The Sawtooth

From the first time I climbed Mount Bierstadt and looked down on the Sawtooth ridge leading over to Mount Evans, I knew I had to climb it.  Maybe it's because there's an inherent risk involved (a woman was killed earlier this summer climbing the same route), or it's the challenge to be overcome, or just so I can say that I did it.  My friend Brian had already done the double-peak Bierstadt to Evans route, so I convinced him to come with me.  It was only once we reached the top of Bierstadt that he casually informed me that it was 20 years ago, and that he wasn't quite sure of the route.  But for Brian that's all part of the adventure and the challenge.  If you know everything about where you're going, then what's left to figure out?  The whole route took us eight hours, and it was an absolute trip for me.  One quick story:  we were taking a break about halfway along the Sawtooth when a small fixed-wing plane flew up the valley in front of us about 2000 feet up, and disappeared over the ridge behind us.  I figured it was some tourists who wanted to see the mountains.  About five minutes later I nearly pooped my pants when the same plane came roaring back over the ridge above us - only this time it was only 50 feet above the rocks.  The pilot dove straight for the floor of the valley, and Brian and I watched in sheer horror thinking he was on a suicide mission and was going to plow straight into the lake at the bottom.  At the very last second - and I mean LAST second - he pulled up and dropped something into the lake, then regained altitude and flew back down the valley.  Only then did we realize what he was doing; he was stocking the high altitude lake with fish!  Wow!  What a trip!  I would have given anything to have been in the passenger seat for that thrill ride!  I probably WOULD have pooped my pants, but it would have been totally worth it.  Hmmm - I think I'll give the Colorado division of wildlife and fisheries a call...

Anyway, here is the photographic and video tour of our (at times) hair-raising climb.

Our goal at sunrise - the Sawtooth ridge between Mt Bierstadt & Mt Evans

Sunrise behind us as we climbed up Bierstadt

Me, at the summit of Bierstadt - complete with sunscreen smeared on my face

Brian at the summit, enjoying his frozen burrito (??)

A Ptarmigan - nearly perfect camouflage

This is the route we followed, more or less.  This was taken from the summit of Bierstadt

A Window to the world halfway across the Sawtooth

I was freaking out at this point, and Brian kept saying - "focus on the right side!"

The route we climbed, starting at the summit of Mt Bierstadt

The last, scary section of the climb to reach the plateau on top.

Mountain goats on the way down from Mt Evans

How to build a church

The article below was published in the local newspaper The Flume on Friday morning this past week.  News travels fast in a small community like Bailey, and our plans to re-open the country store is big news.  Below is an excerpt from the front page article:

 

Posted: Friday, August 31, 2012 2:27 pm

Debra Orecchio, Correspondent | 

The Journey Community Church has leased the Bailey Country Store building at 149 Main St. in Bailey and plans to open a general store and small coffee shop as soon as some renovations are completed. Jim Myers, senior pastor for the Bailey campus of the Conifer-based church, said there will also be a small food bank that will operate out of the building and some offices upstairs, but there are no plans to hold any church services in the building. The Bailey campus consists of just a small group of about 20 to 25 people in Bailey, said Myers, and they will be working as the launch team getting the store ready. The Bailey campus is an extension of the church that meets in Conifer, he said. The congregation in Conifer is made up of around 800 members.  Myers could not give a date of when the store and coffee shop will be open.  “We’re still figuring out what needs to be done,” he said.
All the work will be done by volunteers. There will need to be some painting done as well as some work on the floor and rebuilding the sign; those are just some of the main things that will need to be done before the store can open. There are other smaller projects that can be done over time, he said, but they don’t have to be done in order to open.
He declined to give the details of the lease agreement.
Lynn Griffin, who owns the building with her husband, Dennis Griffin ... purchased the building in August 2010; it was vacant when they purchased it, she said. She did not know how long it had been vacant prior to that.  According to the Nov. 26, 2010, Flume, Denver-based American National Bank began foreclosure proceedings on the building in late 2008. At that time, the building was 130 years old, and it was owned by Eric and Barbara Keto, who bought the building in 2005. It housed the Bailey Country Store, which was operated by Eric Keto...  They were hoping that someone would come in and put a grocery store back in the building, said Lynne Griffin earlier this week. Their goal was to bring businesses back to Bailey, to give people places to have jobs and grow the community.
“I just think they’re a really hard-working group of people,” Griffin said. “We’re happy to have them as a tenant.”
Employees in the store will be volunteers, said Myers. Profits from the store will be used for expanding the church ministry as well as helping the community.
Myers said his heart is in Bailey because it was where he and his wife, Daphne Myers, first moved when they came to Colorado three years ago.
“The store and the coffee shop [are] a way of getting to be part of this town,” he said.
He wants the store to be somewhere that people will be able to grab the things they need and not have to go down the hill to metro Denver. He also wants it to be a place where the youth in Bailey will have a place to hang out.
“We love Bailey and can’t wait to get this up and running,” Myers said. “The sooner the better.”
He’s excited about all the buzz in the community about the store starting up again.

Sasquatch Outpost

The work on renovating and re-creating the Bailey Country Store has begun!  We spent most of the last two days removing the garbage and junk left by previous tenants so we can gain a better idea of what needs to be done.  Yesterday Steve and I started investigating the state of the floor in the store more thoroughly, and we decided that we had to climb down into the 2-foot crawlspace under the floor to look at the floor joists from underneath.  Steve couldn't fit through the trap-door opening, so guess who had to crawl down into that dark, dank, 130-year-old space?  I had previously set off about five bug bombs under the floor, knowing that "someone" would have to go down there.  The fact that we killed an enormous black widow spider on the front of the building the day before was no comfort to me at all.  But hey, the Just Shall Live By Faith, right?  So down I went.  I couldn't squeeze more than a few yards in any direction, but the thought occurred to me while I was down there that I should have brought a metal detector with me; who knows what cool stuff might be hiding in that dirt?  Anyway, there was no way to see the problem from underneath, so we attacked it from above.  We picked a particularly bad spot in the middle of the store, and we went through two layers of linoleum, a layer of plywood, a layer of tiles, then some kind of concrete before we finally reached the original hardwood flooring.  It is all full of moisture (oh boy, more work!), and we will clearly have to rip up the entire floor and rebuild it on top of the existing joists.  The problem is that we have seven fridge/freezers to move - some of which date from the 1950's and weigh upwards of a ton.  This should be interesting.  As we were working we must have had a dozen people stop by the ask what we're doing, and one woman volunteered to come and help us with our work-day on Saturday.  That's exactly what we are hoping for... curiosity that will lead to community involvement.

No Way

Last Wednesday evening we held our first "official" church service in the upstairs apartment of the Country Store.  I was expecting more than our usual 15, but to my surprise 29 people showed up - four of whom have not been to any church in years.  After the meeting one of them - a guy in his early 30's - came up to me and said that he's decided to leave Bailey and start his life over.  I found out later from a mutual friend that he's been through a hellish time the past few weeks.  Anyway, he asked if we might have any use for some tools he needs to get rid of, like a table saw and a few other power tools.  I told him that we could certainly make use of anything that he is willing to donate.  He called me yesterday morning to see when we would be at the store, because he was bringing a trailer-load of stuff (??) to drop off.  When he arrived an hour later my jaw literally dropped: he'd FILLED a 15 foot trailer with power tools and equipment, all of which he wanted to donate to help us renovate the country store.  I was honestly speechless as he carried a table saw, a drill press, a band saw, drills, nail guns, planers... I don't even know what all he gave.  I then remembered that Michael had given me a box of his books to give away, so I grabbed a signed copy and handed it to him - explaining that it's the story of how our church came to be.    "Well, I'm not much of a Christian, " he said.  "That's fine," I replied, "I think you'll enjoy reading it anyway."   "Well,"  he continued, "I'm actually an athiest".  Say what?  Something dramatic had apparently taken place in his heart the previous night at our meeting.  And here's the best part:  he called me about an hour later and said that he only wanted one thing in exchange for all that he'd given to our church.  "You name it" I replied.  He said that he's moving to Florida to get training to become a commercial pilot, and all he wanted from us was that we pray that he makes it.  Wow - God never ceases to amaze me!  I challenge our fledgling church to believe God for miracles...  and the next day an ATHIEST donates every tool we could possibly need, and only wants prayer in return.  Booyah!

The Just Shall Live By Faith

Here We Go!

Last Thursday I met with the owners of the historic Bailey Country Store to negotiate an agreement to lease the building.  I went to the meeting wearing my guns on the outside (figuratively speaking, of course) because I didn't know them, nor could I predict how difficult the meeting might become.  Within the first five minutes I realized once again that God has been behind this project from the get go, because the owners are both strong Christians who are very excited about the Journey Church being the new occupants of the store.  We sealed the deal within 30 minutes, and spent the next hour-and-a-half talking about the Lord, and what He's doing in Bailey, and how this project could help to revitalize the whole town.  It was an amazing conversation, and God's handwriting is everywhere we look.  Since reaching a verbal agreement on the Country Store, I've been busy connecting with local business owners to begin building a friendship and to tell them about our plans to re-open the grocery store.  Across the board their enthusiasm is contagious.

Bailey Bigfoot
On a side note, near the end of our conversation the wife mentioned (I don't remember why, actually) that Bailey has gotten some media attention recently due to several significant sightings of Bigfoot - yes, I said it - Bigfoot.  At the end of May two women were out walking in the forest on the outskirts of town at dusk, and a cracking branch drew their attention to one side.  They both watched in disbelief as an enormous, hairy (somewhere around 7 ft tall)  bi-pedal figure ran down the hillside about 100 yds from them at superhuman speed, and disappeared into the trees.  They could both clearly see it, and they can even describe the color of the hair.  I am planning to meet one of the women later this week to hear her story for myself, but when Lynn shared this with me last week I laughed out-loud; God really has a sense of humor, knowing that I am an avid Bigfoot enthusiast too.  I'd been trying to figure out what we could do to to make out coffee shop unique - something that would draw people into the store - and now I think I have it.  I spent last night with my brother John in Breckenridge, and this morning we played around with Photoshop and came up with the idea below.  I think it's hilarious, but that's just me.  We'll see if our launch team will buy it!

Mount Sherman & Bailey Church update

Jim and Duke at the summit of Mount Sherman

A solitary mine shaft on the climb up

It's always encouraging to see how far you've come!

  

On Monday I climbed Mount Sherman with a
 new friend named Richard.  I chose Sherman because it's fairly close to Conifer (a little over an hour's drive) and is supposedly one of the easier peaks to climb.  I chose Richard as my companion because he's retired and has the time, and because he's climbed over 70 14ers and 13ers.  We headed out at 5 am because I wanted to pick up a load of firewood down in Denver that afternoon (hardwood. Burns MUCH longer than pinewood, so I mix the two together).  We got to the parking point at around 6:30 and headed up.  The day was overcast and cool.  Richard has had skin cancer in the past, so I was grateful for his sake that we weren't going to be exposed to the sun on this hike.  We made it up and back by 9:30 - a fact which amazed me, since I felt like I was stopping every 30 feet to catch my breath.  As we climbed the ridge to the summit we could see the dark clouds of an approaching storm to the east, and while I wasn't too worried for myself since I carry rain gear, I was concerned for Duke.   The temperature dropped consistently as we climbed, and when you added the windchill it was probably in the upper 30's by the time we reached the top.  Getting soaked by rain at that temperature could easily give Duke hypothermia, so I was watching the storm closely as we climbed.  Richard felt like we had plenty of time, and I trusted his experience and judgment.  As it turned out, it started to rain when we were 3/4 of the way down.  Others we'd passed on the way down were way up near the summit by that time, and it must have been absolutely freezing.  It was a great morning, and another fourteener (my second) I can add to my short list of accomplishments.

Duke, the intrepid climber

Bailey Church Update

Full Steam Ahead for the launch of the Bailey Campus of the Journey Church.  Daphne and I will meet again tonight with our launch team, which has now grown to almost 20 people.  I am hoping and praying that I'll have some good news to share with them this evening. 

For the past couple of weeks we've been in negotiations with the current owner  of

Rusted boiler that ran the steam engines for the mine

the Bailey Country Store - an historic building that dates back to 1878 - so it was one of the original buildings in the town of Bailey.  The store has been closed for three years, leaving no other grocery store in town.  It is in deplorable condition and in desperate need of a serious facelift, but my heart is to make use of the manpower army we have at the Journey Church to help us with the labor - a new roof, a new floor, a new paint job.  This building is a Bailey icon, and it would be a perfect way for our church to help revitalize the small downtown area of Bailey.  I also feel strongly that our launch team needs to see that our God is great, that He still answers prayer, and that we can trust Him for great things.  Renovating the Country Store would give us a project that we can all sink our hands and hearts into - just like Nehemiah rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem.  The Jewish people at that time desperately needed something and someone to give them hope and to help restore their sense of dignity and self-confidence.  My sense is that re-opening the Bailey Country Store would do the same for this community. 

It's in God's hands now.

Bailey Launch

 Well, Journey Church isn't exactly moving to Bailey, but we ARE going to launch a new satellite church there.  This expansion has been in the works for years, but we're finally ready to take the plunge.  God has already prompted six couples to be a part of this new church plant, and others are seriously considering it.  Daphne and I are leading the move into Bailey, which is a small mountain town about 30 miles Southwest of the Denver suburbs.  Bailey is often called the poor, redneck cousin of Conifer and Evergreen, the two other towns in our part of the front range.  This is an unfair depiction of the good people of Bailey, but there's no doubt that, economically-speaking, Bailey is sucking wind and has been for years.  Only a few viable businesses remain in "downtown" Bailey, and most  residents drive North to Conifer and Denver for groceries and entertainment.  What Bailey DOES have, however, is a real sense of community - and that's what we want to tap into.  What we need is some kind of community "anchor",  a 7-day-a-week venue that will give us proximity to the people of Bailey - particularly those who would not darken the door of any church. We need a place that will provide a real service to the people of Bailey, and that could potentially help revitalize this small, struggling town.

On that note, there's an historic building in Bailey (that shall for the moment remain secret) that has been vacant for years and that's in desperate need of serious elbow grease and love - kind of like the town of Bailey.  It's the perfect location for us to create a small business that could potentially draw people even from the neighboring towns.  We've entered into negotiations with the owner to lease the property, but this will require a miracle from God as we have almost no money to work with, and we've made him an offer that he can absolutely refuse.  But I see the tracing of God's finger in so many ways already that I believe He will provide us with the place that we need - whether this building or something else. Bailey doesn't need another church building, but maybe we can help this little mountain community, and somewhere along the way spread the love and hope that we've found in Jesus. 

As the Chronicles of Narnia say, "Aslan is on the move".

Stay tuned...

Sas-squash wars

I am a believer in Bigfoot.  Call me crazy or eccentric, but I believe they exist.  There is simply too much physical evidence and eyewitness sightings to conclude otherwise.  My friends and teammates rib me to no end regarding my unorthodox Bigfoot "religion".  We went camping last week, and my stated intention (tongue in cheek) was to bring back "definitive proof" that Bigfoot exists.  Well, due to the torrential downpours every evening, my Sasquatch adventures were dampened.  When I returned I received an email from my friend Phil, and the ensuing email exchange is funny enough to include here in my blog.  The original picture that Phil doctored was of me kneeling next to my bear after I'd shot it.



Hey Papa Jim,

I heard your camping trip was a success!!!  Congratulations on gaining 100% proof that SashSquash exists!  I plan on continuing your field research this weekend out at Taylor Park!



Tractor on,
Phil

Phil, you must have somehow gotten  hold of a fake photo.  What you sent is clearly doctored and photo-shopped.  I am herewith sending the CORRECT, GENUINE photograph for your viewing pleasure.  It was a little hard to shoot the big guy, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Jim

Papa Jim,

Sorry for the confusion .. I retrieved the actual image from Soviet Satellite Archives ...
I'm headed out to Taylor Park (West of Buena Vista) for some field research myself this weekend .. I'll keep you abreast of any significant findings.

Tractor on,
Milky

Of Moose and Men

I went fishing a couple of days ago with my friends Scott and Dave.  I wanted to try a lake that I'd seen at the base of Mount Bierstadt when our group had climbed the mountain a couple of weeks ago.  We left later in the afternoon, so by the time we arrived it was already around 5 pm.  The setting is totally breathtaking.  The lake - really a large pond - is at 11, 500 ft, so it's above the tree line.  We got our gear together and hiked down to the pond.  When we got there we realized that it is actually a marsh, and there's no solid ground within 10 yards of the edge of the pond.  I had my waders on, so I squooshed my way in to where I could try a few casts while Scott and Dave walked around to the other side to see if there was any firmer footing.  As I trudged through the muck I would occasionally sink up to my thighs, and I was instantly grateful that I was not alone in case I got in deeper than I could get out.  I fished for 15 or 20 minutes, but there was absolutely no sign of any life in the pond.  The two guys had given up by this  time and were sitting on a knoll on the other side of the pond, so I squooshed my way over to them.  I had seen several smaller ponds from up on the mountain, so we decided to take a walk and investigate them for signs of life.  Again, no fish.  When I stepped into one of the smaller ponds I realized that the clear water we could see through was only the top 10 inches, and below that was 3 feet of muck... so it would be impossible for any fish to live there.  Around 7 pm we started our hike back to the car, and along the way we passed the larger pond - and to our amazement there was now an enormous bull moose standing in the water, feeding on the weeds on the bottom of the pond.  I don't know where he came from because we certainly hadn't seen him, and he would have been hard to miss!  I only had my iphone with me, but I took this video anyway.  It's blurry, but you can see the size of his rack pretty clearly.  So, we didn't catch any fish, but we got to see the biggest bull moose any of us had ever seen.  It was all worth it.

The world we live in

Massacre.  Mayhem. Confusing motives. Gun control.  Role-Playing.

Colorado's reputation as being the Mass-Shooting state is now carved in stone with this latest, tragic event in Aurora.  And this one hits closer to home; the son of dear friends in our church lost his best friend in the rampage.  It was his birthday, and he'd been married for only one year.

The mystery behind what might have motivated James Holmes continues to deepen.  A Ph.D student in neuroscience, no prior arrests, described as shy and retiring.  Raised in an upper middle-class home in California (why is it that mass-murderers are always young, white men from privileged backgrounds?).  Quiet.  Unassuming.  And yet his mother's first words when she heard of the massacre and the arrest of a suspect said to ABC news: "You have the right person," she said, apparently speaking on gut instinct. "I need to call the police... I need to fly out to Colorado."  Clad in sophisticated body armor (literally) from head to toe, wearing a gas mask, his hair dyed bright red, and identifying himself to police as the "Joker".   This story is far from over, and the more we learn as investigators search through the evidence, the more bizarre the details are likely to become.  Was he involved in mind-altering research?  Was he put up to this by other, currently unknown, parties? Opponents of current gun laws are already using this incident as one more "proof" of the need for stricter legislation in the purchase and use of firearms, particularly assault weapons such as the rifle that was used in the theater rampage.

I have legal permit to carry a concealed weapon.  I've taken several gun safety and marksmanship courses, but I am far from being an expert.  I am also an avid big-game hunter with a bear-skin rug to prove it, but shooting an animal is a universe away from pointing a weapon at a human being and pulling the trigger.  If I had been in the movie theater last Friday night, would I have had the intestinal fortitude to use my gun to at least attempt to halt the carnage?  I wouldn't be surprised if at least one person in the theater that night was packing, but there have been no reports of anyone returning fire.  None of us really know what we would be capable of until we find ourselves in the same situation.

 I will always remember what the instructor told us in one of the handgun courses I attended: "If you ever pull your weapon, it had better be for something you're willing to go to jail for, or to die for."

Mount Bierstadt

 

The boulder ridge from below

Sawtooth Ridge

Sunrise on the trail

Yesterday Daphne and I, along with six of our teammates, climbed Mount Bierstadt - considered one of the easier summits among Colorado's 53-some Fourteeners.  We left our house around 4:30 and reached the trailhead around 5:45.  There were already a dozen cars in the parking lot, so clearly there are some pretty intense climbers who start long before dawn.  It's possible to climb both Mt Bierstadt and Mt Evans in one day, but that involves a difficult - even treacherous - climb across the sawtooth ridge that joins the two peaks.  Apparently a woman fell to her death from the sawtooth last year, so it's not a climb to be attempted by novices.  Not long after we left the parking lot and starting down through the willows, I just happened to look back to my right and saw a large animal standing in a clearing about 100 yards away.  It was a young bull moose munching on the willow bushes.  As we stood there watching him, I realized upon closer inspection there were two other, larger bulls lying down with just their antlers visible above the bushes.  Pretty cool. Adam, who grew up in Colorado and who's climbed at least 20 Fourteeners, had never actually seen a moose in the wild.  I kick myself now for the decision not to bring my Nikon camera.  Next time.


We hiked down through a maze of willows, across a small creek, and then started the ascent.  I decided about 2/3 of the way to the summit that "easy" in Coloradan mountain-climbing lingo actually means "you probably won't kill yourself".  The trail-head starts at 11,600 ft and you climb to 14,060 - so around 2500 vertical feet.  I decided to take Duke along with us for the day because he loves to go on hikes.  After being pulled up the mountain and then pulled down, I've decided that Duke needs some remedial obedience training.  His energy level is unbelievable, and he could have turned around at the bottom and done the whole mountain again.  Course, he would have done it by himself because I was absolutely hammered by the time we got back.  The Bierstadt trail is only 7 miles round-trip, but the last 1/4 mile and 500 vertical feet is all boulders.  Standing at the bottom of that part and looking up at the summit you say to yourself, "You know,  I could be happy just to enjoy this from afar".  But of course, you drag yourself up that last stretch to the top.  It would be a real shame to get that far and not reach the summit.  The climb down was considerably easier, though I was really feeling it in my 50 year-old knees by the time we reached the bottom.  At one point Daphne and I stopped to wait for some of our teammates to catch up.  Duke and I found some shade under a tree that was partially hidden from the path.  About 5 minutes later a man came walking down the path and Duke, true to form, came up out of the bushes to saw hi.  I thought that guy was going to jump out of his skin!  Duke is the same color as a mountain lion, and for a split second he thought he was being attacked.  I tried not to laugh as I apologized for Duke's over enthusiasm, but it was really funny.

Jim and Duke at the summit

With a good night's rest and only some lingering soreness in my legs, I've caught the bug and I'm already planning my next Fourteener excursion.  I'll take my camera next time!