2016 Dan Hoffman Memorial Hike: San Juan National Forest of Colorado

I sat down shakily on a giant boulder, stretching my tight legs out in front of me, and tried to catch my breath in the thin air.  I was on the peak of Mt Eolus - the most remote 14er in Colorado and the tallest peak in the entire San Juan mountain range at 14,090 ft.  I snapped a photo of my boots perched over the precarious route I had slowly come up.  The last few hundred feet consisted of vertical faces, loose scree, and a narrow catwalk with thousand foot drops on either side.  It was day three of the 9th annual Dan Hoffman Memorial Hike.  This year was a year to remember.  Three days ago I had guessed we had a 3% chance of making it to the summit, and for good reason. 

When we had arrived in Silverton we'd had exactly 11 minutes to pack all of our things, park our cars, print out our tickets at the depot, and walk over to the train and board.  And we didn't even know where the depot was.  Or that we had to get our tickets printed out.  To make matters worse, Dan's back had gone out and started spazzing with extreme pain on the drive in.  Now he was walking like a 95 year old man on a mission, yelling out curses every few steps.  Bearded DHMH participants were barking out orders, sprinting full speed down random streets, and parking illegally.  I thought our best bet was probably to give up and hope that we could catch the next day's train.  Even if we made it on the train in time we couldn't possibly do the ten mile hike to Chicago Basin from the random spot where the train dropped us off in the wilderness; not with Dan's back like it was.  But then, I wasn't counting on the sheer stupid stubbornness of our group. 

I'd had another moment of doubt when at 2PM the next day, as I was frantically trying to set up my tent in Chicago Basin, I started getting pelted with hail.  For a minute I didn't notice the pain, being so engrossed in my self-preservation, but then something in my brain shouted that rain shouldn't hurt that much and I realized that it wasn't water driving sideways into my ribs, it was pieces of ice!  If this happened the next day we couldn't even try for the summit of Eolus.  But then, the next morning was as clear and blue as an Arizona sky and it stayed that way past noon, which basically never happens in Colorado. 

I'd had a few doubts in the morning too in the form of glances up at the ever steepening terrain as I climbed.  Up and up and up and up and up.  My legs were aching and my lungs were gasping and it seemed like the trail would never end.  Even if we didn't make it the trip would still be a success.  The point wasn't really to get to the top of Mt Eolus.  It would have been worth the nine flights and 70 hours of travel even if we had never made the train.  The DHMH isn't about the peak, and despite what Miley says, it's not really about the climb either.  It's about the hugs at the airport, the shared bites of dehydrated food, the discussed failures of the last year, and the overused retellings of past DHMH stories.  It's about intentionally depending on your friends and trusting that they'll be there no matter where circumstances leave you.  Not reaching the destination just meant one more story to tell next year.  My legs kept pumping though, one after the other, almost beyond my control and before I knew it the saddle was under my boots and there was just a couple hundred feet left. 

Maybe after all the DHMH is also, just a little bit, about sitting on top of a fourteen thousand foot mountain and looking out over the hundreds of jagged peaks beneath you stretching out as far as you can see, and feeling the sense of accomplishment that comes with conquering your own doubts.  I laughed as I stood back up to start the long journey down.  The 9th annual Dan Hoffman Memorial Hike of the San Juan National Forest; another epic success.