Champagne On A Dirt Road
There are magical places in the world where magical events can be experienced if you happen to be in one of these magical places at just the right moment. The Colorado Rocky Mountains are full of such places. Places of wonder. Places of awe. Places where the bounty and beauty of nature overwhelms and softens even the hardest of hearts. And places where amazing human interactions unfold in ways that cause you to remark, “only in Colorado!”
On 19 September, 2021, as the Covid-19 pandemic ebbed and flowed throughout the world, my wife Lizzie and I sought refuge in the Great Outdoors, as so many have done during these times. The Colorado Rockies are crossed with unpaved (and often unmaintained) county roads, Forest Service roads, BLM roads, Jeep trails, hiking trails and game trails, many of them rarely used by more than a few dozen people in a season. These take you far away from the bustling cities of the Front Range and Western Slope, and into a wilderness you can imagine as pristine and unexplored, as you discover it yourself for the first time.
On this particular Sunday morning, the air was cool but promised to warm pleasantly as we headed out for a second day in a row of exploring around our county, an area the size of some small Eastern states (looking at you, Delaware). Every road not yet traveled is a potential new adventure, and you can spend years driving these roads on the weekends and probably never see everything the entire county has to offer. We were hoping to catch the Aspens changing into their Autumn gowns of red and gold, as well as find interesting sites we had not yet seen. We pointed our 4x4 in the direction of Saguache Park.
As we left State Highway 114 and headed up the gravel road, following the brown Public Lands signs, we were somewhat surprised by the high volume of traffic we encountered. On our excursion the previous day, we had encountered less than a half-dozen vehicles in total, once we had left the pavement. We decided to seek out a pair of lakes that are out of sight from the highway. After driving for miles down a dusty, windswept road, we found the small lakes, along with signs announcing that they were contaminated with toxic algae and warning anglers not to expose themselves to the water, nor to eat the fish. We were, of course, disappointed.
We decided to turn around and head back a few miles to another road that intersected the road we were on. As we turned right at the intersection, I was back in “explorer” mode. Lizzie had brought along a map showing trailheads that she wanted to check out for possible future mountain biking adventures. The road we were on wasn’t particularly scenic, by Colorado standards, but there was a lot less traffic than earlier in the morning. There were few trees, lots of rocks, dried grasses and weeds, and little else. I was beginning to wonder if the day would be a bust. But as we rounded a curve and continued uphill, we could see forested slopes in the distance.
As we approached the tree line, another figure came into view. We saw a thin elderly man sitting on the side of the road next to a trail marker, a light hiking pack beside him. There were no other vehicles around, no other people in sight, and only occasional traffic, mostly trucks pulling camping trailers out of the forest as the city-folk ended their weekend excursions. We slowed to avoid causing a billowing cloud of dust to engulf the man, and as we pulled alongside him, I put the passenger-side window down to ask if he was OK. This is a common courtesy we are in the habit of practicing when we are away from the towns and cities. You never know when you may come across a lost hiker, or someone who may be dehydrated and in need of a drink.
Being married to a nurse, you learn that her skills may be needed at any time. We felt obliged to make sure that the man wasn’t lost or in need of medical attention. We began chatting with him in a way that wouldn’t be evident as evaluating his health and fitness, but might alert us to any conditions one could be suffering from, alone in the mountains. The man was friendly, coherent, and healthy. I was intrigued to learn how he came to be sitting on the side of this remote dirt road all alone on a Sunday morning. I pulled the truck forward a little, and off the road as much as I felt was safe, and we got out.
We learned that the man, whose name was Bruce, had just finished Segment 18 of the Colorado Trail, a series of trail segments that start just outside of the Denver Metropolitan area. The trail winds through the mountains for 486 miles and ends near the southern border of the state, near the city of Durango. Bruce said he was waiting for his wife and daughter to come pick him up. Lizzie inquired about the condition of the trail, and whether it was suitable for a mountain bike. As we chatted, another vehicle approached and Bruce announced that his wife and daughter had arrived. As Bruce’s wife and daughter joined us, it became immediately evident that this was an extraordinarily special occasion that we had happened upon. Bruce had just been too humble to tell us.
On this Sunday morning, 19 September, 2021, when we came across Bruce sitting alone at the trail marker, he had just completed Segment 18, his final segment of the Colorado Trail. This was a feat that had taken years to accomplish. And it is no simple task, either. Bruce related to us tales of segments where the trail was perched on a cliff’s edge and only wide enough for one person at a time, where a mis-step could mean severe injury or even death. There were encounters with wild animals in remote areas. There were unexpected extreme weather events. And 89,354 vertical feet of mountains to climb.
Bruce had overcome all of this, and no doubt a lot of personal obstacles, to finally complete his last leg of the trail that cool September Sunday morning. His wife and daughter couldn’t be prouder. As for Lizzie and I, we were in awe.
Bruce never told us his age, nor did we ask, but we made an educated guess that he was likely in his late 70s. He had grown up in Cleveland, Ohio and dreamed of living in the mountains of Colorado. Finally, in 1982 he fulfilled that dream, moving to Boulder, Colorado. Some years later, he learned of the Colorado Trail through a lady friend who was in the process of hiking it.
The trail is split into a series of 28 segments. Some segments have trailheads that are only accessible by four-wheel drive vehicles. It is common for hikers to hike the segments out of order, choosing ideal seasons and weather conditions throughout the seasons for each segment. Bruce had volunteered to act as support for his friend, driving her to trailheads and then picking her up at the other end, ferrying food, water and supplies for her. Then, at some point, he began hiking the trail himself. Today was the final day of that long journey.
His wife presented him with a special T-shirt to mark the occasion. He shyly turned his back to all of us to take off the shirt he had hiked in and put the special shirt on. He turned back around to cheers and applause, as we celebrated with his family what he had accomplished. We were preparing to make our departure to let Bruce and his family celebrate more privately, but his daughter stopped us. It seems she had brought a bottle of champagne to celebrate the occasion and insisted we stay and share it with them.
So it is that, at 10:30 on a Sunday morning in September, during a raging pandemic, on the tailgate of our truck parked on the side of a remote dusty dirt road high in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, we found ourselves sipping champagne from plastic cups and toasting the extraordinary accomplishment of an amazing man with his proud wife and daughter whom we had only just met.
Only in Colorado…
Finally, when the bottle was empty, we took leave of our new friends. We traveled on up the road with champagne bubbles dancing in our brains, knowing that this was an experience we aren’t likely to ever forget.
We did have other adventures that day. We saw lots of Autumn colors. We found wonderful volcanic rock formations embedded with petrified wood. We found small remote campgrounds and trailheads we hope to use for future excursions. But nothing else we experienced that day, or many other days, could top that meeting.
We were so inspired by Bruce, in fact, that we have since bought (on his family’s recommendation) both the full Colorado Trail guidebook and the smaller pack version. We have already begun discussing how we should go about our own attempt to complete the trail. Lizzie is excited to bike as many segments as she can. Though bikes aren’t allowed on many segments, there are often alternative segments that allow mountain bikes. We intend to hike or bike all of them.
Only in Colorado. Or not.
I have found that, if you are open to sharing the human experience in Nature with other nature-lovers, the places where magic literally comes alive and bestows its blessings on you seem much more abundant. I have had amazing experiences in the woods of Missouri, in the Caribbean bush and beaches, in the Black Hills of South Dakota, as well as in the Colorado Rockies. I have met amazing people who have lived amazing lives and a few, like Bruce, who are extraordinary. I encourage you to get out into the world and find your own magical moments. They are all unique. They are all special, if you allow them to reveal their full splendor to you. You may make a lifelong friend on a mountaintop, or find a secret treasure on a beach.
You may even find yourself, at 10:30 on a September Sunday morning, sipping champagne from a plastic cup with newfound friends beside a dirt road in the mountains.