St Mary's Glacier

The last big hike I did in Colorado in 2007 before I moved to Indiana. This deserves a blog entry because this hike is memorable for many reasons. Like I already said, its my last big hike at Colorado and I doubt I am ever going to go back and do anything close to this anyway. Steve Best when at Tensorcomm, called me up one day and suggested this hike. He said his friends were going to do it and asked me if I cared to join. My initial reaction was to not go because the hike sounded rather sissy and I was in the mood for 14ers really. My last summer at Colorado and I wanted to make sure I got a couple under my belt. But then again, I wasnt in my best shape and I had turned him down too many times earlier so I agreed.

The thing with Steve is, he is grossly unprepared but has a lot of mental and physical toughness to overcome his lack of preparation. I asked him about the hike to find out how much water and food I should get and he said it wasnt going to be much and that he wouldnt be bringing much. True to his word, he bought very little water and almost no food. I, on the other hand bought significant water and food as I thought we might end up sharing it with his other friends. The plan was for Steve to pick me up from my place at 7 in the morning and reach the place by around 9 to start hiking.

At about 7, Steve did arrive but without friends. He told me casually that others had dropped out. What a bummer! Anyway, the two of us were charged up and we decided to do it anyway. The excellent preparation that he did, he didnt know the route to the place. He had this lousy book with him which mentioned the hike. Like I said, Steve is underprepared but that shouldnt fool you, he took us to the location in time although he wasnt sure it was the right one. Anyway, it said 3/4 of a mile hike to the glacier and I was already mighty disappointed for the sissy hike it was going to be. Still, seeing a glacier was going to be something and it really looked pretty in thepictures. I was still looking forward to it and the weather was really good. There were some other hikers around, people with bouncy kids who couldnt wait to see it too. So we did this 3/4 mile "hike" and there was the glacier. The pictures do no justice to it, its a thing of beauty to be seen. We didnt wear too much warm clothing (in fact Steve came in his shorts!) as we didnt think we were going to hike much and the weather was pretty good. Anyway, we walked till the glacier and we were talking about this new project that I was working on. Steve got really interested in it and kept asking questions and I did my best to try answer them.

Now, I thought we were going to walk across the lake and see the glacier up close and return but Steve had other ideas! He kept walking till we reached the glacier and suggested we hike it all the way up. I thought he was crazy! I had stupid sneakers on me and I wasnt really prepared. The last time I hiked on ice was at Mt Democrat and that experience sucked! I kept falling and I barely made it to the peak where it snowed like crazy! I had to run down fast to avoid the storm and even slide down at times. The experience had shaken me up so bad that I decided to never go hiking alone in the winters! Anyway, Steve was persisted since he thought we hadnt reached the glacier. So we set off and started to climb the glacier thinking better views awaited us. I must say, hiking this glacier was not easy at all. I kept slipping cos of my stupid shoes and Steve suggested I try walking sideways, cross-step on it, and even walk backwards at times. One other thing was he didnt stop talking. It almost seemed like he wanted to keep my mind occupied, he kept asking about the project. After a really difficult climb, we reached the top of the glacier and walked further, where the climb levelled off. All the time, I kept wondering how we were going to get down as I still remembered my Mt Democrat hike! I was pretty sure I was going to be squatting and sliding down on this huge glacier while Mr Steve fancy shoes laughed his head off and walked down royally!

The flat section helped us for a while as we caught our breath and walked along much faster. Steve kept pointing in random directions thinking we were going to see the glacier there and we must have walked a good 2-3 miles all around without seeing anything. We also saw a couple of people riding ATVs, motor bikes and jeeps around. I muttered my curses to myself but Steve made it a point to stop one of these people and give them a piece of his mind! I was almost sure some one was going to push us down the mountain at some point but I guess he did well to make himself heard. We eventually got tired of hiking around when Steve announced that he didnt bring any food along. Amused as I was, I shared my trail mix and apples with him and we felt much better having had them. We stopped at a spot to talk to these people next to a jeep and Steve once again made his opinions heard. The shameless jeepers just smiled back and said we could get a ride from them if we waited. It was getting a bit cold and cloudy and they thought they could guilt us into taking a ride from them. We chose the "high road" ":)

So, having convinced Steve that what we saw down the hike was the real glacier, we started on our way back...or so we thought. We forgot our way back in all this off-trail walking and searching around. We walked for a lot of distance, even considered asking people but in the end just strayed off too much from the trail to return. At some point we just decided that it was not worth trying to get to our trail and just decided to find some way of getting down. This proved to be tougher than we thought, what with the dark clouds and the rain and what not! The rain began slowly yet firmly and it began to get cooler. Now, I wouldnt usually worry myself about this but Steve began to get bothered too and when it started to hail, I was a bit bothered! Here we were, a couple of clueless hikers, with improper clothing, no food and a lot of way to go! We climbed down some valleys, found dead ends, walked across tough shrubs and what not and gave up and climbed back up again.

After doing that a couple of times, we finally settled on a trail that looked well paved. We knew we werent on our way back and it bothered me as to how we would see Steve's car again but we kept going. This trail slowly but surely was taking us downhill and we kept guessing as to where we might have started from. We could see some villages below and we were sure that once we headed down, we would be able to figure our way eventually. On the way down, this guy with a jeep passed us and asked us if were doing fine. It was still raining and we were completely drenched but doing much better mentally as we looked out of the reach of the clouds. We politely refused his help but asked him for directions and he wasnt able to help us much.

It stopped raining completely by the time we got down and Steve had now gotten back his flair! :) He suggested which way we should be heading and I agreed, cluelessly. We walked down this town and realized we were heading the wrong way and asked people which way to go. Eventually, we were helped by Uma, who saw some maps and based on information from us, pointed us in the right direction. We were a good 1-2 miles away from our starting point and so we walked. I dont think the sight of Steve's car has ever made me this happy but when we got back we hi-fived and got into the car. The sun had come out brightly by now and was very symbolic of the return of the good times! WE didnt stop anywhere to grab a bite and I was glad I would be the first one to see my house! I took a long batch and relaxed the rest of the evening. Serves me right for being disappointed with a 1.5 mile round trip hike, we ended up walking for about 10-12 miles eventually!!