I'd been wanting to do this for a while, and I finally got off my ass and did it. Chicago Basin is very popular, and is frequently written up in places like Backpacker Magazine. The standard way to do it is take a train that belches coal smoke from Durango through gorgeous wilderness along the Animas River, get dropped off with a HUGE backpack, suffer up the six miles of hiking to Chicago Basin and camp. Then one gets up the next day, hikes a peak (or more if ambitious) , camps again, then hikes back to the antique train to come back to Durango and then comes to visit me at my place of business to ask if we have little pins that commemorate hiking fourteeners. There are fifty four official fourteeners in Colorado, and a little pin for... well, all of them I guess, but I don't really know because no, we don't carry those.
Now, right about here in the story you may be thinking, "hey jerk, just because you live at altitude and this place is close to you, doesn't give you the right to put others down for thinking it a big trip." Yeah, I might be a jerk, but not for the reasons you think. You see, I occasionally enjoy a short burst of recreating in places with tourist, because for all the folks who just marvel at what I'm doing, I hope to open someone's eyes to their own capabilities. I just might inspire someone. Yeah, they probably won't tack on an extra nine miles each way to avoid the train ( Yeah, I have a problem with the train, but that is for another time.) They will also still camp instead of doing it in one day. Maybe, just maybe however, they will figure out that they don't need so much crap! They may figure out it's o.k. to leave the ropes and helmets at home, because there is no terrain steep enough to warrant them. Shin guards for scree, sure, that would be novel, and perhaps not a bad idea, but a helmet? Rocks do not leap off the ground to then fall upon one's head. A rope? That is just going to dislodge rocks that will then roll into your poor partners unprotected shins!
Most importantly I hope to inspire any of them to have fun. Most of the people I saw that day looked miserable. They were suffering under heavy loads with insufficient oxygen. Most only gave me an incredulous glare when I greeted them. One mentioned that I should carry her pack. "You're running this?!" she exclaimed, as if I did it for the sole purpose of making her feel inferior. Yeah lady, I train multiple hours every week just to make you look slow. I'll bet I saw in the neighborhood of forty people on the trails that day, and I would say I saw five smiles. Come on! This could be the trip of a lifetime. You don't have to be out here. For me it was just a fantastic day in my local mountains.
Perhaps that is the difference right there. Expectations. Some of those poor flatlanders saw a stunning picture in a magazine, bought a bunch of stuff at R.E.I., took some vacation time, visited me to buy a map and fuel for the stove, packed all that crap in a backpack, paid $90 for a train ticket and then... then they realized that hiking uphill with a heavy freakin' pack at eleven thousand feet is hard. Harder than they imagined as they looked at the pretty sunset picture in the magazine. The mornings were colder, the granite was sharper, the trail steeper than anything they had dreamed of.
Luckily I am a pessimist. I would say realist, but I'll go with consensus on this point. I thought I just might get a few miles in, realize my knee was completely f'ed, and then hobble back to the car in miserable defeat. Turned out the knee did pretty well. I made the planned trip. The weather was perfect. Best of all was the wildlife. I saw a bunch of mountain goats, ptarmigans, and a golden eagle flying with a snake in its talons. Perhaps my favorite moment was near the end, hiking through an area know as Purgatory Flats. It was dusk, with no one else around. Far ahead on the trail I saw a bear walking towards me. I could tell it had not picked up my scent yet. I really like bears, and I'm not afraid of them. (We only have black bears here.) I do however, want bears to be afraid of people, because, well, people are dangerous for bears. So I yelled at the bear, and it ran off towards the creek. Then I thought, " I should have taken a picture first!" Too bad. The scene is burned in my memory though, and that is good enough for me. You won't see that view if you take the train.
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