Monday, January 27, 2014

Intemman Part Dieux...

Not much activity the last two weeks - shitty head cold kept me doing much. Seems really hard to get enough sleep. Got out on Trail Sat afternoon - beautiful day - at least at 3pm it was. Still trying to find my way across the south side of Manitou on Intemann. This time I went to the high school and went east toward Red Rocks. Good stuff until I got to the cemetery that I've heard about and never seen. Being unsure of where the trail takes up again, I went across and around south east corner and hit a pretty big dirt road, chain-barricaded to my right so I went left around cemetery. Led me back to a paved road, but on the way I spied a bulldozer over the hill and found what looks to be the dumping ground for the city of Manitou and their big equipment. Tiles, bricks, pavers, concrete chunks, large metal pieces, pallets piled everywhere. At the bottom of this hill I could see big garage type buildings and lots of machinery. What interested me most was this...
I wonder how Isaac Davis' family feels about the fact that his headstone is laying surrounded by piles of broken tiles and bricks 100 yards from the cemetery? I didn't look at the one underneath.

Couldn't find the trail from this point, so I went down and around then UP Crystal Park rd until I found the Intemman trailhead there. From there I went West back toward the high school.
 This is first portion of it. Awesome trail - steep and rocky- and it kicked my ass. By the time I got near the top I could feel my lungs wheezing. And the Sun is gone by now.
Garden of the Gods far far in the distance here. (Not really far far, just felt that way. Shut up)

And Then ~ Shit went Awry... From here the trail gets very sketchy. I missed the up fork and went halfway down the hill, probably on a deer trail. Looked up and saw what I was sure was a trail around the side of the hill so I went back up. And up some more, only to be stopped by a barbed wire fence. Cheated around this through a hole someone cut and followed this  through another hole onto a pretty substantial jeep trail that followed the hill around, kinda west. All I know about my location is town is down and behind me. I get around a few curves and now I can see that House that made national news for the mt lion footage last year waaaay up the hill. Not only is it waaaay UP the hill, it's the ONLY dwelling I can see at all.
I spent 10ish minutes weighing my options; getting dark, no light, nobody has an idea that I'm up here or even in town, I see trail across the valley, but it looks to be a long hike around and up and down from here is not an option. I also saw a Mt Lion activity sign on the way up Crystal Park road. Not sure if it's new or they leave it year 'round and that's making me a little edgey. Forward or Back? I keep going around and eventually come to a fork - one goes to the trail I could see that goes up and along ridge line (I'll come back for that one when I have lots of daylight) and one goes down a creek bed. Some evidence of foot traffic, so off I go. Dark now. It's a ways down and the floods from the past summer really eroded the trail if it was a real trail, so there's a lot of back and forth from one side of the ditch to the other. This eventually bumps me out on a hard-packed dirt road, past 2 semi trailers and an old pickup. This dirt leads me back to ~You Guessed It~ the cemetery and the chain boundary. Off I go around the cemetery~again~and back to civilization and asphalt.
That jogging down dirt roads in the dark is for the birds. AND one of the graves in the cemetery has solar lights on it~ pretty damn creepy when you're going by, Just Sayin...I slog my way back up Manitou avenue and up the Hill. Hello hot bath and shot of bourbon. Good time on my feet, but no closer to my original goal. Maybe Next Saturday...



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