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 (I'm in the green shirt) Hello! At the end of August and into September found me and a buddy (Tim) in Colorado with a goal of checking out Wheeler Geologic Area. My good friend has a BS in geology and has been trying to get to Wheeler for many years but has been foiled by wildfires, injury, and impregnating his wife (twice). I am a strong motherfucker and volunteered to serve as pack mule. We arrived at Pool Table Mtn and loaded our gear. The hike was roughly eight miles from parking to Wheeler, with a thousand foot drop and gain. Both of us are from Minnesota and struggled with breathing even before we left, which we expected. The hike was difficult and very taxing. I'm in very good shape and Tim is in moderate shape - though honestly there were times where I worried that he had bitten off more than he could chew. We spent some time rearranging our gear about 2/3 of the way in and I convinced him to let me carry a bit more. The hike out took us about four and a half hours. We arrived in late afternoon and made camp at 10,950ft. Wheeler was in the distance but still about a mile from camp. Other than a small group of returning day hikers that we met within a mile of starting off we didn't encounter a soul. We cooked and hit the sack early. At about two am I was awakened by a very loud, very close single wolf howl. My brain happily dumped a gallon of adrenaline into my blood stream which kept me awake for what seemed to be an eternity. (After we got back we determined that it was most likely a Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf. Very cool.) I woke to a solid frost on my tent and light snow falling. A quick breakfast of oatmeal and dried strawberries before setting off to retrieve some water from a crick about a hundred yards to the north. Tim's gravity filter did not want to work, so I broke out my handpump and we busted our rear end to the tune of about 10L of water. The clockwise path through/around Wheeler takes you through the heart of the formation, around the top, and down the grassy mountainside to the north. The best views are available immediately if you take it clockwise. We set up the tripod twice (he's got some $$$ photography equipment) and shot from the hip for the rest. Wheeler tops out somewhere around 12,100'. As a lifelong flatlander I really struggled with breathing at that height. Snow/rain came through occasionally mixed with blinding sun otherwise. We lost path at the very end of the Wheeler hike, after returning to near the start. We did some dead reckoning and managed to find our way back - it might have been the path or it might have been two tired oxygen deprived Minnesotans - who knows? We shared a joint that night and spent some time chasing off some brave pikas. In the morning we broke camp and hiked back, better prepared for the challenge. We also saw a group that arrived via the 4x4 path, driving a very fancy 4WD vehicle that I can't recall the name of. Tim again struggled near the 6 mile marker but the knowledge that we were closing in on the end kept him going a bit better than the first time. Recap and more pictures in the next post. Don't want to lose anything.
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Sep 20, 2016 21:38
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 04:45 |
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http://imgur.com/a/YrE4O Here's an album. There aren't a lot of quality locations to take pictures at Wheeler so most people's images turn out to be very alike, ha ha.  Takeaway: + It's a very difficult hike. Easily one of the most difficult recreational ones that I've ever done. + Wheeler is several thousand feet of volcanic ash that has weathered in interesting and dangerously fragile ways, ha ha. Apparently is quite unique in the world though I fear a lot of the finer geology points were lost on a layman like myself. + You really can walk into a weed store and just buy weed. + The sheer quantity of dead pines due to the Mountain Pine Beetle was staggering. Miles and miles of dead trees, as far as your eye could see. You can see it in the next photo - the forests of dark gray are just dead pines. You can see outcroppings of non-coniferous green here and there.   Had a great time, Colorado is gorgeous. Thots and Prayers fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Sep 23, 2016 |
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Sep 20, 2016 21:47
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That place looks really cool, thanks for sharing. Just wanted to point out that the beetle kill is due to a native beetle, at least I'm pretty sure. Its the mountain pine beetle. We're going through something similar in CA right now where trees are weakened by drought (and way too densely packed due to decades of wildfire suppression) and so just become way more vulnerable to the beetles that are always around but don't usually do much damage.
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Sep 21, 2016 05:16
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Senordingdong posted:That place looks really cool, thanks for sharing. Thanks for the info. I went searching around and it confirmed what you said 100%. http://frogsaregreen.org/tag/colorado-dead-trees/ The actual story is worse - the beetle is thriving due to climate change - rising temperatures tipped the scales in their favor.
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Sep 23, 2016 01:03
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