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.

Zipperless, Cold, and Sad in the Balkans

Ok, maybe not so sad. But that was the subject line of an email I sent to Mountain Hardwear's Warranty division ("lifetime warranty!") when I told them how I now have not one but two broken jackets with non-functional zippers. What follows is a portion of the letter I wrote to their warranty division. At any rate, I thought you'd enjoy these photos. I posted them on Facebook as well, but maybe the wider world would like to appreciate the suckiness of Mountain Hardwear's zippers. Hopefully I'll soon be able to add a comment to this post about how awesome their customer service is, although so far all I've gotten is an auto-reply that their warranty division was short-staffed and not accepting emails right now.

Dear Mountain Hardwear,


I have been a loyal customer of yours for over ten years, and have convinced many of my friends that your products were worth the extra money due to their quality design and durability. Last summer I moved from Bozeman, Montana to Sofia, Bulgaria (I miss the Rockies, but the Balkans are interesting) to teach high school biology. It was a big move, and while I couldn’t take very much of my gear with me, most of my Mountain Hardwear items made the cut. I kind of looked like a Mountain Hardwear commercial when I would layer up with my SubZero Vest, Windstopper Tech Jacket, and a mountaineering shell you don’t make anymore. (I could have added my SubZero parka, but that would have been overkill!) A colleague of mine moved here from California and bought a whole line of new North Face attire to keep him warm, so of course I teased him about how he had chosen the inferior brand. That teasing didn’t last long.

Me, in happier times, in my fleece jacket. Oh, how I miss you, zipper.

Walking home from the grocery store one chilly October night, my jacket zipper got stuck. Not a big deal, except that it would not pull free. Even after I got home, I was trapped in my coat. You can see the ridiculous pictures below of my attempts to escape. My wife had to cut the zipper head off with pliers to free me! Had this happened on one of my more adventurous outings in the mountains, it could have been a real problem. As it was, now the only fleece I brought to Europe was broken, and backed by a lifetime guarantee that required spending big money for international postage. Worse than that, winter was on its way, and I didn’t want to wait several months for the jacket to make a round trip to the USA via mail. Frustrated, I decided to suck it up and try to muddle through until summer when I would return to the US for a few weeks.

Stuck in my Windstopper Tech Jacket. The pit zips came in handy for attempts at freedom, but ultimately, not handy enough.

Unsuccessfully trying to force the jacket over my giant head. I can't blame the jacket for my apparent mushroom head. As I couldn't really go to school like this, the only option left was to attack the jacket with pliers.

And then another zipper broke, on a different Mountain Hardwear jacket! This time it was my mountaineering shell. What are the odds of that? I was out skiing this time, but luckily it was a sunny day and I was close to home. If I had been in the backcountry or on a week-long trip, I would have been much more upset. My friend with the North Face gear is really starting to give me the hard time now -- at least all of his zippers work!

Check out the cool broken zipper. I now leave it half-way up to keep warm (the Velcro closures also don’t stay closed at all), making my nice mountaineering jacket a rather awkward pullover.

Showing off my two broken jackets next to a lovely map of Bulgaria.

I would try to take the jackets to a local tailor to try to repair the zippers, but they are technical jackets with expensive parts. There is a windstopper liner on one and gore-tex on the other, and I didn’t want them damaged any more than necessary.

So now it’s mid-winter in Bulgaria, and I’m now down two jackets due to zipper failure. If only I had some extreme story to explain how I broke my zippers…sadly I do not. I would like to go skiing, but I no longer have any reasonable gear to do so that doesn’t require safety pins to keep even a little of the snow and wind out. This is not really acceptable. I would like to continue to be a loyal Mountain Hardwear customer, so I hope your lifetime warranty will come to the rescue. Even though the jackets are in terrible shape right now, they still are all I’ve got, so I don’t really want to mail them away for months. Do you have any possible suggestions? Does your European office deal with issues like this (as I am living in Bulgaria), or should this go through the USA office (where I bought the items)?

Thank you in advance for any help you can offer.

Feel free to hang these photos around the office – I’m sure they’ll brighten someone’s day. I don’t really know how my head got to look like such a mushroom while trapped in your jacket, but that is indeed how it looked.

Sincerely (and coldly)

Jeff