What’s a Floridian know about altitude? About elevation? About snow and moose?
These were the questions I was pondering as we stopped the car along Rocky Mountain National Park’s Trail Ridge Road. Some 12,000 feet up in the air. Two miles above the sea level where I normally plant my feet.
It was 46 degrees at midday, and there were wild critters running about — elk, bighorn sheep and mischievous-looking marmots. The marmots looked like they wanted me to hand over my car keys.
Oh yeah, and there was a wall of snow taller than my car. A snow plow had carved through it just a few days before. (Nobody told Colorado it’s June — summer! — and it should be so hot outside that ice cubes spontaneously combust.)
Y’all, we ain’t in Florida anymore.
I hadn’t been to Colorado since I was a kid, when I used to hike wild trails and mountain passes with my dad and brother. I wanted to take my wife and daughter to get a little taste of what I used to experience. I had declared this our destination when my daughter asked to go back to the Smoky Mountains.
“Nah, kid. Let’s go see some real mountains,” I told her.
The mountains of North Carolina are wonderful. But in Colorado, peaks are almost triple anything we had found before. Snow covers them almost all year. And in the parks, signs remind you about how wild it can get. If you’re attacked by a bear or a mountain lion, one said, “fight back.” Not because you stand a chance, but because this is the Colorado way!
This is a serious country. A wild country. A beautiful country.
We spent a little over a week in Boulder hiking up ridiculously steep mountainsides and trudging through canyons that were cut by roaring creaks.
It was just the vacation I wanted: Relaxing. Grueling. Gritty. Peaceful. Dazzling. Awe-inspiring. The low levels of oxygen made me say stupider things than normal. I saw fox, elk and either a Yeti, or a serious mountain hippie in need of a shave.
In the Rockies you get an appreciation for what an incredible country we live in. That there are still places where nature — not man — rules the land and dictates the terms.
I went for a run on a path up the canyon from Boulder. A mountain biker going the other direction slowed to tell me he had just seen two moose not 10 minutes before.
“Cool,” I said, hoping I would get a glimpse, too. Then I started wondering: Maybe this wasn’t a heads up, but a warning. That I was about to have a Colorado moose fight.
Eh, I kept running. That seems to be what you do in Colorado. Wrestle large animals. Marvel at the beauty. Be one with it. And then hope the marmots don’t steal your car keys while you’re staring at a snowdrift. What a country!