On Sunday afternoon, the 20th of February, I aimed my truck for Meeker Park,
CO on the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park just northwest of Boulder on
Hiway 7. That morning I had attended the most unusual wedding of world class
mountain runner, Matt Carpenter on the Waldo Canyon trail west of Colorado Springs.
The
Incline Club ran our normal run from Manitou Springs up the Ute Trail then the
Waldo Canyon loop, but this time we stopped on the trail for the wedding. The
fastest man around the loop was best man and the fastest woman the maid of honor.
Dan Vega won the honor of best man. Though I ran my hardest I finished a ways
back in second place.
Around 4:30 P.M. Dave French, Sam the Wolfdog, and I began our trek up trail from the Wild Basin/Sandbeach Lake Trailhead. An hour of hiking and one and half miles brought us to the first ridge top where we found a flat spot and stomped down the snow to place our tents. With calm wind and temperature above freezing the full moon rising portended a successful day in the morning. Not this time. Sometime after midnight the wind began to pick up. Finally wide awake at 2:15 A.M. I called to Dave in his tent to be ready to go by 3.
The shining full moon lit up the night. The tree's dark shadows fell on bright white snow. We began snowshoeing up the packed trail at 3:30 A.M. Snowshoeing is much harder than walking on bare trail. Finally after nearly three hours of struggling up the trail Dave decided he'd had it and turned around. Shortly afterwards the broken trail disappeared and the slope steepened.
Sam and I continued up the valley, staying to the right of Sandbeach Lake,
which we never saw. Skirting the south ridge of Meeker and Dragon's Egg Rock
we came on the snow filled basin which led to the Loft in between Meeker and
Longs. 
With
only a topo map and what I could remember from the guidebook (I'd forgotten
to bring it) I trudged north into the basin. I remembered the guidebook said
to take the westernmost couloir. Well, there was a great big snowfilled steep
gully way west. What I didn't remember from the guide book was that you were
supposed to stay to the right of the palisades. The big snowfilled gully was
to their left. I realized my mistake after struggling up the gully, taking over
an hour in the process as the gusting wind blew me over several times.
Pagoda Peak rose directly to my left, and too far to my right I spied the Loft,
Meeker, and a high ominous pyramid that was Longs Peak. 
Clouds
ripped through the sky, enveloping Longs completely, seconds later exposing
it again, the west face white with rime. An awesome spectacle. I knew I would
never be able to summit it on this day! Even where I stood at just over 13,000
feet in the saddle left of Pagoda the wind blasted me with snow pumice. One
monstrous gust sent me ducking for cover. When it subsided I saw one snowshoe
had sailed 20 feet down the fall line. 
The
other one was nowhere in sight. I searched a 50 foot radius, then thinking it
must have gone all the way to the bottom of the gulley I began to descend. I
never did find it. If anyone finds a blue Atlas snowshoe up there I will offer
as reward a six-pack of your choice of Microbrew!
The slog back convinced me that snowshoes are a marvelous invention. Even one is better than none. The one unshod foot punched through on occasion to hip level. The only reason it didn't go further was because of the obvious limitation of my crotch. With still open space beneath the foot, rising to the surface was ponderous--nothing to push off from. It was long arduous trek back. Reaching our previous night's camp site I was delighted to find that Dave had generously packed out my tent and gear along with his stuff. I met him back at my truck and we pulled out for Colorado Springs at 3 P.M.
