From Rockies to Rockies

Saturday night, hubby and I embarked on another great Plesko adventure. After plans got derailed due to the unpredictable fall weather at 14,000 feet, we still managed to squeek out an unbelievable weekend. We ate a delicious dinner at my sister-in-law's parents' house and then Chris drove us the 4+ hours down to some ranch gates 9 miles from the New Mexico border. We thought ahead and set up the air mattress in the back of the hotelement and around 1 am we curled into our sleeping bags with Turbo keeping watch in the driver's seat and attempted to drift off into sleepyland. Wind howling against the car and the bright almost-full moon kept us from getting any actual sleep and our 5 am watch alarm came both WAY too quickly and not quickly enough. I whined my way into keeping us curled into the warm sleeping bags until about 5:30 when Chris finally coaxed me out into the windy cold to start our adventure up Culebra Peak.

Culebra Peak is on privately owned land and the owners are not so keen on the idea of letting dogs (let alone most people) hike there. Luckily for us, a nice guy from the 14ers.com board talked the ranch owners into allowing this dogs/owners day (in completely Culebra, his dog finished 14er #53 -- nearly every official 14er in Colorado). Apparently dogs haven't been allowed to hike there in over 10 years and Turbo is one of the luckly five to summit in at least a decade. We paid our fee and took the E up a road that made even Chris a little nervous. The E is 4 wheel drive, but doesn't have the clearance or gearing to crawl over such harsh roads without scraping, cursing, and clutch-smoking. But, we all survived, including the car, and once at the top we set off to climb 14er number nine for the Pleskos.

Climb details and pictures will come tomorrow. For now, I just got home from a kickball double-header where I acutally didn't seriously suck. The Rockies are currently playing in the bottom of the 13th to catch a wildcard playoff bid. I was a die-hard Rockies fan for a few years, never missing a game whether it was on TV or just on the radio. The Rox have, frankly, sucked for many years and in those years my fan-dom, and most of the city's, has dwindled down to nearly nothing. Today it seems like back in the 90s. We actually had a radio out at the kickball game listening to the Rockies/Padres game. Everyone asked how they were doing. No one has cared this much about Colorado baseball in this town since, well, ever really. I actually listed to the game on the way home and gave up going to sleep at a nice early time to watch the rest of this game. Did I think they'd pull it out? Heck no. Especially when the Padres hit a two-run homer in the top of the 13th. And holy crap. They just pulled it out. I can't believe it. Was the call at the plate to end the game iffy? Absolutely. But oh well. No worries. I'll call it now, the Rockies will find a way to flop it in the first round. But they provided a night of hope for Colorado baseball to last another 10 years. Good job boys.

Finally off to bed. More mountain report tomorrow :D