Rocky Mountain Campout

I have been following this bloke for quite some time now. As a former National Geographic adventurer of the year, the dude has had some huge undertakings - I think he biked around the globe and hiked some ungodly long river in India and some other crazy trips that folks with a normal job couldn't accomplish.

But one day he switched his way of thinking and started doing what he called "microadventures." Stuff you could do from your front door, or in his words, "an adventure that is close to home, cheap, simple, short, and yet very effective." Another quote of his that stuck with me: "everyone worries about the 9 to 5, what about the 5 to 9?"

So I had been planning something on this level for some time, waiting for the weather to clear. I knew Marc P would be down, as he's all about doing stupid shit. At the last minute we also recruited recent 2:56 Boston marathoner and former 2nd place Wisconsin Dells Marathon finisher Josh J as well.

I packed as light as I could. My backpack and "stuff" weighed in at just over eleven pounds before adding four cans of beer, two cigars, and a lighter. No tent, just a sleeping pad and a sleeping bag rated down to 35F. 

Had planned to step off from the house at 6PM on Tuesday. Got a bit of a late start, so we had $100 give us a ride over to Hell's Kitchen. We ate our fill of pizza there so we would not have to lug food up the mountain. After supper, we hiked about 2.5 miles and 3,000 vert up the Incline to the summit of Rocky Mountain.

Quickly set up camp in the dark and then got around to serious business - drinking, smoking, and discussing how Marc and Josh were going to dominate Leadville this year by not training for it. Careful if you go up to Rocky anytime soon, we left a lot of bullshit on that peak.

Not a cloud in the sky when we retired for the night. I slept well. Until about 3AM, when the latest snow storm moved in. A combination drop in the temp and rain/snow mix woke me up, and in no time I was off the mountain and back at the house, enjoying a cup of coffee with the wife and the dog before getting to work.

All-in-all a great time and I'm sure I'll be doing more of this kind of stuff in the future. I do feel like I cheated a bit by mooching a ride, so next time I'll definitely either hike/bike/run or take the bus over to Manitou. Or maybe hitchhike, which is still done on the far west side of our village.

While I'm certainly not going to become anti-travel and stick to local races only, this was a pretty sweet way to spend a Tuesday night.