I'm staying at my parents house in Fruita for my sister's baby shower and my best friend's bridal shower. I decided that since I'm somewhat closer to the San Juans and I successfully passed all of my engineering classes last semester (yay!) I should celebrate by doing my first 14er summit of 2016. So Friday night Anna Marie Migl, Joel Kuenning and Lars drove from Denver to meet me to do Handies Peak.
But let me rewind a little bit... I drive a Ford Edge and although I love it, I'm considering trading it in for a truck. I've been driving my mom's F150 around to get the feel for a larger vehicle and I backed into a City of Fruita truck on Wednesday evening. From this experience I found out that I only had my expired drivers license with me. The following day, I went to the DMV to get a new license where I discovered Apple Maps was a complete failure and only got part of the address right. I drove around in circles looking for the DMV before I Googled the address (it's missing the 6th avenue part. Minor detail.) Apple Maps also can't spell and spelled the name of my sister's baby shower address wrong. Needless to say- this week I've decided Apple maps is NO BUENO.
What does this have to do with Handies peak? Well it has everything to do with Handies peak. When it came time to look up directions to Handies peak, I put the coordinates in both apple maps and in Google Maps, and clearly Google Maps is much more trustworthy. It also had the faster time by an hour and 30 minutes. Using Google Maps I drove to Silverton by 8:30 PM to discover the pass leading to Handies Peak was closed for the winter. Oops (rookie move... and Apple Maps was right) After talking with Anna I pulled a U-turn in Silterton and headed back to Montrose. Apparently I was speeding.... and 2 police officers decided to pull me over, search my car and give me a whopping ticket. But hey... at least I had a drivers license now!
Headed toward Montrose something really humbled me as I twisted down the highway. I had heavy heart thinking about how little things in life can break a person down. Do you ever wonder why the thing that you struggle with the most keeps coming back and back over again? How many little problems in life have kept people from achieving their goals? How many times has someone's disapproval broken someone's confidence enough to make them lose sight of their mission. At best we are on this world for 80 to 100 years, maybe 113 years old if you are like my Great Aunt Beryl. In the grand scheme of things and in eternity this is nothing, but every life is so important, and every success can influence more success. Have I ever discouraged someone from doing something they really cared about? I spent the next three hours thinking about what I would want people to say about me if I was gone tomorrow. And I came to the conclusion that what I would want to be remembered by has nothing to do with mountains or painting. I'd want to be remembered as someone who encouraged people and let people know that God loves them.
After my long self reflective drive I finally got to Gunnison where the crew was kindly waiting on me. Those are some good people right there. We got to the trailhead around 2 :30 AM and pulled up to the most beautiful moose standing majestically under a full moon in a white bed of snow. I was in awe as I watched her elegantly trot away. I have not stopped thinking about her since the hike.
Collectively we decided to head up to the summit for a sunrise hike. All three of my friends were on skis and I snowshoed. According to my photos I was almost to the summit at 6:55 and finished my painting at 7:19. There was probably 10 minutes of deciding where to set up and figuring out how to grip my painting without it flying away. I was rather pleased that I could hold the painting and paint in such windy conditions. Satisfied with my painting I took a few pictures and decided it was time to get off that miserable summit. Putting the painting back into my pack was challenging. Actually it wasn't successful. It blew away. Very very high - kind of like a kite before it started falling to who knows where. SO... I lost my painting..... but I did learn that I need to have a better plan for windy days. And it made me glad that I paint on thin wood that will erode. I like to imagine that was the highest a painting (not counting airplanes) has ever flown in the US (probably not true but it's a nice thought.)
I got back down to the car about 9:20 and I had to replay this turn of events. Because I backed into a truck I found out that I didn't have a valid license and made me go to the DMV which taught me not to trust Apple Maps leading me to drive the wrong way to Silverton and also saved me from having to go to court in Silverton by making me get a valid license. This little error caused the entire group to get to the trailhead at 2:30 which allowed us to do a sunrise summit. (I would have arrived at the TH at 9:30 if I used Apple Maps and we probably would not have done a sunrise summit). So moral of the story.... I would have never gotten to see that majestic moose at 2 am if I didn't back into a truck with an expired driver's license. What a successful weekend. I'll be back, Handies Peak.
