Flashback: Climbing Maroon Bells Peak in Colorado (July 2010)

I have plenty of things to write about in the last few months, but since I already have these pictures uploaded, I thought I'd give you a brief post about Andris and I's little mountain adventure back in July.
If you've ever seen a photo calendar of Colorado, you've probably seen the peak we climbed (pictured above). We climbed the peak on the left (South Maroon Bells peak, or sometimes just "Maroon Peak," that appears slightly lower (but is actually slightly higher).

Andris flew in to Denver (thanks!) Wednesday night, and because we're getting older and wiser, we decided to NOT try to directly climb something really high and stupid on Thursday. We waited until Friday for that.  Last time we tried something similar, in 2005, Andris was also flying in from sea level (different coast then), and got himself a nice little case of altitude sickness.  This time we slept at 7,000 ft the first night, then about 9,000 ft the second night before attempting to summit Maroon Bells peak (14,156 ft) near Aspen.  The excellent route description we followed is available free at 14ers.org, and Andris even had it downloaded as a PDF on his phone. Hilarious.  As a disclaimer for this route, 14ers.org says:
"This route holds some dangerous terrain and plenty of tedious route finding. Attempt the route only if you are in good shape, have ample time, and a favorable weather forecast."  I agree on all counts.

Our drive-in forest service campground (Silver Bells, I think) was well located, pretty cheap, and had a great view.  We were up and off to the trailhead before 5 am, trying to get the alpine start everyone loves so much. We hiked in the dark the first hour or so, before seeing the first alpenglow on the peaks near Crater Lake. The hike was uneventful as it stayed on the trail, but after about 1.5 hours, we had to leave the proper trail, as the route from there out was pretty much just UP. Almost 3,000 feet up, up, up the "massive East slope" to the ridge. There was not much of a trail, and all the rocks were loose and occasionally knocked loose. We put on our climbing helmets (SAFETY FIRST!) for protection from loose rock.
Colorado was in the middle of a July high-pressure heat wave. It was over 100F down in Denver, and still quite toasty up in the mountains. There was not a cloud in the sky the entire day, and we were above treeline and exposed to the high mountain sun from about 7 am to 6 pm...we got a little fried.
Once we attained the ridge, the hard part of the climb began. There is not any trail at all up here, just a suggested route picking your way around the rock outcroppings, talus slopes, and occasionaly precipitous drop-offs.  There were about a half-dozen other climbers going our direction at about the same time, and given the narrow/sketchy nature of the climb, we kind of teamed up and took care of each other. A few times we saw some mountain goats flaunting their four legs and hooves, merrily scrambling up and over things we fretted cautiously over.
We successfully attained the summit (the view were amazing...up to 100 miles in some directions), and then, perhaps surprisingly, chose not to attempt the South Maroon Peak-North Maroon Peak traverse. I guess we are getting older and wiser. It would have meant another 14er to "bag", but I couldn't see how the view would be much different (only a few hundred meters away, and a little lower), traverse is considered sketchier than what we'd already done, and Andris was suffering a bit of mild altitude sickness. The mountain will be there next time.  Another day.

On the way down, the technical scrambling was just as hard, probably more so with tired legs. Descending the "massive East slope" was awful.  We could see where we were going for about 2 hours, but just had to pick our way slowly slowly slowly down, trying not to knock too many boulders down on each other off the steep unconsolidated slope. By the time we made it off the slope, we were thrilled to be on a semi-flat ground a real trail again. (See the picture of Andris hugging a tree at the bottom.)  We still had another 2+ hours of hiking left, but it was uneventful trail walking. It was a long day: 15+ hours of hiking, 12 miles roundtrip, 4,800 ft of elevation gain. It was also a fabulous day in the wilderness.  Thanks Andris, and thanks Colorado. See you next time!

My Flickr Slideshow is posted below. You can view it small embedded below, or (recommended) full-screen by clicking the button on the lower-right of the slideshow embedded image, the one that looks like four arrows pointing out to each corner.  From this full-screen view, you can change the speed of the slideshow, and also toggle descriptions ("show info") on/off with the buttons on the upper right.

The kids are alright.

Teaching is hard. Often times you end up in an adversarial relationship with students, or they fall asleep in your class, or they give you a hard time about grades. It's easy to start seeing them as your opponents, or as a mass of 140+ vessels to pour knowledge into. That's why it's important to occasionally have days like today.

Shannon was the lead organizer for our school's participation in a Bulgaria-wide volunteer day, sponsored in part by the American Chamber of Commerce in Bulgaria ("AmCham"). She decided our school would contribute by joining a clean-up in Vitosha Nature Park, on the big lovely mountain near Sofia. Shannon recruited over 70 teachers and students to give up their Saturday to go pick up trash in the woods. Almost half the group came associated with the hiking club, which I advise.  Thankfully the weather was just stupendous for late October: not a cloud in the sky, crisp air (temps in the high 40s F), and painfully pretty fall colors all over the mountain (boy, since I'd lived out West so long, I didn't realize how much I'd missed living in a deciduous forest!).  This weather was extra welcome as it was probably only the 3rd or 4th sunny day the entire month -- we've had a lot of cold rainy gloom.

We spent 4 hours wandering around in the woods, breaking up illegal fire rings, picking up beer bottles, plastic bags, broken glass, random scrap metal, bits of old high-voltage electrical wiring (!), some condoms, old nasty toilet paper, soda cans, chip bags, the whole bit.  Because of all the leaves fallen in autumn, we had to kick the leaves around on the ground to uncover such finds. We had 60 kids hiking to pick up trash, for fun! The only real complaint for the day from most of them was that the places we were sent didn't have enough trash for them to pick up.It was great. The kids were having a grand old time wandering through the woods, searching for "buried treasure."
After teaching in litigation-happy California, I got used to trying to keep a close-eye on students, making sure things were in control. I had to be in less control here, partly because my poor Bulgarian skills mean I had to ask kids to interpret directions or signs, but also because the students here are just a lot more independent. Sometimes a few kids would wander off out of sight as they picked up trash, and I'd get a little nervous, then they happily come bouncing back 10 minutes with a few more items in their trash bags. Trustworthy, reliable, and good-natured.

After the 4 hour trash pick-up, about half the hiking club kids wanted to stick around to go for an actual hike. We took a rickety old chair lift up to the top of the ridge, then spent 3 delightful hours hiking back down to civilization.  It was all-smiles, all-day. Happy kids, hiking in the woods. No one complained, just happy chatter on a lovely fall day.  It was nice to just talk to them, to play, to enjoy being outside together, breathing fresh air, crunching fallen leaves underfoot. I even snuck in a few ecology lessons, but only if they didn't mind the school talk. :)

As we neared the suburb of Simeonovo at the end of our hike (almost 9 hours after we first met), we came to a popular picnic area that was suffering the effects of being a popular picnic area. There was plenty of trash here, more that we'd seen in most of the areas of our trash-pick-up session.

"Mr. J, do you have any more of those trash bags left? Are there any more latex gloves?"

At the end of a long day, with absolutely no prompting, the students decided to stop and pick up more trash.
They hit that area hard for 20 minutes, until we had to push them to leave because it was getting dark. All the way down to the bus stop they picked up trash, which got a little overwhelming as we got more and more into the city. It was inspiring.

Yeah, the kids are alright.

"I've been smiling so much my jaw hurts."

Shannon likes to dance. A lot. Especially line dances and Balkan dances and things with steps (more so than random going-to-the-club dancing).  So she was very excited when the wonderful PE teacher and volunteer Balkan dance instructor Stoyan organized a dinner and dancing outing with the group of teachers, parents, friends, and community members that have been Balkan dancing with Stoyan. The restaurant при братовчеда (Pri Bratovcheda, or "The Cousins'") is located in an unlikely spot: the interchange between two of Sofia's largest streets, nearly _in_ the interchange. Step inside though, and the roar of traffic is replaced with the happy sound of people dancing and raising their glasses in celebration. There was live music appropriate to dance a variety of "horos" (the line dances that many Americans associate with Greek dancing, but is popular all over the Balkans). The tables are set with traditional festive table cloths and Bulgarian pottery, and the traditional Bulgarian food looked tasty (I only sampled the fried potatoes with cheese (пуржени картофи съц сирене), which I can whole-heartedly recommend.  The restaurant is not very big, so when the dances get going they wind in-and-out of all the tables, even outside the restaurant then back in another door.
I arrived 2+ hours later than Shannon, as I apparently needed a longer post-Open House nap than she did. When I arrived, she was all sweaty and smiley, telling my "I've been smiling so much my jaw hurts." Excellent.
Thanks Stoyan, for putting this together. This was a relatively rare chance to socialize with a broader mix of people (especially Bulgarian) than we usually get a chance to do, and it was just plain fun.
Below are two poor quality (but effective) videos I shot with my phone that give you a sense of the music, atmosphere, and dancing. Enjoy.

Video #1


Video #2

This is just a test...

It seemed like a nice day to go outside with the class.
It's a crisp, sunny day to ring in October, and we're studying ecology, so I set up a grid on the softball field and had my IB students start counting and comparing populations of different species of grass. It was not a particularly challenging activity, but reasonably interesting, applicable to the unit, and pleasant on a Friday afternoon. Then the air raid sirens went off.  
Our campus shares space with the National Police Academy, and we are lucky enough to have the LOUDSPEAKERS (and I do mean LOUD) they use for emergency signals for our part of town. I think there are only 5 or 6 of these LOUDSPEAKERS for the whole city of Sofia, so they're designed to project. And project they do. You can hear the announcement bouncing and echoing off the mountains several kilometers away.  There was a serious loud announcement of "this is only a test" (or something like it...my Bulgarian's not so good), then dead air, then SIRENS SIRENS SIRENS for a minute, then dead air.."Is this thing on? CLICK CLICK CLICK" [sounds like someone being shot]...SIRENS SIRENS SIRENS (but different this time..more like an alien invasion). All told, there were air raid sirens going off for 10 full minutes, at volumes where you really couldn't hear someone yelling at you 1 foot away. They're designed to be heard for several kilometers, and we were only about 50 meters from the speakers. It was plenty loud where we were. Luckily, this was an unannounced (at least to us) test, although I'm not sure what I would have done had I known. Below is a short video recorded while we were outside trying to count the flowers. Make sure your speakers are set to a normal volume to appropriately appreciate this Bulgarian moment.  Whee!