Rosalie Peak dominates the northwestern skyline in Bailey, Colorado. It is a mountain with girth. A rock solid mass. In contrast to, say, the Matterhorn’s ribbon-like delicacy, Rosalie is a stout linebacker. It defends the southeastern shoulder of Mt. Blue Sky. Running off the eastern arm of Rosalie are a series of lesser peaks: Pegmatite Points, Rosedale, East Pegmatite Point, and Meridian Hill. This ridgeline slowly trickles downward into the towns of Conifer and Evergreen. (With Conifer’s neighbor, Pine, it is an area decidedly lacking in creative nomenclature juices.)
From my deck in Bailey I could see Rosalie if I leaned out over the thirty-foot drop to my dog run below. In winter Rosalie shone like a beacon with fresh snow. In summer its rocky ramparts beckoned. I climbed it twice, once in each season.
From my kitchen window while doing dishes I could gaze out at the lesser peaks along the ridge to the east. These also beckoned. Slowly, I ticked them off until only Meridian Hill was left. It rises a good distance away from any trail and a large mudflat lies along the way. It mocked me every time I stood at the sink. Here I am, you gonna keep standing there doing the dishes, or come and unlock my secrets? I gazed in contemplation upon it in the early morning light rinsing out my coffee cup and I saw the last of the sun grace its peak while tidying up before bed.
Meridian Hill flies under the radar of most Colorado peakbaggers. It really is called a “Hill” on the topo maps and—another nail in its coffin—it’s not even a 12er, let alone a 13er or a 14er. The trailhead is near a community with a notoriously bad rap, full of meth heads and sheriff’s deputies, and the hike to the summit has no trail for the second half.
In short, what’s not to love?
Meridian Hill Hike Begins
On a sweltering September afternoon I stepped foot on the Meridian Trail. I crossed Elk Creek (the name of my children’s elementary school) and began ascending in earnest. As I climbed, black-masked chickadee’s chirped from the lodgepoles. The perfume scent of ponderosa’s filled my nostrils, like warm vanilla. Gravel underfoot crunched and small pebbles skittered off the side of the trail. They plunged down the steep slope into the increasingly constricted gorge of the creek far below.
I was blessed with one of those late summer days that for a moment seems to hold the world frozen between seasons. As if Mother Nature had decided she was not done with one before she got to work on the next. Sweat dripped behind my sunglasses. It mingled with sunscreen and ran into my eyes. They stung as I opened them wide and blinked rapidly. My backpack dug into my collarbones, but I liked it. The weight was a comfortable reminder that I was thoroughly outfitted. I was hiking into the mountains on a perfect day. The aspens were turning. Huge stands of them glowed underneath their combined canopies. Golden leaves speckled the trail tread.
I hiked ever higher, relishing the sweat and effort, and the burning in my quads. Finally, I hiked up higher than the aspens. A few hundred feet higher I reached a saddle and took a break. Large boulders had tumbled down from Rosedale and landed on the saddle. They provided perfect perches for a rest. I extracted a tiny bag of Welch’s Fruit Snacks and ate the whole thing in one mouthful.
At the saddle, the cross-country portion of the hike began. As I turned into the trees and woke up the screen on my GPS unit I thought about my tendency to wither under incessant self-doubt.
I am truly my own worst critic.
And yet, I have accomplished some wonderful things in my life. So then why the doubt? Why the self-sabotage? Why can’t I get out of my own way?
I have no answers to these questions. The self-doubt is always there, like a second skin.
A trail into the wilderness provides some relief. I step onto one and suddenly the self-doubt is gone. My inner critic cannot speak up because the trail is there below my feet and it goes through those trees and around that bend and I dutifully follow. The decisions are made.
I am like a car approaching a car wash. Before the car hits the mechanical rails that draw it in, there is still some autonomy. It can turn if it so desires; it can stop and back up and go another way. But once the wheels hit those rails and the car is pulled into the enclosure…well…things are different. I actually find relief in freedom from choice.
I strive to find the kind of clear-eyed attention and laser focus I attain on a trail in my real life. But there are so many factors at play, so many forces acting upon me, that my self-doubt rises up and questions every decision I make. I wilt before it. Are you sure you want to try and write a book? Why didn’t you stick with GIS or web development? You should have done something with that geology degree? Or with all those woodworking skills you used to have? Why did you ever stop playing guitar? Why did you quit early in that one bike race?
And so on, for eternity.
Yet, on a trail the voices subside. They are powerless against the singular aim of a trail to get from here to there. A trail is nothing if not decisive and clear of intent. If I don’t like the tack a trail is taking I have two choices: I can turn around and go back, or I can keep going.
In real life there are usually dozens of potential choices to be made for any given decision. And once that choice is made you better be tough as nails, or prepared for the onslaught of what-ifs that inevitably come.
My doubts usually concern things that I have already done and now question. Or decisions I didn’t make that were decisions all the same. My doubtful side smothers me with scenarios. You could have been in tech. You should have done something about that job offer. You should be a better father and get your kids away from their screens. “I took them on the road for a year!” So? Why don’t you like having fun anymore? You were a lot more fun when you were still drinking. “But quitting drinking was one of the best decisions I ever made.” Yeah, well, you are a bump on a log now because of it. Is that why you don’t have friends anymore? Because you could only meet and make friends after a couple of cold ones?
As I said, incessant.
Now, at the saddle between Rosedale and Meridian Hill, I was about to step away from the comforting confines of the trail. That, coupled with the real possibility of getting lost, began to change the timbre of the afternoon.
Using my GPS and a map I printed at home I followed the highest points along the ridge to the east from the saddle. Nearing East Pegmatite Point—and finding a surprising USGS benchmark there—I veered more northerly away from the ridge and started losing elevation.
At this point I entered an overcrowded forest of new lodgepole pine. It was difficult to move through, much less navigate in any specific direction. Thankfully, the sun peeked out from a cloud and the distant Mud Lakes glittered in response. I could just make out the shimmer through the trees. I aimed for it.
Mud Lakes occupies a unique feature of Meridian Hill’s topography. Located a thousand feet below the summit the two lakes sit in an enormous bog over a hundred acres in size. Picking my way across this bog to reach the base of the summit climb was my main worry from the start. Would it be a morass? Unfordable? By late September I figured it would be dry enough. But Mud Lakes is a weird place. I had no idea what to expect.
Forcing my way through the young lodgepoles was challenging. Straps on my pack kept catching the branches, which were tough and rigid. But I followed the glitter of Mud Lakes and soon I emerged from the treeline, scratched and pine-sapped, into a wide open meadow. The lakes were hidden due to some weird distortion of the horizon from my vantage. The ground was soggy, but not enough to wet my feet. I stepped awkwardly from one grass tussock to the next. Easy ankle-spraining country.
The fear of getting lost was now past. I could see the summit rising from the trees across the golden expanse of this magnificent high-country meadow. It was an ocean of grass. I carefully made my way across, watching for holes between the tussocks. An organic smell of earth and muck hung in the air.
On the far shore of what I guessed was one of the lakes I spied the ruins of an old cabin. Nothing but a few stubborn layers of logs, the rest collapsed into the middle. The wood was bleached from years of hard mountain sun. Propping my pack against a log, I sat down and looked back across the meadow. I must have gained a few feet of elevation because I could finally see the lakes.
I began to think about camping. Perhaps the old cabin made me think it was time to bed down. Or the lowering sun and the slipping temperatures. There was a calm descending over the landscape. The evening stillness.
But I knew the summit was calling me. I could feel the pull. It hovered a thousand feet above me. A thousand difficult feet uphill over blowdowns and rocks and stumps. Maybe you should leave the backpack here? Climb to the summit and then come back down to sleep? Instead, I simply stood, reshouldered my pack, and started climbing up the slope behind me.
I noticed a flat ledge at eleven thousand two hundred feet and aimed for it. My GPS unit helped me stay on track. Downed tree limbs, thick screens of trees, and large rocks kept me continually zigzagging as I climbed. Sweat was pouring down my face despite the dropping temps. I could see Mud Lakes through the trees behind me as I climbed. It got steep just south of the summit. Too steep. I wanted to stay on a more northerly heading, but the constant obstacles made it difficult.
Why are you carrying all your shit up this brutal climb? Just leave it and come back. My doubtful side had a point. Finally, I broke out of the treeline near the flat ledge and the country spilled away below me. I dropped the pack. The sun was dropping fast and I knew that thirty minutes after it set I would need a headlamp to do anything.
I turned and looked at the final three hundred feet. It was a haphazard pile of boulders bathed in a rich, amber glow. Light like rain. I took a GPS waypoint of the ledge where I left my pack, just in case. Then, shoving my camera in my other pocket, I started a mad rush for the summit. Racing the sun.
The adrenaline of that final climb fueled me to the top. Veins stood out on my temple as I took a side selfie from the summit. I gazed at the beauty of Mud Lakes far below me. The two separate bodies of water looked like sheets of untarnished silver. I picked out Lone Rock, an outcrop of pink granite near the Double S Ranchettes. Once located, I easily found the general area of my home. I imagined myself at my kitchen sink, doing the dishes—as Wendy was most likely doing at that very moment. I texted her and told her I was on the summit. She told me she was waving from the window. I waved back. I had done it.
I had climbed the mountain I could see from my kitchen window.
Then the sun dropped and the realization that I was exposed on the summit of an eleven thousand five hundred foot mountain sunk in.
Time to go!
Post-Summit Thoughts
I found the ledge with my backpack and sat down. A sense of accomplishment washed over me. It is always like that in the mountains; urgency and adrenaline on the way up, contentment and peace on the way down. This is perhaps why I prefer hiking to climbing. I seek the introspective mood that would be dangerous on a downclimb, but is inevitable and welcome on a return hike.
I unrolled my bivy and dumped out my camp kitchen stuff. Ramen for dinner, mint tea for dessert. I pulled on a pair of North Face running pants, an ancient Patagonia R-2 midlayer shirt, and my Montbell puffy. These three layers have long been my go to for “civilian” clothes in camp after a day in the hills.
As the water boiled, my thoughts expanded out over the country below. I had a breathtaking view. The east ridge of Rosalie tracked out toward Mt. Blue Sky and beyond. The other peaks I had previously climbed looked like stepping stones along it. Meridian Hill formed a protective bulwark behind me to the east. The Mud Lakes were now muted and dull. I could see, or thought I could, the gap in the trees where I broke out into the meadow. The high country of the continental divide occupied the western horizon. Bailey and the Platte River valley spread below to my south. My house was tucked in there somewhere.
I thought about how the wilderness calms my thoughts. Why do they run ragged back home? Why is it only here they stop? Is it motion? Does motion keep me a step ahead of my dark thoughts? Can I not escape them back home because I stand still? The ramifications of that were unsettling. That I can only outrun my self-doubts and my own critical self while in motion. It’s not surprising then that I enjoy a trail and find solace there.
I sat on a rock and ate my ramen, the speckled enamelware bowl perched precariously on raised knees. Steam rose into my face. I ate in grand silence as the day fled from the advance of night. I watched the fading light play across the face of the mountains. A thin crescent moon rose beyond the continental divide. Mud Lakes looked like puddles. I truly felt like I was lording over it all.
My life is a dichotomy of sorts. One life I live like everyone else and fumble my way along as best I can. The other I live out in the wilds, sitting on rocks eating noodles under a crescent moon with a stillness and peace so profound it overcomes my inner turmoil.
The Next Morning
In the morning the world was frozen in time. I sat up in my bivy and rubbed my eyes. The sun was still behind horizon-level clouds. It was cold. I felt old and worn; worked, but in a good way. In a way that said these endeavors in the mountains are more important than anything else. That I desperately need them.
I brewed coffee, my fingers slow to respond to the deft movements required of them. I went and stood on the rocks and gazed out, once again, at the world. The sun was finally high enough to hit the eastern face of Rosalie and Mt. Blue Sky. That golden glow filled me with peace. There was nowhere else I should have been. That knowledge, that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing, quite possibly doing what I was born to do, was worth more to me than anything.
I sipped my coffee and wished I could warm my hands on the insulated walls of a battered REI mug bought from the Reading, Massachusetts store in 1994. It’s like an old friend.
As I scanned three hundred and sixty degrees across the horizon I saw so many more mountains to go. I was comforted.
“So there,” I said to my doubtful side. “See all those mountains? All those summits to reach? All those miles to cover?”
Yes, my doubtful side begrudgingly assented.
“You aren’t invited.”
A Parting Shot
