Sweet Salida and Yams on Yale

Summit View, Mt. Yale - July 5, 2024

Heading up!!

Mt. Yale Summit

We arrive in Salida just in time to catch the afternoon parade. It is 4th of July and my daughter Charlotte and I are in Salida to see a friend’s band. We find a shady spot and watch the lady pioneers walk by with Abe Lincoln, and a couple of politicians waving from their big bedazzled SUVs. Next are several sequined young women on horses followed by a crew of young boys armed with horse-sized pooper-scoopers. An old green tractor rolls slowly by, with an even older fellow hunching over the steering wheel - and that’s it. Ten minutes of parading and we are back in business. 

I’d spent a little time in Salida over the years, but it’s a favorite for Charlotte since she went to FIBArk Whitewater Festival several weeks ago. (FIBArk = First In Boat on the Arkansas River.) The aptly named Riverside Park, right alongside the Arkansas, is a great place to spend a holiday. Families loll on the grass, local bands play at the bandshell, and there is a crowd of young, old and in-between dancing away to the groovy tunes. I haven’t danced with Charlotte since she was a young girl; twirling around today with her is dreamy and I feel like the luckiest person alive.

We meet up with our friends to watch the band we came to see: Patrice Pike and the Black Box Rebellion. Patrice makes the annual trip to Salida to perform on the 4th because that is her aunt’s birthday. This year her aunt is celebrating 82, and she in her heart-shaped sunglasses, along with her crowd of friends, are lighting up the dance floor. Charlotte and I join them, and this crowd too is filled with all ages having a good time.

At sundown we make tracks to our campsite, on the river a few minutes south of town. This is the first night for Charlotte’s brand-new backpacking tent and I’m honored to be invited in. She leaves the fly off since we’re not expecting rain. The roof is mesh, and we fall asleep gazing at the stars and listening to the soft flow of the river.

We break camp at 4:00 am and drive to the trailhead a few miles west of Buena Vista. By 5:45 we are hoofing it up the trail, and it is cold. Even with my down jacket and the blistering pace Charlotte is setting.

Last September we climbed our first 14er (read about it here), Mt. Sherman, which is considered “easy.” I figured Yale wouldn’t be that much more difficult. I was wrong. Sherman is just over 2000 feet of elevation gain with a round trip of roughly five miles. Yale is over 4000 feet of elevation gain, in a round trip of about ten miles. It doesn’t take a PhD in math to understand that there is a significant difference here. 1x Yale = 2x Sherman. Somehow I glossed over this basic equation.

Well above treeline but still a ways to the summit, I am not feeling great. My quads are quivering from the steep trail and stone step-ups, and my cardiovascular system is unhappy about being in the red for three hours. I pull off the trail for some fuel. 

Because my body has reactions to a lot of foods right now, I am loaded with items that work: rice and zucchini, salmon in a pouch, and YAMS - Japanese Sweet Potatoes to be specific. Mash some coconut oil into those babies, and yum-yum. The cold wind whips at my hood and face, but it is not getting my yam. After snarfing a few bites, I feel so much better, but Charlotte is still having to wait on me quite a bit. I keep reminding myself that she is 18 and super strong. I am 56 and definitely feeling my high mileage.

We reach the saddle with some excitement that we are almost there and some trepidation about this last push. The trail from the saddle to the summit is playfully called a rock scramble. Keep in mind we are towards the top of a 14,274- foot peak, and the exposure is real. This poses a slight challenge to persons like me with acrophobia, or fear of heights. Charlotte, who has overcome her own fears after a bad hiking fall last summer, leads the way. The cairns that mark the route are scarce, and she is a good trail finder. She also encourages me through several meltdowns.

Using both arms and legs to climb the solid rocks is grounding. It turns out that tunnel vision is my friend and I begin to ignore that freaky drop-off. Reaching the summit feels like a real accomplishment.

The Mt. Yale summit is a rather sobering experience. On Sherman, it felt like a party: people sharing food, dogs frolicking, everybody laughing and talking. Mt. Yale feels like a board meeting of serious pros. I am truly flabbergasted by the number of people running this mountain in their tiny shorts and knee-highs. There are plenty of friendly people and dogs along the trail, they just aren’t on the summit when we are.

After some quick pics we head back down, wanting to get out of the wind. The joy of surviving the summit is short-lived, as the descent starts to decimate what tiny bit of strength still remains in my suffering quads. Charlotte traipses along, snapping pictures of flowers to later identify and draw in her field journal, while I navigate the steps and large rocks in my own private hell.

After a couple of hours, even Charlotte is wondering why this descent is twice as long as the climb. As we clamber over the final log stairs just above the parking area, I am cursing the trail. We expected to be about six hours; our total time is seven hours and change. If she hadn’t patiently waited on me, Charlotte could probably have knocked an hour off our time.

​It was a grueling day and I feel old, tired, deconditioned, and embarrassed that I slowed us down so much. Then I take stock. My quads are quivering but my legs held up. My ribs are sore, but that is from dancing! I pushed through significant fear to make the summit. More importantly, I spent this day with Charlotte. Yesterday we danced at the river. Today we climbed a mountain. And I got to do all of this with my amazing daughter.

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At the summit!