The PHurrowed Brow

Rain, welcome but untimely, had ground wheat harvest in Kansas to a halt. Both of my children were striving in Colorado to re-establish some sort of normalcy for themselves and for loved ones and work associates after shockingly unexpected deaths. My daughter was admirably supported in Lafayette and was herself supporting her lifelong friend. My son, on the other hand, was experiencing the isolation that can come with living in a mountain community. He did not have ready access to support. Naturally, I headed for the hills once the abundant moisture made futile my lingering near the wheatfields.

This segment is the third in a series featuring mountains both real and figurative,
climbs that are successful and not, and water that is varyingly life-giving, dirty, and toxic.
The series narrates experiences of me and of those around me in June and July of 2023.

Real mountains

There is discussion of suicide and other forms of untimely death in this series,
so please stop reading if these matters jeopardize your wellbeing.
If you are in a low spot of this kind, please reach out.
Reach out to me, to anyone you trust, or to the 988 help line.

When I abandoned southwestern Kansas on Friday, July 7th, the short notice of my coming meant that my son had already committed to working on the 8th, a Saturday. He works in construction, so, as it does for farming, weather determines the mix of what one can do and when one can do it. At altitudes of 7,000 feet or considerably more, a sunny Saturday is usually a working day for his company and for him. What is more, in the wake of his co-worker’s death, being on the job with the team became for him and for some others as a way of coping with the loss. As they worked together, remembrances of their friend and co-worker naturally arose, giving my son and his crew prompts to think about and to feel both their loss and what survived it

But the work, and the somewhat macho standards of their work ethos, meant that thinking and feeling didn’t readily lead to the sorts of conversations that lessen the pain for the survivors of another’s suicide. My son had dealt with that loss under those conditions for over a week, but the halt put to wheat harvest meant that I could travel to him and perhaps offer a different sort of comfort. Because, however, of the uncoordinated timing of his work commitment and my arrival from Kansas, I had about 24 hours before my son and I could meet.

U.S. Highway 50 leads directly from my usual lodgings in Kansas to my son’s town. On my trip in and upon arrival in Gunnison, I was surrounded by natural beauty all around, in the form of flora, fauna, the Arkansas River and its tributaties, as well as Colorado’s mountains. Beauty like that beckons. Hotel rooms and the cab of an ancient pick-up truck do not. Internally, I was also feeling my habitual compulsion to be doing something that feels like an accomplishment. This compulsion is doubly powerful when circumstances disconnect me from opportunities to help loved ones I know to be in need. If I didn’t soon set about some kind of ‘purposeful’ activity, the echo chamber that is my ginormous empty head would fill with destructive feelings of worry and impotence.

There outside were the mountains, and there inside were my compulsions. And so, although I lacked most of my usual equipment, I had my work boots from the fields and my laptop bag (which became a make-do pack). I had sufficient other essentials for safety and comfort that I decided to attempt a substantial hike. I would give a 14er (a mountain of 14,000+ ft.) a go. It was a questionable choice,, given my failure to complete the training hikes I’d intended to do before Colorado’s rainy spring had kept me off the trails. Despite the lack of training, I searched for a peak close to Gunnison, and the odds were in my favor to attempt my first peak in the San Juan range. The peak I chose was some 90 miles from Gunnison. Access to the trailhead seemed promising: my pick-up could handle the 4wd road to the upper trailhead, which meant I would not be taking my hiking capacities. As for the trail itself, most of the snow on it had already melted out, which meant that I would not need the microspikes or snowshoes that were at home in Lafayette. Additionally, the weather forecast was encouraging. And most critically for an older, phatter fellow such as myself, the characteristics of the trail (in distance, elevation gain, and terrain type) fit my capacities as proven on my prior attempts to reach the summits of 14ers.

If things went well, Uncompahgre Peak would be the eighth 14er summit where my body, not a vehicle, did the heaviest lifting on the ascent. Before I went to bed on the 7th, I made plans with my son to meet up for dinner on the 8th, then turned in for some rest in my hotel room. On the 8th, I started the drive to the trailhead just after 4 a.m. I arrived at the Nellie Creek trailhead (11,400 ft.) and by 6:20 a.m. I had laced up my boots and set them a-moving up the trail, braced by the cool air and dawn’s uncaffeinated light.

My next post will tell you about my experiences on the trail, should you care to come back and read some more.

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