Perfect Day
A failed rescue, horrible horrible (so horrible) sunburn, 14er summits, and a fat jerk from Arizona, sounds exciting right? Of course it does cause it was, duh. Joking aside, I woke up and nailed Mt. Belford and Mt. Oxford, two 14ers south of Leadville. The trail was great and the views were spectacular. Unlike the mountains just to the north, Belford and Oxford were not still covered in 6 feet of snow. I planned to head up the Missouri Creek trail and take the branch trail to the summit of Belford. From Belford I would drop my pack and hustle to Oxford. For my return I was going to drop down the backside of Belford and meet the Missouri Creek trail at the crest of Elkhart pass and take it back to the truck. I did all of that but I did most of it with an angry, belligerent man suffering from altitude sickness and severe dehydration.
Bomb Lunch
I first saw the man and his wife, who never introduced themselves I presume because they are jerks, on the summit of Belford (they were also in the background of my summit picture). I noticed he was stumbling a bit and I heard him say to his wife “lets take the loop (referring the Elkhart Pass route), I’m too light headed to go back down”. So I struck up a conversation asked him about his water and salt intake and he was not super forthcoming with the details so I said "meh" and left. I figured I wasn’t on the clock so I have no legal responsibility to help them. I said to my self if they were still there when I got back from Oxford I would attempt to help them down. I was in a time crunch trying to outrun the afternoon rain so I scarfed lunch, stashed my pack and grabbed my raincoat and headed across the ridge to Oxford.
RIGHT
FRIGGEN
THERE
Lo and behold about 2 hours later they were still there, and he wouldn’t stop talking.
-They had just arrived THAT DAY FROM PHOENIX
-He had “pounded” and gallon of water just before their hike
-They had no salty snacks
-They described them selves as “not athletic”
There you have it, a perfect recipe of jackassery, what will put you on top of a 14er at the mercy of the elements and strangers. I recommended that we head back down the main trail but take it nice and slow, while it was steeper it was snow free unlike Elkhart pass. Nope. His years of mountaineering experience lead him to insist that crossing snowfields (that had now been in direct sunlight for 5 hours) would be WAY easier than slowly walking down the trail. When I mentioned, “post holing for hours” I just got a blank look. I saw that the only way he was going to comply was if we took Elkhart Pass. And guess what we post holed for hours and it sucked. As we headed down the mountain he got more and more pissy. He and his wife were now out of water, she took some of mine but he refused. I have no idea why. I tried to insist and he started yelling about being fine. He kept stumbling and grabbing me for balance. I told him that, that was a good way for both of us to take a nasty fall, 10 minutes later we were both tumbling down the backside of Belford. We tumbled about 30 feet, I shoved him off of me and said “I tried to help you, now you got to help yourself, I’ll send a ranger back”, and I left. I tried to leave quickly because things were getting unpleasant; sadly I was post holing up to my groin. I bet it was a funny image to the people up on the mountain, me failing to run away as this guy yelled “a**hole!” and his wife joined in.
-They had just arrived THAT DAY FROM PHOENIX
-He had “pounded” and gallon of water just before their hike
-They had no salty snacks
-They described them selves as “not athletic”
There you have it, a perfect recipe of jackassery, what will put you on top of a 14er at the mercy of the elements and strangers. I recommended that we head back down the main trail but take it nice and slow, while it was steeper it was snow free unlike Elkhart pass. Nope. His years of mountaineering experience lead him to insist that crossing snowfields (that had now been in direct sunlight for 5 hours) would be WAY easier than slowly walking down the trail. When I mentioned, “post holing for hours” I just got a blank look. I saw that the only way he was going to comply was if we took Elkhart Pass. And guess what we post holed for hours and it sucked. As we headed down the mountain he got more and more pissy. He and his wife were now out of water, she took some of mine but he refused. I have no idea why. I tried to insist and he started yelling about being fine. He kept stumbling and grabbing me for balance. I told him that, that was a good way for both of us to take a nasty fall, 10 minutes later we were both tumbling down the backside of Belford. We tumbled about 30 feet, I shoved him off of me and said “I tried to help you, now you got to help yourself, I’ll send a ranger back”, and I left. I tried to leave quickly because things were getting unpleasant; sadly I was post holing up to my groin. I bet it was a funny image to the people up on the mountain, me failing to run away as this guy yelled “a**hole!” and his wife joined in.
Yay Sunburn
First rule of rescuing someone is not to get the rescuer hurt. I busted ass down the mountain and back to the trailhead. Sadly I could feel that the post holing had rubbed off all of my sunscreen and my tube was MIA. I could feel it burning. I made a note of the only car at the trailhead with Arizona plates. I sat on my tailgate and ate an avocado and a hardboiled egg, because screw that guy, I was hungry and not going to let him ruin my day. I got in the truck and headed off to find a ranger. I explained the situation and he said they would send some one up there. I was exhausted, what was supposed to be a short summit day followed by relaxing around a fire has turned in a mess of being yelled at and dealing with an idiot. I stopped and got some ice for my knee that was now pretty swollen from the tumble down the mountain, and headed off to the Leadville Hostel, for a shower and a real bed and to the Silver Dollar for some popcorn and a beer.
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