We are NOT lost!

Snowshoeing in Rocky Mountain National Park – that sounded adventurous and snowy and fun. And I had the most important job of all… I was the navigator!! I take my responsibility seriously and told my trusting snowshoeing partner Kathy that she could drive with full confidence that I would get us to the right place! Bear Lake was the destination and I had the maps and was watching the signs intently. Well, except as we passed through the park entrance because I was savoring a few dark chocolate minty balls because a good navigator needs his energy. At a fork in the road that kinda looked like the fork on the map (map makers obviously goofed a little), I pointed the way and we veered left and roared up the narrow, more and more snow-covered road. It was beautiful and we were enjoying the drive but things just didn’t seem to match the map as well as I was thinking they should. A backhoe was clearing a huge snow drift that had covered the road and I started to have serious doubts while waiting for our turn to get past. I had Kathy turn around and explained that the maps were obviously old and I was worried that the world was flat and we might fall off the edge. I think she bought it. We went back to the suspicious fork we had passed before and after looking at signs carefully and seeing that none of them said anything about Bear Lake, I made the command decision (I WAS the navigator after all!) to go back to the backhoe and beyond. After retracing our drive to, and then past, the snowdrift-clearing backhoe, we were finally on our way. Several miles of winding road later, we came to a closed and locked gate in the middle of the road. That was weird. We were supposed to come to a parking lot at the end of the road. The map showed an entirely different highway that was closed during the winter, far from where we currently were so it was clearly not correct. At the driver’s gentle suggestion (that’s what I’m calling it, even if she may have turned a little red in the face during the “suggesting” – probably from the cold), I asked the only other couple at the parking area if this was the trailhead to Bear Lake. The guy started cussing about people getting lost (I think he was mad at the map makers) and the rangers giving bad directions (This is so true! When they asked if we needed directions at the visitor center, I told them we knew where we were going. The rangers were clearly wrong in believing that and should have given me directions anyway!) and said a bunch of other stuff that I didn’t understand because of the thick Coloradoan accent but I think he was praising my success in keeping us from falling off the edge of the map. I got back in the car and told Kathy that the people were lost and/or dying and/or frostbitten and needed us to go back for help. She asked where they were going on their snowshoes, but I diverted her attention by telling her the story of when I tried out for the football team practice dummy and we headed down the mountain we had just climbed. We waved at the backhoe guy and went past the crooked little fork in the road and made it almost all the way back to the park entrance station when we found a little road with a very hard to decipher sign that said Bear Lake in huge letters that one would have to be a giant to read, and an arrow pointing who knows where! Curse those dark chocolate minty balls! I swore off the evil attention-diverting candy for almost 3 minutes while I tried various very believable stories to explain my ineptitude with the map…

The trailhead at Bear Lake was a beautiful snowy sight and after I kissed the snowy ground we grabbed our equipment and headed out, though Kathy asked if she could see the map for a second and then she put it in her pocket. I guess she forgot to give it back to me. Anyhow, we headed up the trail, keeping cadence with our poles and smoothly trekking through the beautiful snow. Well, my poles were too long or too short and the cadence was a little off and my borrowed snowshoes were hard to keep from clacking together and tripping me – I guess there’s just not much you can do when you’re stuck with faulty equipment.

The trail took us across 3 frozen lakes and lots of stunning scenery. The map said the trail was about 2 miles each way, but I counted steps in my head and even though I lost count a couple of times (I did NOT fall! I was making snow angels! Who knew you were supposed to make them while lying on your BACK!) and accounting for altitude sickness, I counted about 13,500 steps, which is somewhere around 13 Utah miles. And every stumbling step was wonderful! Just before we reached the second lake, we met up with a snowshoer in her 60’s who was also enjoying the majestic view. Whilst we chatted about the scene before us, she mentioned that her husband didn’t want to go any further so she had dropped him back on the trail. There was an awkward silence as we contemplated the nefarious phrasing of that sentence and we slowly moved away from the nice lady… I asked if he might theoretically still be alive, kinda hoping she would laugh... She looked surprised and then told us she needed to go clean up some mess and she was gone. You really meet some really interesting people in the wilderness.

Yeti?

As we were nearing the final lake, we asked a girl who was going the opposite direction how far it was to the last lake. She told us that her “friend” just ahead of us had a GPS and he would know. She seemed to say the word, friend, in an interesting way and we wondered if they were just friends, or if they were more like friend-friends. If she liked him, or if she like-liked him. We met the friend as foretold and we told him that the girl we passed said her friend would help us. There was clearly a sharp look that flashed across his face when we said, friend. The girl came back behind us and immediately began telling him that we were making it up and that she didn’t say friend in the way we were relating. We sensed this was a good time to exit and continued to hear behind us the dreaded “friend” discussion that did not seem to be headed in a good direction.

The white clad Emerald Lake was nestled at the base of some tremendous peaks and just inspired me to pure giddiness! Which is not unlike inebriation, I am told. That’s how I explain the picture that has been circulated that “seems” to show me pirouetting on the wind-swept ice… I have no memory of the incident. The wind was whipping hard and cold so we soon were headed back down the trail. Though we were reveling in the beauty of the day, we had one more magical moment before us. We stood at an overlook for pictures and while Kathy was setting the camera up, a couple of sparrows flitted around the tree branches only a foot or two from her face! We were entranced by their tameness. Kathy kept trying to take pictures of either one of them but they flitted too fast. Then the magic happened… I held the camera while Kathy (now known as Snow White) held her hand up and snapped her fingers and a sparrow flew to her finger and landed, chatting on and on about how little food tourists bring and other bird kind of things. It was like Kathy was the sparrow whisperer the way they both stood there, birdo a womano, sharing this moment and providing us some magical conversation fodder for the rest of the way down the path. It was so fun to be trusted by these wild birds who obviously knew they were in no danger. Made me wonder why NBA players and owners couldn’t just take a lesson from these sweet birds and give one-fourth of their salaries to the school teachers in their respective states… And how maybe world peace is truly possible.................

“Wake up, Huffyman!!! I got you some mint hot chocolate.” I woke to find we were at a little convenience store in Estes Park and felt peace indeed. Mostly because Kathy knew her way home and the navigator was off the hook!