. He kept us company in silence for a majority of the night after we offered him a beer. Ignoring health advice not to pet animals in mexico we befriended a dog that I named Hero, on multiple occasions he tried to leap in the car.  Hero slept behind the Subaru after we climbed into the roof tent and kept us safe throughout the night by barking away any intruders (or so I presume, he could have just been barking. Because he’s a dog. Maybe there was a squirrel. But I insisted on giving him bread and praising him for unknown tasks).

hero the dog in his sentry position

I bought a cappuccino from the gas station this morning. Not sure yet if the water it was made with will be good or bad, but I’m sure time will decide, I feel lucky. It’s nearly too sweet to drink, so I stole Karli’s drink and used that to wash down my grossly dry sweet bun.

We’re still undecided if we should be tipping the fuel service attendants for filling us up and washing our windshield. This isn’t a service we request but they don’t give us a choice in the matter.

Karli has been practising her Spanish. I have been persisting with sign language. She seems to be nearly conversational in the language, but I couldn’t say for sure. She could just be making up the words for all I know but it seems convincing.

We had one encounter in which the roadside police waved us over for, presumably an inspection. Once we were to the side of the road they waved us to continue on. Not sure if it’s the language barrier that changed their mind, or something else entirely. Mabe they just don’t want to take the time to deal with us Gringos.

Still no sign of any cartel, but that being said-we don’t really know what the ‘cartel’ would look like. Still searching, hope to befriend them soon.

Climbing

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So, my trip has taken a turn (not the first on this trip) which I will get to in a minute. A few days go I cycled the 80 miles out to the base of longs peak (14,259ft), with a bike climb from 5000ft up to 9500ft, collected route information from the ranger station, cycled down 6 miles to national forest and camped.

The next morning at 3am I started cycling in the pitch black by head torch back up the mountain. There is always a debate in my mind when I wake early to climb or hike about should I just lie there and be a normal person getting up at a reasonable time, is this a sane thing to do? Anyway. Arriving at the trailhead I stashed my bicycle behind the ranger station and made some hot cinnamon oats which tasted great. So this is quite a popular peak and there were plenty of people heading up while I ate. The ranger the previous day recommended setting off around 1am, naturally I chucked this piece of advice to the wind believing myself to be a supreme machine(often I am wrong in this assumption). At around 4.15/4.30am I started up, hiking and running the flatter areas. I reached the Keyhole, a natural gap in the ridgewall and only way up at first light, which is where the scrambling begins. I flew past a lot of people and reached the summit after around 2.5hours. I sat a while talking to a few other hikers then started descending. Two others descended with me and turned out to have a decent pace. Which was nice compared to the solitary ascent. After getting back to the car park I whipped up some spaghetti and a mystery silver foil packed sauce which was possibly some form of madras with lentils then dropped down to boulder for the night. There was no plan to go to boulder but 20dollars at the campsite in Lyons seemed expensive for what was there, so I carried on.

the narrow traverse on longs peak
volley ball chill out day
the narrow traverse on longs peak

In boulder its surprising just how many signs saying no camping are up around the town and surrounding area. I ended up paying 100 dollars for a motel room I didn’t want, I resented it but it did beat the hostel that offered my their last suite room for 250 dollar. This rarely happens but I was tired and hungry and had saved money the previous nights wild camping. I cycled back to Denver, cleaned up my bike with a pack of 1 dollar wipes, bought a beer from a brewery and before I finished the beer sold the bike to a gent I agreed to meet there a day previous to boost my funds a little for the next part of my trip. Met a lovely couple while drinking my beer and letting the gent go test the bike. I had a minor concern he would just ride off on it never to be seen again, but i figured if he did it would be one less thing to worry about.

Chapter 2- The Next Part

So, Through chance I have met a girl called Karli who is wanting to drive from Denver to Argentina. Her plan beats my original plan in a few ways, first, cycling a long way on paved surface is boring, really boring, especially alone its like solitary confinement on a seat not designed for a mans behind. Second, it would be nice to be on a roadtrip for a while and have a few luxuries like pressed coffee, a real seat to sit in instead of dirt, and a climbing partner for some more technical ascent, which there will be plenty of. I have spent the past couple of days hanging around and getting to know Karli and her friends. Today we went tubing on a river with a couple of beers followed by volleyball under glorious sunshine. Sometimes life is hard but I guess I can endure.

Setting off in a couple of days. Mayhem bound to follow.

Benjamin

Colorado Trail Section

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Fearing I would be trapped in the hostel till the cogs in my mind fuse into a solid state I decided to take a friend up on an offer and go for a hike for a day or two and make a decision on where to go next. In the car as we drew closer to the pass and starting point speckles of rain began to accumulate on the windscreen.  At the top of the pass we picked our packs out the trunk and set out up the hill. 6pm. The clouds were low and a cool breeze swept around the hill. Walking this part of the colorado/continental trail is refreshing, staying high on easy trail in and out of trees. I knew from 2 years previous of a 3 sided wooden shelter with metal roof 8 miles away. This was the target, we drew towards the shelter at around half 8 as darkness was setting in and rain becoming heavy. To my surprise there were tents pitched around but nobody in the shelter itself. Saving a tent from becoming heavy and wet and having space to move and think it was the only logical place to unroll a sleeping bag and heat some noodles. It rained the whole night. I tried catching rain dripping off the roof but every time i placed my pot the drips seemed to change landing patterns.

In the morning the tenters joined us for breakfast. The day continued much the same as the evening before, in a semi-concious zombie state soaked to the bone and hands numbed enough to move slowly when trying to use them. I was calm and composed, trying to be at one with the rain and embrace the cold, not entirely believing myself it was worth coming out.  I fashioned what I would call a pumpkin prom jacket out of an orange coated survival bivi bag, this added a small amount of warmth at the expense of my dignity and of Sabrinas’ who hiked with me. Towards the middle of the day we arrived at the summit of Sgt. Mesa. A beautiful high hill with meadows and trees and fluffy black storm clouds a mile or two off to the side.

Sabrina said “As least the storm cloud is over there”.

Moments later lightning forked across the sky close above out heads with a tremendous crack like a wagon plowing into a concrete bunker. Where most people would stop and sit or panic the thru hiker mentality of ‘stay calm and carry on’ shone through boldly and we kept hiking along the ridge line like a couple of idiots. The addiction to hiking building, adrenaline growing, and tree cover getting thinner. The ridge line narrowed slightly and the rumbles became bombs detonating very close. Another hiker called Steven was heading the opposite direction towards the Mesa summit. I wouldn’t want to be him.

a break in the clouds
the only shelter i know of on the entire cdt
islands in a sea of cloud

We pitched tent about half way along the 6 mile ridge close to where a tree had been previously struck by lightning. They say lighting doesn’t strike the same place twice, a myth I was willing to believe for the evening with impending rain seconds away. Pitching early did not save us from rain splashing up between the fly sheet and inner tent. This did not put me in the mood to attempt to cook noodles alfresco so we went to sleep hungry questioning why it was so. I dreamt about bears savaging the tent and other wonderful things. My sleeping pad still deflates every couple of hours waking me to the real horror of trail life, the sound of everything becoming wet. This morning was glorious, not sunny, but not raining. It was nice being high up early and having a vile concoction of triple herbal tea with extra sugar from my unofficial trip sponsor ‘the hiker box’. Three miles down the path in fairer condition was where my and Sabrinas’ path would split. I turned north and down hill back towards the road and pass. Deep house tunes blasting out (a one hour kygo mix) I ran the next 6 miles. I felt alive, this is what outdoors was meant to be.

At the roadside I stuck my thumb out and the first truck pulled over.

“Jump in!!! theres a car behind I dont want to get past me” shouted the driver.

I hopped up, “Beer?”

“Yes” I replied. The next half hour back to Salida was nice. I was Acutely aware of how bad my trainers were smelling after fording a stream the colour of cow muck. The driver seemed to understand.

Salida! I’ve wound up back in Salida! Of all the towns in all the states in America, why am I going back to Salida again? With no decision on what I will do next the Vortex has me. The sirens beckon.

‘Wakey, Wakey Rise and Shine! and don’t forget your booties, its cold out there today’