The Great White North

Standing on a granite boulder in the middle of the creek, my neon green flyline whipped back and forth in ten-and-two motions overhead. In one final throw, I set the fly upstream of a large boulder and let the current carry it past what was sure to be an underwater lair filled with hungry fish. Moments later my line was taut, having coaxed a large native brown trout out from under the boulder. After a short battle, it jerked hard and broke my line. Sheena and Lauren had given us one mandate before we stepped out the door: bring back enough trout to eat for dinner. After two hours of fishing in Sedona’s Oak Creek Canyon, we had managed to catch and release a couple dozen six inchers, and the one edible-sized one had gotten away.

Later, while standing downstream of the bridge to Garland’s Cabins, a vacationing Mexican family walked past me and stopped to watch. I put a halt to my unfruitful fishing and excitedly recounted to them how we had left Mexico five months ago, and that I had spent every night since then crying myself to sleep thinking about the Mexican food we’d left behind.

I told them how on my recent flight home I had stopped over in Hermosillo, Mexico, with only one thing on my mind. I recounted how after the plane had landed, I had bolted away from the airport on foot, how the heat had enveloped me as I left the terminal, and how the air smelled like nostalgia. I was alone; for reasons not worth mentioning Sheena was on a different flight. Despite the absence of my navigator, I knew where to find my fix. I ducked into the first neighborhood I came across looking for a dealer who could feed my addiction. I wandered only a short time before finding what had been haunting my dreams, like a crack addict finding his next fix. As I approached the open air taco stand the husband, wife, and son were just setting up for the day. It was eight o’clock in the morning, the crock pots of beef and pork let off a hint of chili-scented steam. I dropped my backpack and melted into a familiar red plastic chair. A fly buzzed around the table, and the wife started slapping dough between her hands to form the fresh tortillas that would be the foundation for the many tacos on which I would gorge myself. The endorphins coursing through my veins put me into a stationary runner’s high. True happiness, I told the family as they sat on the bridge straddling Oak Creek, is a Mexican taco stand.

We returned empty handed to Mike and Lauren’s cabin on the banks of Oak Creek. Fortunately, Lauren was an avid reader of our blog, and knew that this would happen. She and Sheena had gone to the store while we were out, and nodded an unsurprised nod as we came through the door with nothing but our fishing rods. Without grocery stores we would have starved to death long ago.

A few days before hopping on the plane in Bogotá, we had put the word out on our Facebook page that we were looking for a car to use for a month to travel between the corners of our eje familiar; our families and friends were scattered between three locations in Arizona: Phoenix, Prescott, and Flagstaff. A few hours later, my good friend Brian – the one who introduced me to mountain biking in 7th grade, whose family had been good friends since elementary school, and whose sisters would host us in our final stop before crossing the border into Mexico at the onset of our trip – offered up his car. “No problem, I’ll just ride my motorcycle for the month,” he said.

With gas in our little car and freedom in our little hearts, we set off from Phoenix to the Great White North: our adopted hometown of Flagstaff. After a quick and, of all the excellent establishments we could have chosen, utterly unexplainable stop at Carl’s Junior, we knocked on the door of our good friends Brigit and Bret. We had crashed at their downtown home for the week prior to our departure, and when we arrived our room was just as we had left it; the same books were stacked on the desk, and the Flight of the Concords poster hung inanimately on the wall next to the bed. Bret, a magician when it comes to baking, hastily got to work making a fresh batch of his famous chocolate chip cookies.

In an uncanny display of perfect timing, we had arrived in Flagstaff just in time for the annual Clips of Faith festival; an outdoor gathering to celebrate brews and short films put on by New Belgium Brewing Company. Accompanied by our friends Nathan and Claire we made our way over to the park, bought a handful of wooden tokens, and passed the evening sipping remarkable beer, catching up with friends, and being entertained by this year’s selection of short films.

Fittingly, the last film of the evening was one we came across a couple of months ago, which puts into words and images our feelings about the importance of doing the trip we’re currently doing. Car trouble be damned, we’re doing the right thing.

The day after Clips of Faith we decided to continue the celebration. Being that the New Belgium crew was already in town, we threw together a beer tasting at Nathan’s house and invited some of the New Belgium crew. Nathan supplied a few bottles from a recent business trip to the East coast, while Grant, a New Belgium sales rep, supplied several experimental New Belgium brews and an especially rare and expensive bottle of 2002 Stone Vertical Epic, of which he had found an entire case buried in his garage. Matt, a brewer from New Belgium, spent the evening ensuring that our palates were well calibrated to the treats he expertly brewed up back in Fort Collins.

Before we started eight months ago, Nathan had brewed a special batch of Belgian Quadrupel for us; a beer he called World Wide Quadrupel. We took a case of it on our trip, temporarily occupying our toilet paper cabinet. After being hounded for a very long time by friends and fans of his beer, he finally pulled the trigger and decided to start a microbrewery. We dropped by the brewery to see how things were progressing, and found the place full of equipment, ready to be plumbed together into a beer wonderland. If all goes well, Wanderlust Brewing Company should be distributing in Arizona within the next couple of months. With the goodness he’s about to unleash on the world, Nathan is soon to be, I don’t know, the fifth most famous person I know.

The sixth most famous person I know is Delia Withey. There exists a natural foods brand called Annie’s Organics. Annie, as it turns out, is Delia’s aunt. When Delia was but a wee child, she had a rabbit named Bernie. Buyers of Annie’s foods will know that all Annie’s products come adorned with a stamp on the package depicting a rabbit. This is “Bernie’s Stamp of Approval”. Delia’s childhood pet is thus depicted on millions of boxes of Annie’s Organics, making Delia the sixth most famous person I know.

We spent our time in Flagstaff catching up with good friends and eating good food. We paid the exorbitant and shocking price of $18 for a hamburger and a drink at Diablo Burger, had the world’s best breakfast burritos at Tacos Los Altos, induced food coma over a plate of Fratelliquiles at Martanne’s, and gave ourselves wasabi headrushes at Karma Sushi. See the girl second from the right in the first picture below? That’s Delia. She’s the sixth most famous person I know.

The climax of our “Reacquainting with Long Forgotten Foods of Home” tour was a visit to our favorite restaurant, the Himalayan Grill. Arriving for dinner was like coming home from war; Ramesh welcomed us with a huge smile, Jit came out of the kitchen to chat and hear about our trip, and Karan and Jyotsna told us all about their newborn son. Ramesh brought me a beer from a local brewery, and Karan made Sheena a melon flavored coctail, which he delivered with a huge smile. “I always wanted to be a bartender in New York when I was growing up. This is a drink I made up.” The food, as usual, was awesome.

As we headed for the door, Ramesh corralled us into the bar and sat us down. “We must drink a toast!” Several shots of tequila and rum later, we were fully toasted and ready to walk home. As I clambered out of the bar to pay for our meal, Ramesh waved his hand. “We’re glad to see you, it’s on the house!” He then reached behind the register and produced a bag containing two dinners to go; Sheena’s favorite: saag paneer. “Now you don’t have to cook tomorrow,” he said, as he whisked us out the door. Some people just exude awesomeness.

After the first couple of weeks at home it was clear that the fourth option was the right one. I was enjoying a much needed respite from Vanagon maintenance and transmission problems, and a steady diet comprising mostly Mexican food had put a temporary end to me crying myself to sleep. While it is no exaggeration that true happiness is a Mexican taco stand, there is no denying the fact that no number of taco stands can rival the happiness that time spent with friends and family can deliver. Now, if only traveling halfway across a hemisphere could heal a man’s inability to catch a fish worthy of eating.

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Solace in the Snowstorm

“I’ve decided I’m a mountain girl”

- Sheena

At 4:30 I dizzily stumbled out of bed.  My skis waited in the car, and as I passed the table by the front door I grabbed the breakfast I’d set out the night before.  By 4:45 I was coaxing my eyes open as I barreled through the snow, NPR on the radio, banana in hand, waking up to news of skiers who had been lost to avalanches in California.  Unseasonably high snowfall this year.  At 6:00 I climbed steadily upward in the dark, the cold mountain air burning my lungs with each breath, the ski slopes illuminated only by the snow’s reflection of the stars in the night sky.  Through my headphones I was immersed in a podcast about traveling the world.  This was part of the ritual.

After an hour of hiking in the dark, imagining travel to faraway places, I reached the top of the mountain. 7:00 – just in time for the rising sun to cast a shadow of the San Francisco peaks all the way across the high desert to the Grand Canyon, barely visible below the horizon.  As I put away my climbing skins, pulled on my jacket, and kicked my telemark boots back into my ski bindings, I couldn’t shake the silly grin from my face.  With a nudge of my ski pole I sent myself sailing down the mountain I’d just climbed, crouching into each turn and springing up again, laying down the day’s first tracks.  At the “headwall”, half way down the mountain, I picked up enough speed to scare myself.  Yep, still alive!  I still couldn’t get that silly grin off of my face.

By 8:00 I was back in the car heading down the mountain, just in time for an 8:30 meeting at work.  There’s just something about being in the mountains.

On our first morning in Colombia’s El Cocuy National Park I awoke to an unfamiliar crispness in the air.  Having spent the last five months in Central America, we were getting used to stifling heat and humidity.  We crawled out of our down sleeping bags and put the coffee on.  It was going to be a long day.

James and Lauren emerged from the 4Runner bundled up like New York City hobos.  Overnight their front tire had gone flat, causing the truck to tilt steeply to one side, so James had spent the night crushing Lauren against the low side of the truck.  Another night in the life of a homeless person, I guess.

We donned our packs, bid ado to our new friend Jeni – a small red-cheeked girl who lived in the rock hut next to our camp – and set off toward the towering, snow-capped peaks to the Southeast.  The doubletrack dirt road ended shortly beyond our camp, and gave way to a small singletrack  leading up the valley toward Pan de Azucar and El Pulpito del Diablo, looming above.

The hike through the valley led us up grassy slopes and through fields of frailejones; the plants grow only 2cm per year, and are only found in this corner of South America.  Before long the path turned upward where the thin air made each step a small victory.  We had started the hike just below 13,000 feet and were climbing ever higher.

The trail rose higher and higher over mountains of shale, and before long we found ourselves scrambling over boulders up a steep rock fall towards the first pass: Paso de Cusirí.  If all went well we would complete two 15,000′ passes before descending to the Laguna de la Plaza, a high glacial lake at 13,780′, where we would camp.  We were told the hike would take about seven hours, and by the fourth hour dark clouds had moved in and cloaked the pass like a woolen shawl.  The trail wound upwards in a series of steep switchbacks straight into the cloud.

In the early afternoon we reached the top of Paso de Cusirí, and in doing so found ourselves in the middle of a snowstorm.  A mixture of snow and rain pelted us like horizontal pellets from an invisible army of rabbit-hunting boy scouts.  We hid behind the summit sign, which announced that we’d arrived at the inhospitable elevation of 14,469′. We assessed the situation, running out from behind the sign to look beyond the pass to see what lay in store for us; the trail disappeared into a carpet of dark clouds and whipping wind and snow.

“Onward and downward?” I asked, hoping for dissenters.

“Uuuuh…It’s decision time, guys,” James said.  Seeing the out, we decided to throw in the towel and head back down in the direction we’d come.  We weren’t prepared for blizzard conditions, and some of the team were already experiencing numb fingers and toes.  Nothing says “killjoy” like frostbite.  Or pulmonary edema.

When we reached the rock fall on the way down, we discovered that the entire stretch had been turned into a freezing cold waterfall.  I had a split-second daydream of me waking up dead, wrapped in my soggy sleeping bag at the bottom of a raging, icy cascade.  I silently lauded our decision to turn back.

The best time of year to visit El Cocuy is December through February for its pleasant weather.  Seeing as how we chose to visit in June, we knew we were playing with fire.  With unpredictable weather in this part of the range, we opted to drive to another area about two hours to the North.  Given the condition of the roads in these parts, this basically equated to us moving about 10 miles.  I’m no meteorologist, but this sounded like a surefire way to ensure a drastic change in weather.  The following day we picked up camp and moved to Hacienda La Esperanza where Marco, normally seen scurrying about his farm wearing a traditional wool poncho, cooked us dinner in his kitchen and showed off his antiques and old photos of the area.

In the morning we awoke to find a Kiwi named Joe lurking about our camp with his touring motorcycle.  He was on his way to Alaska from Argentina, and decided to tag along with us for a while on our hike.  We threw our things together and departed camp through fields reminiscent of Switzerland, interspersed with rocky spires jutting up through the grass while long-haired dairy cows moseyed about.

The hike took us through a low glacial valley filled with plants and streams before climbing upwards over a series of rocky plateaus.  On our right, an enormous rock wall separated us from the sprawling mountains and the tiny towns we’d driven through to get here; Onzaga, Covarachia, Soata, El Cocuy, and the truck driver’s secret road.  To our left, glacier-capped peaks shimmered above the rocky terrain, taunting me with their 17,000 foot powder bowls.  Would it be worth it to come back here one day with my skis?  I imagine that nobody has ever skied El Cocuy.

After five hours of uphill slogging we reached our destination for the night: La Cueva del Hombre, or The Man Cave.  I had asked Marco why it was called the Man Cave before we set off from La Esperanza.

“Long ago, some men used to climb to the lake.  Ducks would stop for a rest from their migration, and the men would shoot them.  The ducks don’t come any more.  The men would sleep in the cave after they shot the ducks, so it is called La Cueva del Hombre.”  I noted that Marco should make up a more titillating story about how the Man Cave got its name.

Once inside the Man Cave we set up our tents, and then Sheena and I decided to hike up to the lake to have a look around while James and Lauren took a nap.  We intended to spend the entire next day exploring the glacial basin, but we couldn’t stand the suspense.  We bundled up and bounced out from under the overhang feeling light without our packs.

The trip from the cave to the lake took a damn, dirty long time, but once we crested the ridge and the landscape spread out in front of us, we lost our breath.  Uh oh, pulmonary edema again?  Nope, just friggin’ awesome!  The mountain to the left was capped by an enormous bowl of untouched snow from top to bottom, where the glacier spilled over the edge of a vast chasm; a crashing calamity of building-sized ice chunks paused in suspended animation.  On the opposite side of the basin, another glacier spilled down from the top of another 17,000 foot peak, terminating at the edge of a colossal shear rock wall.  The ice composing the second glacier bore a map of its ancient history in dirty veins of ice crisscrossing its surface, and diving into its depths.  Between the walls of the basin were a series of small lakes fed by the runoff from both glaciers.  For minutes all we could do was stare in awe, a mixture of blood and adrenaline coursing through our veins.

“So, how was it?”  James peered out of his tent as we ducked back into the Man Cave, having just awoken from his slumber.

I was at a loss for words.  “It was so damn awesome… I felt like my heart was going to explode.”

As evening rolled around, we made a gourmet concoction of broken up lasagna noodles with canned tuna in olive oil.  Soon, the shadows engulfed our cave and a harsh chill pressed the warm air into the valley below.  We all huddled into our tent and passed the evening playing the travel-size board game, Trouble.  You remember the commercials: It’s fun getting into TROUBLE!

The feeling as we unzipped our tent in the morning to discover the ground covered in snow was a stew of nostalgia, serenity, awe, surprise, and regret.  The continued snowfall and resulting accumulation meant that there would be no more excursions to the glacial lakes.  It also meant that, since we didn’t know how much snow would accumulate, we would have to make a mad dash for a lower elevation.  We hastily drank our morning coffee and packed our things.  James and Lauren, both having lost their gloves, fashioned mittens out of wool socks, and we all pulled plastic bags over our feet before slipping them into our shoes.  Poor man’s Gore-Tex.

Hiking in the snow is about as close as we can get to a state of total serenity.  The snowflakes absorb any stray sounds and create an unnatural silence, while the muffled crunch of snow under our feet creates a rhythmic soundtrack to our movement.  As we silently descended through the snowy landscape my mind wandered to our winter camping trips to Durango, filling our tent with good friends and sleeping in the snow near the ski hill.  I reflected on my regular hikes to the top of Agassiz Peak before work, the shadow of the peaks stretching across the desert, and the rewarding turns.  I thought about our dear friend Mike who perished in an avalanche while backcountry skiing near his home in California.  I had heard about it on NPR while heading up to the mountain before work, but never imagined it would be my friend who was lost.  I remembered the discussion that Sheena and I had on the way home from his funeral, which ultimately led to us quitting our jobs and setting off on this very trip.

I liked that it was snowing; It put a silly grin on my face.  There’s just something about being in the mountains.

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The Road to El Cocuy, Part 2:
The Truck Driver’s Secret Road

Read Part 1 by clicking HERE >

We left Onzaga at the crack of dawn, following the truck driver’s hand drawn map.  We had scoured all of the online maps and satellite photography we could find, but had failed to locate the road between Onzaga and Covarachia that he had sworn was the fastest route to reach El Cocuy.  We were lost before we even made it out of the village.  After stopping several times for directions, we crossed the river and made our way along the base of a mountain, heading North.

The truck driver had told us that we would reach some dilapidated houses, and then make the first right.  Shortly after the houses we came to a fork in the road; the left road having been taken out by a landslide, we were happy to turn right.  After a mile the road started to disappear underneath grass, while the edge of the road had largely flaked off into the river.  We came across a man with a machete and a severe case of wookie eye, and we asked him for directions.  It turned out that when the truck driver had said “turn right”, he actually meant “turn left”.  It was our first inclination that he hadn’t actually driven his secret road before.

After retracing our tracks to the fork in the road, we stared disbelievingly at the path ahead.  A landslide had wiped out the road, but it looked like a tractor had driven across it and cleared the way.  It was going to be a long day.  We reluctantly followed the tracks through the slide, after which the road turned upward and began snaking up the side of the mountain.

Before long, the road became narrow and rocky.  The several days leading up to this had been on roads that could accommodate two vehicles side by side.  The truck driver’s secret road was a single lane, and based on its condition it clearly hadn’t been often used.  We gradually crept up one steep incline after another, interspersed with water crossings, landslides, ruts, and rock gardens.

After one water crossing, the road pitched steeply upward over a series of rocks and ruts.  It seemed we wouldn’t make the climb unless we carried some momentum into the rocks, and if we were unable to make it, we’d have to backtrack several hours and find a different route.  We had to make it.

We stopped to inspect the water crossing, and then backed up and took a run for it.  We made it through the water, and then bounced into the uphill rocky section.  After a couple of hard bumps our front wheels both came completely off the ground, throwing Nacho into a totally gnarly wheelie.  We came down, and the recoil from the shocks caused us to bounce into the air again.  It was totally gnarly, again.  When we stopped bouncing we had lost much of our speed, and barely made it past the rocks and onto a less severe incline.  And we wonder why poor Nacho keeps breaking down.

After three hours and as many mountain summits on the truck driver’s secret road, Sheena became nervous and started reading an e-book.  This is her way of hiding from the reality of the nerve-wracking roads we encounter.  Shortly thereafter, we approached a vertical rock crevasse in the side of the mountain, having sheer rock cliffs to either side.  The road seemed to dive straight into the crack of the rocks, but I couldn’t discern an exit.  We crept closer, but I couldn’t figure it out.  As we reached the crevasse, I was shocked to see the road make a tight switchback inside of the crack, and then cut back abruptly against the opposing rock wall.

As we rounded the chicane, I could see that the cliff-hugging road had a rock wall on one side, and a sheer drop on the other.  The road was the width of one vehicle, was strewn with rocks, and was bloody steep.  I gunned it and Nacho raced forward like an injured turtle.  As we bounced over the rocks I looked over the edge – only a couple of feet to my left out the open window.  The height was dizzying and I felt nauseous.  I stole a glance at Sheena, but she was oblivious to the situation, engulfed in her coming of age princess novel.  Or whatever it is that women read on their e-readers.

By lunch time we emerged at the intersection of a slightly larger dirt road, only a few miles from Covarachia.  We had cheated death and the VW mechanical gods once more.  We parked Nacho in the road and ate some cereal out of plastic cups while we gazed into the valley below.  Perched on the side of the road was a statue of a saint, where passersby could stop and make an offering for their safe passage.  I poured out the remnants of my cereal milk at its base and got back in the van.

Finally after half a day of driving, we emerged at the tiny mountain town of Covarachia, not having seen a single other vehicle since daybreak.  From Covarachia the terrain became more desert-like, the road being lined with agave and prickly pear cactus, mixed with tall green grass and bamboo.  We switchbacked down the side of the mountain to the town of Tipacoque, where we intersected a larger road running along the side of Chicamocha canyon.

After reaching Soata we took directions from a mute man aided by his toddler grandson, filled our gas tank, and headed Eastward, through canyons, winding roads, mountains, and more winding roads inching ever closer to our destination.

As the sun sunk low in the sky, after four solid days of brutal, twisting, slow, yet stunningly beautiful driving, we arrived in the pueblo of El Cocuy – the gateway to Colombia’s Sierra Nevada mountains and final outpost before our destination: Parque Nacional Natural El Cocuy.  We found the Hotel Via Real, and inside, our friends James and Lauren who had arrived a day earlier from a different direction.

Before leaving Onzaga, we had told James and Lauren to watch our SPOT Tracker map, as we would be updating our location every 10 minutes throughout the day.  This would allow them to keep tabs on us and know when to expect us.  If the tracker sent repeated updates from the bottom of a ravine, they were to alert the proper rescue authorities.

“So…you chose an interesting route from Onzaga,” James said as he welcomed us into their hotel room.  He had watched as we had driven away from all of the possible routes on the map, and instead drove over an entire mountain range through an unmapped no-man’s land.

“Damn truck driver never drove that stupid road in his life.  Last time I take driving advice from someone whose name isn’t Garmin.”

We grabbed a room – an unremarkable  plywood cube with a rock hard bed – and refueled in the downstairs restaurant.  In the morning we would make the final Oxygen-starved push into the heart of the mountains.

When the sun came up, we loaded our trusty steeds, stocked up on empanadas for the car and non-perishables for the days of hiking that lay ahead.  We checked in with the park ranger and pointed upward and to the East.  Destination: Home on the Nacho Basecamp, elevation 13,000 feet.

After close to 30 hours of driving through mountains over the course of the previous four days, the hour and a half drive from El Cocuy to our first camp seemed to fly by.  We threaded through the mountains, winding past Swiss-looking backdrops of green mountain pastures and high peaks.

Finally, only a few dozen meters from the top of the final pass, Nacho stalled out.  The 12,800 foot elevation, in combination with a tricky rock climb and Nacho’s hamster-wheel engine proved too much.  James and Lauren towed us up the last incline to the summit like a high altitude porter and his unfit mountain climbing client.  At the pass, we stopped to take it all in.

A short distance from the road, we came across the foundation of the old park ranger’s cabin.  Although details of the story are hard to come by, I had gathered that El Cocuy was used as a base by FARC rebels and other paramilitaries due to its remoteness and natural defenses.  They had occupied the area since the 1970′s, forcing the boys in the surrounding villages to join them, and executing those who wouldn’t.  In 1999, FARC rebels forced their way into the ranger’s cabin, killed him, and set his house on fire.  After some time, President Uribe’s government sent in 20,000 troops to secure the region.  A bloody but short battle ensued, and in 2003 the park was finally cleared of rebels and considered safe to visit.  It hasn’t yet been “discovered” by adventure tourism – likely due to the difficulty in getting here.

After catching our breath we put away the tow strap and coasted the last half mile to our camp site; we had driven as far as it is possible to drive into the Sierra Nevada.  After pulling up to the edge of the ravine above a glacial stream, we popped our tent, extended the awning, thanked Nacho for his hard work, and cracked open celebratory brews all around.  We made it.

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