6. Red Feather and Fast Movin’ Storms

 7/31/20 - Red Feather and Fast Movin’ Storms

Mile: 1,278

“He’s gone Mason! He’s gone and we’ll never see him again!” Libby shouted through the thunder voice cracking telling me that there were tears being held back. My heart skipped a beat and it was as if her words brought the fear I was feeling to the surface for me. “He’s going to come back Lib!” I shouted back from outside the van. But I said it more for comfort than out of confidence. 

The fact was, we were camping in the middle of the hills up above Red Feather with no towns for miles in any direction, one other family camping up the ridge a few hundred yards but no other people for miles, and yes, Ben had run away. My brother and sister-in-law’s dog Ben is half border collie half black lab. He is the nicest dog to people but he was rescued and he comes with a few unique characteristics because of that. He’s not very friendly with other dogs and he will run like he had just been shot at, mindless and directionless, if he hears thunder. 

When Libby, Cora, and I arrived at the camp site, it was a little different than we had imagined it. Come to find out later that it was indeed roughly 3 miles from the actual campsite we had been advised to go to. So, there’s a reason that our campsite in a little draw on top of a mountain was different than “right on the river” like we had been told. But, it was getting into the afternoon and Cora need to eat so we said, “screw it, let’s camp here.” Plus Matt was joining us in 2-3 hours after his drive up after he got off work. So we didn’t want to deviate too far from the agreed upon meeting spot for fear that he may never find us.  So we pulled the stove out of the back of Pearl (my black beauty of a van) and Lib started cooking dinner. That girl can throw down in the kitchen! Or on a stove in the middle of the Colorado wilderness, and she did just that. We were eating like kings and queens. The clouds were wild in the sky and that made the sunset come alive looking huge and powerful. Powerful, I should have taken notice of just how “powerful” the clouds looked because they turned out to be just that. 

The speed in which storms can pop up and dissipate in the mountains is wild and it is something I have a new found respect for. Those powerful clouds in the background had friends that were much closer just over the ridge that we were camped beside. It was as if someone had flipped the switch to the lightning and thunder. Before we knew it there were dark clouds right overhead and the wind was taking off like a bull riding competition. One moment it would be still and the next a thirty mile per hour gust was careen through the draw taking anything lighter than five pounds and sending it off sprinting away down the hill. Cora hating the wind, began to let us know that she was not happy with the situation. So working fast I turned Pearl into a safe haven hotel for two while Libby got Cora ready for bed. Throwing the bedding in the back of the van while the rain started to come would have been comical if the wind wasn’t ripping through our campsite, if Cora was happy, if it wasn’t lightning, if I had already set up mine and Matt’s tent where we were going to be sleeping for the evening, and if Ben...”BEN!!!!” “BEN COME!!!!” I shouted at the top of my lunges hoping that he was under the van or somewhere close. “Where is he Mason?!” Libby shouted from the van. “I don’t see him.” I hollered back. I had started to put the tent up as the rain started to come down. “BEN!!!!” I knew that I had messed up. I was too focused on getting the van ready that I hadn’t thought about Ben for the last 15 minutes while it had been thundering and lightning, his worst nightmare. I knew I had lost him. I had lost my brother’s adventure partner. Here we are in the middle of nowhere where there are bears, mountain lions, packs of coyotes all waiting for a 45 lb dog to be lost in the mountains for a quick and easy dinner. I had lost him. I was hyper focused on Ben while my hands were putting up Matt’s car camping tent. It’s a great tent if the moon and stars are out. It’s a terrible tent if the wind is trying to take it into Kansas. So I dropped it, half set up and pulled out, I threw my mountain bike on it to make sure we would have it in the morning and pulled my 3 season MSR Hoop tent from it’s resting place. “Time to weather another good one my girl” I said as another boom of thunder hit. “BEN COM’ERE BOY!!!!” I tried almost hopelessly at this point. Libby cut straight to my core from inside the van, “He’s gone Mason! He’s gone and we’ll never see him again!” I knew that she was probably right that he had probably lost his mind with the thunder and that he had aimlessly sprinted off into the wild and would not know how to make his way back when he came to his right mind in 4-5 hours and miles away. But that would do no good to vocalize that. “He’s going to come back Libby!” I shouted as I ducked instinctively responding to another crash of thunder. “Tent, I must get the tent up before everything gets soaked” I thought. Since I have put that tent up in the dark countless times before it was instinctive and quick. But the ground was made of concrete and without stakes my shelter for the evening would be 400 yards down the hillside by the time I turned around if I couldn’t get the stakes in securely. And about the moment that I felt the 20 lb weight on my chest knowing that I would have to face my brother in a couple hours and tell him that he no longer has his adventure partner I saw a shadow of black bolting from the woods coming our way. “BEN!!! GOOD BOY!!! COM’ERE BOY!!” I cried out. “BEN?!” Libby hopefully asked from inside the van, “Yes! Here’s here! Good boy buddy! Good Boy! I put him in the front seat of the van and no longer cared about the wind, the lightning, the thunder, the rain, none of it. Everything was alright now. 

After the tent was fully staked down with rain fly and everything I jumped int he van to weather the rest of the storm. Matt arrived and an hour later I was sipping a cold one with my brother looking at a clear skies and stars. It’s truly amazing how fast storms can come and go in the mountains. Lesson learned. Set up for the storm before you do anything else. And don’t forget about Ben.

I think it will be a while before Libby and Cora camp again. 

Matt and I stayed the Saturday and Saturday night and went back home on Sunday. On Saturday I caught little cutthroat out of Sheep Creek and Matt went exploring. While exploring Matt came up one a massive bull moose and was close enough to him when he started running Matt heard the thundering of his hooves. On Sunday Matt and I explored up the canyon. Walking up the creek bed I fished along the way. A mountain top lunch and spooked some mule deer from their beds in thicket capped off the day. Only three miles of hiking but it sure felt like more since we rock hopped and bushwhacked the whole three miles of it. Can’t replace the adventures with ole Leeroy Jones (Matt).