Up & Over 2

Johnny Jones, 27 July 2002

Guest Columnist: Amy Jones

Last week, I wrote about my family's vacation in the Rockies. My brother and I had begun our hike across the Continental Divide, and we were approaching the peak of Flattop Mountain. What I hadn't mentioned was that a day hike across the Divide can't be done without some help. My brother and I fortunately had parents willing to facilitate our hike.

They dropped us off early in the morning. They planned to drive across the Divide while we hiked across. Then they would start at a trailhead on the other side, and we would meet somewhere in between. We took two-way radios so we would be sure to meet up.

It was still early morning when we witnessed the most spectacular event of the hike. As I looked up, straight ahead where the mountain met the sky in front of us, a lithe shape appeared. It began moving, and now there were two shapes. A white elk and her baby bounded down the mountain.

They moved swiftly, the baby almost following her mama, down, down the mountainside, even where the terrain grew steeper and rocky, still down, always elegant, never missing a step, never stumbling, always quickly. We watched until they disappeared down the ravine. I was afraid for them; how could they possibly keep their balance this way? Yet they did.

And I knew that if we had started any later, had there been more hikers on the mountain, we never would have seen this. It was a magical moment, almost difficult to capture because it was so like out of a fairy tale. I could hardly believe we had really seen such a thing: not only an elk, or gazelle, or whatever it might be, but a white one: an anomaly, like poetry or a dream. It had all happened in just a minute or two; but we knew were could never forget it.

We made it to the summit not long after, and found the marker where hikers can choose one of two paths to cross the Divide. The rangers at the ranger station had told us not to take the shorter route; it would require snow shoes or long poles to avoid slipping and falling off the precipice. The heavy snows would not melt until July. So we took the route to the right, and began the portion of our hike literally crossing the top of the Divide.

To our right lay the East side. We saw all the lakes down below us, nestled like little drops of water. To our left (the West) was a towering mountain streaked with lines of snow and shadows, giving it a blue and white appearance.

We met with only a couple of mishaps. The first was when the path crossed some snow. The bottom of the snow had melted, while the top remained crusty. Both of my feet broke through, and my shoes were soaked in frigid water. Fortunately, my feet began to dry fairly quickly.

Then, just as we began to head down from the Divide, the path disappeared. We saw footprints crossing a field of snow directly where the path ended, so we followed, assuming the path continued on the other side. But it didnât. We cris-crossed the snow a few times, and then went back to the path. It had to be somewhere.

We found it on the other side of a little hill. Beyond this, we saw a group of hikers laboring as the hiked up toward us. They carried huge packs, and were crossing a more difficult part of the trail.

We made our way down, and found that the path was very narrow ö a cliff on one side and a drop on the other ö and covered with frozen snow. By stepping carefully and leaning against the side, I was able to go across somewhat confidently, although for me this was the most challenging part of the hike.

Soon we were back in the trees again. We were a little sorry to lose the gorgeous, clear views of the Divide, but the woods were also beautiful. I had never seen trees grow so steeply; it was a leaning forest, trees growing literally on the face of a steep mountain.

We followed the trail down, and down, and down. Soon there were waterfalls, and something like a cross between a waterfall and a river. It was too steep, too full of splashing whiteness to just be a river. Yet it didnât fall straight down either as a waterfall does. This somehow delighted me.

We stopped to have lunch at some falls just five or so miles from the trailhead on the West side. We watched the biggest fall from a rock up above. When we left, we got a "call" on our two-way radio from Mom and Dad. They were just a mile or so from us, also having lunch. We met them soon after, and the four of us hiked the rest of the way down to the Western side of the Rocky Mountain National Forest.

I consider the Rockies to be the jewel of natural beauty in the US. Even during my travels to other countries, I have never seen any natural wonder which compares to it. From the fifteen or so elk we saw grazing in a grassy field at the top of the Divide ö not a sound or any creature to disturb them ö to the lakes nestled in far away places, to the mountains continuing like blue and green waves into the distance, I feel a hint of the unspoiled beauty of the beginning of time, or a sense of what the earth was meant to be, or even a shadow of heaven. I recommend the journey.