We Lost An Officer Today

Officer Nick Erfle, 33, died in the line of duty. He was killed while trying to arrest a man on the street.

While he was being taken into custody, the suspect drew a gun and fired at Officer Erfle, and then at his partner. Erfle was shot in the head. The suspect then took off, hijacking a car and taking the driver hostage.

Erfle was pronounced dead shortly after being taken to a nearby hospital.

An hour later, the suspect's car was boxed in by three unmarked police vehicles. Still holding a gun to the hostage's head, the bastard was shot through the window and killed.

We lost another good guy. He leaves behind a wife and two sons.

So this is what it's like to be altitude-sick, part 3

With shallow, labored breaths, I hopped from rock to rock and paused. Longs Peak towered over us, its 14,000-foot summit hidden beneath a thick veil of gray clouds. Its size and proximity were imposing and awesome -- three thousand feet of sheer vertical rock right in our faces!

I had a mere two minutes to appreciate all I’d traveled here to see, because those gray clouds above us opened up, and a steady downpour began. The dozen or so people who were up there with us all started to head down. Billy was worried about the boulders becoming slippery in the rain, so we unfortunately had to descend.

Big fat raindrops fell on us as we crossed the tundra. All of a sudden, we heard the rumble of thunder. It sounded close -- this afternoon's storm was on its way. We were only half a mile from the tree line, yet we quickened our pace, as thunder continued to roll every few minutes. Finally we reached the safety of the trees, and shared a feeling of relief. But we never stopped walking, with two miles to go before we reached the trail head.

Although altitude sickness is supposed to get better with descent, I started to feel woozy hiking down through the forest. I was walking, concentrating on maintaining my footing on the wet trail, when I suddenly drifted out of consciousness for a split-second while still on my feet.

It scared me. Half a second of my life had disappeared while I was fully conscious. I was still trying to comprehend what had occurred, when it happened again! I told Billy, and he had me sit down to rest. I ate some trail mix. As I spun around to talk to him, the whole forest spun around with me. Now I had vertigo, too.

After several minutes, I got up and we plodded on, raindrops still falling through the trees. And as if things couldn't get worse, I ran out of water. For the first time ever, and not even on a desert hike! I shared Billy’s water until we got back to the car, 8.4 miles (13.5 km) and six and a half hours after we left the trailhead.

That was harsh, I kept saying. We went back to our inn and I rested as Billy took care of our packs. I was nauseated all night and didn’t eat well.

So this is what it’s like to be altitude-sick.

Would this mean I couldn’t summit Mount Ida, at 12,890 feet as I had so hoped to do? I could tell from the topo map that the trail wasn’t so steep, but it was much higher than where I was today. My dream of seeing grand vistas of the Rockies were slowly being crushed by the thin air.

I slept. The next day would be a time for recovery, adjustment, and playing the part of a non-hiking tourist. We would play it by ear.

So this is what it's like to be altitude-sick, part 2

I dejectedly sat on a rock as Billy handed me a piece of beef jerky. He had probably waited 15 minutes at that spot. I should have had more to eat, which would have prevented bouts of vertigo later, but he had packed everything up and started to move again. At least the trail is all level from here, I thought.

I crossed the half-mile ridge called Mills Moraine with a steep drop to my left ending in that unnamed valley below. In front of me was Longs Peak, its summit shrouded in low, feathery gray clouds; to my left was Mt. Meeker, to my right, Mt. Lady Washington. I was surrounded by peaks three thousand feet high.

I walked along the ridge, thankful it was downhill. At the far end of the trail was Columbine Falls, draining water from unseen Chasm Lake and tumbling hundreds of feet down into Peacock Pool below. I crossed the falls and headed inward toward Longs Peak. My eyes followed the trail up ahead of me, behind a ranger cabin, across a field of meadows… and stopped abruptly in front of a wall of boulders fifty feet high. I realized with dismay that I’d have to climb that wall. I was at 11,700 feet, exhausted and nauseous. Yet I’d have to do some scrambling – fifty vertical feet’s worth -- to get to Chasm Lake.

I can’t do it, I thought. I don’t even want to try.

The clouds had started to roll in, though they didn’t seem dangerous. If it started to pour, we had our rain gear and were ready.

I rested for two minutes, and started my way up, my weary legs lifting up my entire weight a foot or two at a time. Each exertion caused a pounding sensation in my head and chest. Every time I bent down to maneuver, my nausea would seem worse, and a bubble would want to come up my esophagus. I went up ten feet, and rested. Another ten feet, and rested again. I was breathing hard and felt ill. I had never felt so out of whack.

Billy had disappeared somewhere at the top. Of course he had made it.

Somewhere close to where the boulders topped out above my head, I felt so sick that I decided to quit. I was dead-tired, gasping for air, and felt like I had a water balloon in my chest. Resigned, I waited for Billy, and the ensuing ten minutes turned out to be a rejuvenating break. I started moving up again, and realized that I had only been ten feet from the top!

I cleared the ledge and, finally, laid my eyes on Chasm Lake, nestled in a basin beneath Longs Peak and guarded by icy glaciers. I weakly jumped from boulder to boulder towards the gray-green water, surveying the towering walls of rock that surrounded it.

I was at 11,760 feet (3584 m), the highest I’d ever hiked, feeling the worst I’d ever felt, and the trailhead four miles away, 2,300 feet below.
[To be concluded]

So this is what it's like to be altitude-sick, part 1 (Hike To Chasm Lake)

Longs Peak is king in Rocky Mountain National Park. With its summit at 14,259 feet (4,346 m) above sea level, it is the highest peak in the park, and one of Colorado’s 56 famed “Fourteeners” (i.e., mountains whose summit is at 14,000 feet and above).

It was Tuesday, Aug. 7th, 2007. For today's hike, Billy had picked a 4.2-mile hike (distance one-way) to Chasm Lake and back, reportedly one of the most scenic places in the park. This remote body of water is nestled on a ledge 11,760 feet above sea level, right under the sheer east face of Longs Peak.

There were only a few parking spots left at the Longs Peak Ranger Station. This trail head is understandably popular and fills up early, as people who want to summit Longs Peak in a day are advised to leave by 3 a.m.

We started at 8:15 that morning at an elevation of 9,420 feet (2,871 m). As before, the trail switched back and forth through pine forest for a couple of miles, going higher and higher up the mountainside. After about an hour, we emerged in the alpine tundra, the region at which it’s too cold for trees to grow. In this park, it’s at about 11,500 feet. A sign warning of lightning storms greets hikers on the trail.

I looked around and was surrounded by valleys and mountains. To my right were smooth, rounded peaks covered with gold-red dirt and light-green meadows; behind me in the distance was a mountain range with rocky peaks like the backs of camels. The trail climbed continuously upwards and I slowly rose above the surrounding mountains, at the same time feeling the fatigue in my legs after hiking 10 miles the day before.

My progress slowed horribly. Not only were my legs tired, but I was starting to feel nauseous – a symptom of altitude sickness. I waved at Billy to go on, but he waited for me every few dozen yards or so. I pushed on with extremely weak legs and a loss of equilibrium. I crested a hill above which Longs Peak showed its face. I was sure Chasm Lake would appear on the other side, signifying a welcome turnaround. Instead, I saw, hundreds of feet below, a gorgeous valley with pools of water, and a sign that pointed to my right and said “Chasm Lake - 0.7 Mi”.

My heart sank. I could see the entire trail as it wound by the ridge. It seemed like the longest 0.7 mile of my life.

[To be continued]

Wildness in the Wilderness (Hike to Sky Pond, RMNP)

It's like I'm walking among giants.

That's what I thought as I emerged from a lush pine forest into a clearing and was surrounded by two-thousand-foot-high mountains, each a mere two miles (3 km) from where I stood.

We left the trailhead at 7:45 a.m. on a five-mile trek to a place called Sky Pond. Frankly, I didn't know what the trail was going to be like -- I only looked at my topographical map really closely the moment we arrived at the trail. Five miles of uphill climbing, I discerned, though not too steep; trail was rated "moderate"; and the elevation gain of 1,660 feet over 5 miles was not bad at all. The only things about this hike that made it a trifle daunting was 1) the altitude, with the trail starting at 9,240 feet (2,816 m) and 2) the distance; 10 miles out and back is looooong!

We headed out under a gray, cloudy sky with icy gusts of wind, the smell of wet pine, and intermittent spells of gentle rain.

The trail was indeed long, yet not too difficult. We climbed two miles through pine forest, with a narrow river twenty feet away, gushing with snowmelt from yonder peaks. We would cross wooden planks that carried us across lush, wet meadows, with foot-high grass reeds of a vibrant green, dotted with wildflowers, purple and yellow.

Forest gave way to tundra, where the mountainsides were covered with steep piles of boulders and moraine, evidence of age-old glaciers that sculpted these sheer faces but are now gone. Thousand-foot high walls surrounded us as we passed alpine lakes so tranquil, all of them appearing so unexpectedly on the trail.

At last we were above treeline, totally exposed to the elements. Good, because were nearing our destination; bad, because if a storm rolled in, we would be fair game for lightning. "This is the danger zone," said Billy, though we both knew what it meant. "If it gets dark, we start heading down."

We approached a waterfall called Timberline Falls, which was about 30 feet high, with clear mountain water cascading quite decisively down its path of rock. I looked at my topo map and learned that we would have to climb these falls to get to Sky Pond. Uh-huh. Well, half a dozen people were doing it right in front of us, and it didn't seem too difficult. I scramble up, one step and handhold at a time, plunging my fingers into the icy water for purchase on stone.

Five minutes and a bruised knee later, I made it up and continued my trek. By this time, I had been hiking up for more than four miles, and for four straight hours. My breathing was alright though more labored than normal, but my legs were just dead-tired. I rounded a corner of boulders and was greeted by the sight of the Lake of Glass, huge, tranquil, and (like all lakes on this trail) suddenly right there, just twenty feet away. Its translucent gray surface reflected the somber clouds above, and the wind rippled along its face. Fellow-hikers stopped here, some to have a snack, others to fish.

But not me. Our destination was another fifteen minutes away. My legs were complaining angrily.

At last we arrived at Sky Pond, a haven at the bottom of a basin guarded by 2,000-foot (600 m) jagged towers of rock and ice. Glaciers hung along the mountainsides like flowing ice at a standstill. It was windy, and the sky still gray. We hadn't seen the sun yet, and wouldn't for the rest of this hike. I took photos and we sat down for a snack of beef jerky and trail mix, and before you could say "get back down the falls before a thunderstorm rolls in," we started our five-mile journey back to the trailhead.

It seemed a lot longer than five miles. Worse, my knees started to feel the brunt of hiking downhill. The last half-mile was the longest half-mile I've ever hiked. We were back at the car 7 hours and 15 minutes after we left that morning. We were both so exhausted.

On the way home, I hinted that maybe we could do a shorter hike tomorrow to recover. Billy said, apologetically, "Uhm... there are no short hikes here. Sorry!" Although I suppose one could just pick a trail, start walking, and turn back anytime, it's just not the same as getting to that valley, that ridge, that summit where you want to be. That little space of dirt your heart was set on inhabiting even before your boot first hit the trail. Turning around is almost like giving up. But what can one do when one's knees are shot?

Today's hike was classic, (long,) taxing, (long,) and offered unbelievable, magnificent views of the Rockies' peaks, lakes and glaciers (and yes, it was long). Five miles into the wilderness, everything just seems so... wild.

As for tomorrow, let's see what the future holds, as we embark on another ten-mile journey in and out of the backcountry. Will my knees hold up to the beating? Not just tomorrow, but for the next three days?

Let's take it one day at a time.

Rocky Mountain Hi!

Greetings from Estes Park, Colorado!

It's chilly outside, and it's raining. I'm laying on a window seat enjoying the fresh mountain air and letting my lungs adjust to breathing at 7,500 feet.

We arrived in Denver at 11:05 a.m. local time, got our rental car and drove to Estes Park, a charming town set at the foot of Colorado's Rocky Mountain range. We arrived a few hours later, and could see the dark gray sky beyond, as afternoon thunderstorms rolled in towards the Rockies. Not unusual for summertime along the continental divide.

We checked in at our bed and breakfast by 3 p.m. and set off on an afternoon drive through Rocky Mountain National Park, where we will be hiking the next four days. We drove up, higher and higher, through winding mountain roads and fragrant pine forest. We came to the park entrance and noticed the temperature outside had fallen to 57 degrees Fahrenheit (13.9 degrees Celsius) as it started to drizzle.

Inside the park, the drizzle turned into definite rain, and as we drove up even higher, the triangular silhouettes of mountain peaks were revealed, though obscured by the afternoon rain, with thick, low clouds drifting among them. We kept on driving, and the mountain tops slowly drifted from above us to below, as we climbed higher and higher, winding along the sides of this awesome mountain range.

We drove past forest-filled valleys, steep rocky cliffs, and the widest expanse of alpine meadows I have ever seen. And as we went past the rolling grasslands, traffic came to a halt as motorists gawked at a herd of two dozen elk, the graceful females lying on the grass, serene, while a few males frolicked about with their antlers held high, one stopping to look at traffic about twenty feet away.

On our journey this afternoon, we passed the highest point on this, the Trail Ridge Road, at 12,183 ft. An altitude record for me, and I could feel it, as my breathing became more labored and my heart pounded in my chest. We stopped at a nearby gift shop as the rain pelted down, and saw the temperature at this elevation had plummetted to 46 degrees (7.8 degrees Celsius). We ran across the parking lot in sandaled feet in the frigid rain and stayed inside for half an hour, letting our bodies adjust to the thinner air.

Back here in our room two hours later, my breathing has still not returned normal. I hope I effectively acclimatize over the next two days as we hike trails at 9,000 to 10,000 feet, before we attempt the summit of Mt. Ida at 12,880. It will all depend on the weather and our physical resilience. If succesful, that will set a new personal record.

Before that, though, we start tomorrow with a 10-mile moderately strenuous hike from Glacier Gorge to Sky Pond, starting at 9,240 feet with a 1,660-ft elevation gain. We plan to start at 6 a.m. I sure hope the weather cooperates.

Run for the hills! Or rather, the mountains

One more week, my friends! One week until I hop on a plane and head to Colorado to get my Rocky Mountain high.

Since my last blog entry, I've continued to train for our hikes in higher altitude. I've deviated from my normal cardio routine; now I run on the treadmill every single time I'm at the gym.

As told in my last blog entry four weeks ago, I did a non-stop run at 5.5 mph for 10 minutes. Since then, I ran for 15 straight, then 20, and yesterday, another 20. This weekend being my second of doing 20 straight, I was quite pleased with myself. (Billy seemed impressed as well.) I then turned the speed down to 3.2 mph and walked for a few minutes.

In the middle of running, I had to decide whether to stop at 20 or try for 25. It's funny. I thought that if I did make it to 25 now, then next time I'd be under pressure to do it for 30 minutes. And if I failed to do 30, I might end up settling for less in the future. Sabotaging my routine. Dumbing it down.

I didn't want to fail so early. So I stopped at 20. For now.

I came up with this plan for myself: I would run for 20 minutes for four weeks, then do 25 for four weeks, then eventually build up my time until i reach my upper limit. Go beyond it, even. Or... what if next week, I up my speed to, say 5.7 mph, and start at 10 minutes once again? Then gradually increase both my speed and my endurance.

Funny how I thought up a plan to circumvent failure. I just would have been so disappointed in myself. I never expected to be able to run this well so soon.

Runner's World magazine claims that inserting a few one-minute sprints into a run can build one's endurance, so I've integrated that into my routine as well. Yesterday, I finished off with a sprint at 7.0 mph for 60 seconds. My blood was pounding in my head. My heart rate was at 172. I exhaled deep, labored breaths as the treadmill slowed down sooo not fast enough. Hurry up, 3.2. Hurry up!

I spent about 40 minutes on the treadmill that day. I then did 10 minutes on the stairmaster, then proceeded to the weight machines to work on my legs. Some might groan at the effort, but I do this for my own sake. Hiking uphill in higher altitude with a pack (although just a daypack this time) can be immensely difficult in steep terrain. At times in the past, it has been really hard on my heart.

In the last four weeks, I've discovered that I actually enjoy running. I guess it shouldn't be surprising. I was good at track in both high school and college. I remember some running advice from Lara, my best friend in high school, who was a distance runner on our track team: set your pace at the start and stick with it; and DON'T STOP RUNNING.

I used to run because I had to. Now I do it to challenge myself, not just physically, but mentally as well. For as Billy likes to say, overcoming fatigue in one's mind alone is half the battle.

Training for the Colorado Rockies

Colorado is home to Rocky Mountain National Park, land of wildlife, tundra and 14,000-foot snow-capped peaks. It is also our destination come August 6th, when we head to the town of Estes Park and embark on an adventure among these mountains known as the Colorado Rockies.

I've been training at the gym for many, many months, in anticipation of possibly summiting Mt. Ida whose peak juts skyward at an elevation of 12,880 feet. (For those who are wondering, the highest I've climbed is 11,000 feet, on a trail known as Gaylor Lakes in the backcountry of Yosemite National Park.)

My routine at the gym consists of an eight-minute warm-up, then 45 minutes of cardiovascular exercise, then an hour of weights, usually on machines as opposed to free weights. Lately I've started to do more free weights, as they offer three-dimensional movement and therefore simulate real-life activity better. And lastly, I do 10 minutes of stretching, ab crunches, and yoga positions on a nice yoga mat on a hardwood floor.

During each visit to the gym, I use any one of three cardio machines: the treadmill, the cross-trainer, and the stairmaster. I rotate between them to add a little variety to my routine. I also rotate between the weight machines and target a specific "muscle group" on each visit: 1) back and biceps, 2) chest, shoulders and triceps, and 3) legs (quads, hamstrings and calves). I've also been told that I can do leg exercises every time, so I try to squeeze some in at every visit.

Today I ran on the treadmill and actually did pretty well. I warmed up for eight minutes by walking at a speed of 2.6 mph, gradually increasing to 4 mph. By then my heart rate (detected by metal sensor bars on the treadmill that you hold with both hands) was up to about 110 beats per minute.

Now, a little refresher on target heart rates. During any physical activity, there is that heart rate you reach at which your body starts to burn fat. To calculate that, it's (220 minus your age) x 65%. For me, at the age of 33, that would be 122 beats per minute. Now there's also a heart rate at which you're actually doing cardio training, which is (220 minus your age) x 80%. For me, that number is 150. During vigorous exercise, my heart rate can go up to the low 170s. Unfortunately, this is when I start to get light-headed and have to back off a little bit.

So today, I ran at a speed 5.5 mph for 10 minutes straight without stopping. Now that doesn't happen very often... in fact, that was dang good for me! Normally, after about five minutes of running, my heart rate goes up to about 168, I can feel my heart pounding in my chest, feel the blood pumping in my head and have to stop. Not today!

After that, I brisk-walked on an incline, all the way up to the max the treadmill would go. (I'll be hiking in the mountains, remember?) Then I reset the incline back to zero, ran again at 5.5 mph, did some more hills, and cooled down. After all that work for almost an hour, I only burned about 300 calories. It's really an eye-opener as to how much work you have to do to neutralize the effect of a 280-calorie Snickers bar!

Then for weights today, I targeted the back muscles, and did squats with a mere 70 pounds of weight, as anything heavier would probably aggravate my sore right hip. I also did some hip flexion exercises for said soreness, an injury I think I incurred while hiking the Superstition Mountains last January.

Yes, I'm continually sore in three places now: my right hip, my lower back, and my right shoulder (this from working with a mouse all day). Oh, time flies, I'm 33 and not getting any younger. My body isn't as invincible as it was when I was twenty.

Right now I only visit the gym once or twice a week, which is better than nothing, but I know I could do better. This challenge has to do with our pet dogs, but that's a story for another time. Let's see how well I do in August, out there among the craggy peaks of the great Colorado Rockies.

Bisbee

I was putting together an album of a trip to Bisbee last November, and as I started writing the narrative about the small town, I realized it was something I wanted to share on my blog, too.

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In November of 2006, we took a trip to southern Arizona to the historic town of Bisbee. This old mining community is located 200 miles southeast of Phoenix, just north of the Mexican border.

Founded in 1880, Bisbee is the site of the Copper Queen Mine, one of the richest mining sites in history. It drew tens of thousands of people into the town, and by the early 1900's, Bisbee was the largest city between St. Louis, Missouri and San Francisco, California. The Queen mine produced millions of ounces of gold, copper, silver, lead and zinc, until mining operations were shut down in the 1970's. Since then, Bisbee has become a quaint artist and retirement community that draws people from all over the world.

As a first-time visitor, it was a refreshing change of scenery from the concrete jungle. The homes that seemed to teeter on the hillsides were old and historic, and the topography reminded me of San Francisco. Strangely enough, they also had the same parking and access problems as the City by the Bay.

On our first evening there (it was the day after thanksgiving), hundreds of people gathered on Main Street to celebrate the "Parade of Lights", which wasn't really a parade but rather a large gathering. A local church choir sang Christmas carols, a group of 8-year-old girls did a ballet presentation, and the town mayor addressed the crowd, all before Santa came by in a big red fire truck to switch on the seemingly meager single-strand of Christmas lights that were strung along Main Street, suspended above, zigzagging all the way up the avenue. It didn't have the enormity or the spectacle or the excess and the glitter of the urban setting, but I liked the smallness of everything. It reminded me of the community where I grew up, where everyone knew each other. You don't feel this sense of affinity in the big cities.

On our second day, we took a two-hour jeep tour that brought us about town, from the first paved street in Arizona (the jeep barely fit) to the Continental Divide marker in the surrounding Mule mountains. We also took a tour of the historic Queen Mine (hard hats and all!) led by a gentleman who actually worked there in its heyday. He talked about, among other things, setting up dynamites and getting out of the way before they blew; showed us the elevators and equipment and how they worked; even pointed out two customized toilets, side-by-side with no walls around them. The experience of learning about a miner's life was unforgettable.

Bisbee turned out to be a charming, wonderful town with friendly people, beautiful architecture, and an air of history that can only be found in the Old West.

[ View the album ]

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