Travels

These writings are assembled from a collection of notes I took from the time I spent hiding in the
Colorado Rockies.

In March of 2016, as I was finishing up my first semester of my sophomore year was the
depths of my situation. I had almost failed out of college, and with no job, was hemorrhaging
money that was supposed to be for my future on momentary bits of happiness. I had put on 40
pounds, and found myself severely depressed to where I couldn’t get out of bed and eat, let alone
work on something. I needed out of my situation otherwise it was going to kill me and leave me
broke. I was browsing a used bookstore and came across an earlier copy of Teddy Roosevelt’s
African Game Trails. ​I tend to collect old books, and I enjoy reading historical anecdotes, so I
bought it. A month later, I was driving back home to Colorado and headed for the mountains.

I was born and raised in Colorado, and my parents still lived there, so I knew the layout
of the state well. I knew where I wanted to go, or at least had looked at where I wanted to go
once when I was driving. I liked offroading, it was always fun to take the Jeep into the mountains
and lumber along instead of pushing the limits in the Porsche. I was running away from my
problems, and they couldn’t find me out here. No need to rush.

Late Spring in the mountains is interesting. It’s warm during the day, but the nights can
still be freezing. The Aspen trees are almost full of leaves, but it still takes a few weeks for them
to shake the cold. The smell of a Pine forest is an indescribably wonderful thing. The 2 track I
had been following was dwindling, and after donating some time to the United States Forest
Service by moving some trees out of their road, I found a nice covered area that I could park a
jeep to be out of the way and not draw attention. I disconnected the battery and made sure
everything was locked up and pulled out before starting into the woods.

Day 1

I did not go completely unprepared. I have plenty of backpacking experience, but

possibly not on this scale. I loaded up my backpack and a duffel bag, along with a sealed, soft
cooler, and a possibles bag. Before I left, I wrote down as many things as I could.

● Backpack
○ Tent
○ Sleeping bag
○ Toothbrush
 ○ Toothpaste
○ Toilet paper
○ Tylenol
○ Matches
○ Waterproof matches
○ Autobahn guide to the night sky & North American Plants and Wildlife
○ Two in the Far North ​by Margaret Murie
○ First aid kit (large kit, all supplies)
○ Signalling mirror
○ 500 ft. Paracord.
○ Camping silverware and cookware. (cups, bowls, spoon/fork)
○ Cheap skewer
○ Flashlight

● Duffel Bag
○ Jeans
○ T-shirts
○ Flannels
○ Mild jacket
○ Heavy Jacket
○ Socks
○ Underwear
○ Warm hats.
○ Poncho

● Soft Cooler
○ Food for 5 days
■ Frozen meats
■ Dried oats and grains
■ A banana
■ Dehydrated bags of stuff (raisins, exc)
■ Lots and lots of Ice. Also salt.
■ Coffee
■ A dozen eggs.

● Possibles bag
○ Skinning knife/Bone saw
○ Binoculars
○ Compass
 ○ Ammunition
○ Map of the San Juan National Forest of Colorado.

On my person, I took my wallet, my phone (with a battery backup for emergencies) my

keys, and put them all in my backpack. I kept a leatherman multitool in my pocket, a Rolex
Explorer II on my wrist, and on my belt I kept a knife, medium hatchet, and a Colt Single Action
Army from 1899.

I also brought my Winchester model 1886 chambered in .45-90, a gun most commonly
used for buffalo hunting on the plains, or big game in Africa. It is the sporting rifle, So the longer
barrel doesn’t help with weight, but it was a gun passed down to from my grandfather who to
this day, at 80, still lives in a small cabin in a forgotten corner of Montana. It being made almost
125 years ago, and spending it’s life surviving in the rockies, it seemed like a good fit.

My goal with the map was to keep a general idea on where I was, and where the vehicle
was. I wanted to avoid people and trails, and had a route planned out that would, by my
calculations, be about 15 miles from any designated trail or road. That meant about a 15 mile
hike with most likely 100lbs worth of gear, and for an out of shape college student meant about 7
miles a day at best. The first day I was able to stick to the treeline, and being late spring I was
able to keep the cooler packed with snow frequently, once my ice melted. The cool temperatures
at night also meant I was able to freeze most of the water in the cooler as I slept. By the end of
the first day, I had made it a modest 3 miles before setting up camp. Nothing came unpacked
outside of essentials, and I kept everything organized for an early start the next morning.

Day 3
Having covered almost 7 miles the day before, and with a nice early start, it meant about
5 miles, and I’d need every ounce of that to make it down and pick out a more permanent spot.
Luckily I found myself descending well below treeline, eventually finding a small game trail
heading in a somewhat correct direction. I spooked a small herd of deer, all very healthy, and
sent them running to the other side of the small valley. About 3:00 in the afternoon I found what
I was looking for, about a mile closer to my mark.

It was a small clearing, about 50 feet across, with tall pine trees forming a rough circular
shape. It was on a slight south facing slope, so snow was long gone and grass was starting to
recover from the winter and take in that great spring runoff, causing everything to be an
illustrious green. About 40 feet outside the clearing and down a small hill was a fast moving
creek, 3-4 feet across and ice cold, running out from underneath the snow above treeline. By the
time my tent was set up, I made a very small fire and cooked dinner, and was out cold as soon as
my head hit the pillow.
 Day 4
I woke late, the sun well above the trees and hungry. I had some granola and was able to
get my fire going long enough to cook 2 of my eggs, and by the time I had eaten and made sure
my fire was out, it was approaching noon. I still had 2 days of food left, and would leave food for
the following day, it being too late in the afternoon and no storm to push the game around. I laid
out a plan for the next few hours, using some of my paracord to rig my cooler sealed and
submerged in the creek, to keep it as cool as possible for long term storage, and to avoid
attracting bears or worse, mountain lions. I would have to hike 400 yds to a snowbank I spotted
once a day to keep the cooler somewhere just below freezing.

It was a dry year in the mountains, so I kept fires small and watched them very carefully,
only doing them on rock crevices on the hike in, and watering everything down to avoid forest
fires. However that was going to be more difficult at the new site. I moved about 20 feet into the
meadow, and used a rock to clear out about a 10 foot diameter circle of grass, and spent the next
4 hours bringing rocks in from all around, and then after a quick snack, spent the evening
digging a hole about a foot deep, and 3 ft in diameter. I lined the ground surrounding it with a
first row of rocks, and after some careful stacking with flat, brick-ish rocks, found myself with a
2 foot tall ring, with 4 large flat rocks covering the top, leaving a 6 inch “chimney” out the top,
and took a rusty coffee can I found at a small mining claim downstream and suspended it above,
creating a spark arrestor. I packed all the dirt I had dug out of the hole into the cracks, wishing I
had chose a river and used clay. I constantly fought the dirt. A 1 foot by 7 inch hole in the front
was all I had to cook with, and it formed a very good oven. I used the skewer on the meat like the
night before, but it was a lot less stressful now that I had some security. I had a full dinner and
went to bed around 8:00, hoping to be up early enough.

Day 5
It did not work. I stumbled out of the tent around 7AM, and rushed through breakfast and
filling the cooler and brushing my teeth, and was able to be following the game trail cutting
through the meadow by 8:00. It set off somewhat towards the southwest, and following it gave
me the wind advantage by being downwind. There was a line of clouds building on the horizon
so I was hoping that it would push something around. If not, I was about to get very hungry.
After about 3 hours, I snuck over a ridge and could see about 150 yards through the woods to a
medium herd of Mule deer, again looking very healthy like the deer earlier in the week.

I was only one person, and I didn’t eat that much. It was the start of fawn season,
therefore I was very leery of taking a doe, so I set my sights on about a year old small buck.
Luckily, the wind had picked up in my favor and was starting to keep some ambient noise up,
and I snuck over the ridge and crawled behind a split ponderosa pine that had most likely been a
sapling when we landed at Normandy. My buck had wandered behind some trees, and didn’t
seem too keen on moving from his spot. I was about 90 yards away, and picked out another large
ponderosa that I could get to about 20 yards up and 10 yards over. I eased my way to the line and
had a clear shot to where he had bedded down beneath a tree. It was almost 2:00 now, and if I
was going to survive, I needed to take the shot. He fell with no difficulty, partially thanks to my
hours at the range, and mostly because I was using a round made for a much bigger animal.

I am not a religious person, It just has never been something I have felt necessary in my
life, but I do find there to be a bond between all living things. I was there when my girlfriend
passed away in high school- the spirit fills the room before disappearing. When I take an animal,
I respect that I am sharing the land, and let the spirit disperse into the woods before I approach.
Whenever I would go hunting with my grandfather, he would always string a molar from the
animal into the leather on his possibles bag, and I have always continued on the tradition. I
always thought of it as a tribute to the hunt.

I had the cooler with me, as packed as I could get it, and did a regretfully poor butcher
job, but without a great setup I made do. I was able to get, by my estimate, 40 lbs of meat. I left
all of my scraps there, and figured it would give the coyotes and birds of prey a good dinner. My
hike back was uneventful, I stumbled into a patch of white flowers with a few darker plum
colored ones, and gathered a handful. I figured I could use something green, and after consulting
the guide, found them to be Candytuft and Fireweed. Candytuft was a very misleading name.

Day 6
It was odd waking up in the morning and not panic that I was going to starve and die in
the mountains, because I had food, I had water, I had shelter, and it was looking like a lovely day
in the wilderness. Temperatures were up seemingly in the 70’s, which made me nervous for my
submerged cooler, but it kept just around freezing thanks to the snow and the colder night. I was
out of eggs, but I had plenty of protein and I coughed down some plants, however the Fireweed
made a good flavor for the meat. I was also out of any sort of grains, so I didn’t have to worry
about gluten, I guess.

I spent the day doing a mixture of a little reading and some possible pre-planning for a
small structure, however scrapped the idea because the tent was doing quite nicely. I drug down
some older stumps and in my corner of the clearing made a small seating area. For dinner I tried
a small meal, I cut up a (admittedly very early) wild onion, and put some fireweed, small cuts of
meat, and made a small stew. It was alright, nothing to write home about.
 Day 9
I had finally settled into a small rhythm over the past few days, and spent the days hiking
places around and spending a few hours reading with a view, or just admiring the landscape. I
was starting to identify birds and plants without having to spend 15 minutes shuffling through
the plant or bird book, and started to get an idea of what I could make and what I couldn’t. I had
plenty of food- I was just trying to mix it up. I had a rough idea of what day it was, I had a
simple tally system in a plank of wood by camp. I had noticed a few game tracks within 500
yards of the camp, mostly Coyote, but outside of deer and the occasional marmot and field
mouse, nothing out of the ordinary. A wind grew throughout the day, pushing the clouds from
the west closer in.

Day 10
Rain. One of those rare cold, almost foggy days. A cold layer of moisture laid itself in the
valley where camp was, and stayed there. By late afternoon it was pouring rain, and it was
everything I could do to pull myself out of the tent to get food. I quickly learned that my fire pit
had one major downfall, and that turned out to be that it was a pit. Trying to get a fire lit in
something that was filling up with water seemed to be impossible, but after some creative wood
stacking, and some rock stacking, I was able to get just enough fire to cook a few scraps. It took
a few hours, and I was not happy. The rain had also risen the level of the creek enough to a
worrying level, so I pulled it out for the evening and strung it high in a tree, because the
temperature was approaching freezing. That night the wind seemed to be pushing the forest over.
It was everything I could do to keep the tent on the ground and where it was, loaded with rocks
and everything. I have no idea how the rainfly stayed on.

Day 11
And freeze it did. The morning was greeted with a thick layer of frost coating everything,
and a rock solid cooler that took 40 minutes to chisel out breakfast. By noon the sun had heated
everything up nicely and I was able to take all the wet clothes from the day before and hang them
outside to dry. Most of the time was spent cleaning up a lot of the limbs and stuff that had flown
in from surrounding trees, which got arranged in a nice pile to dry out a little bit more to possibly
use as firewood. About 400 yards to the south I found an older tree that had been blown down in
the storm- it was a good size tree, probably 40 feet tall and took out a few saplings as it fell.

It was odd, that at that point I realised my situation. I figured that was as good of a spot as
any, and sat down and looked at the seemingly endless forest of trees in front of me. 2 weeks
prior, I was sitting in a Computer Science lecture hall filled to the brim with students, all
focusing on code and classwork. It was the end of the semester, so it was mostly exam review for
an intro to Java class. It was so hard to think there, so many thoughts bouncing around the room,
it was too busy to think. Not so in the middle of a forest, it was mellow, and peaceful. I didn’t
have to worry about anything. For the first time in my life, I was free. I walked back to camp and
loved every minute of it.

Day 20
I had started to focus on the environment from an immersive perspective. Something I
don’t think you can acquire from a 3-5 days on a hike- you start to study the surroundings and
study the patterns of deer and marmots as they travel. The bird life had grown accustomed to my
tent by the clearing, and not seeing me as a threat, would approach with very little hesitation. I
did feel bad about spooking a few field mice out of my woodpile- they had quite a nest built up.
With or without me, nature always just kept on going about its business, day in and day out. How
did the rest of life get so complicated.

My mother would always say that in an end of the world scenario that she would spend
her time riding across the west taking down old fences and walls, freeing up the corridors and
allowing life to roam as free as it once was. I don’t think I fully appreciated that until I spent
some time with wildlife and large animals that in some cases may of never seen a fence or a
highway. Deer growing up home were always jittery and easily spooked- spending their lives
jumping fences and dodging cars. Deer in the wilderness were alert, but calm. It would take 5
years with no humans for the generations of deer to forget all about the existence of people.

Day 25
When I was graduating high school, I had been dating someone from Florida, and was
moving back at the end of the summer. I was invited to go along, and seriously considered it, but
ultimately had to pass. I’m not discounting any part of the country, or any one person, but I have
always love the west. In my hometown, the highway snaked through the mountains before
coming over a rise overlooking a valley with a barrier of 14,000ft peaks guarding the west of the
town. It was such an incredible sight, as much as I hated that place, I never hated the drive.

And when you drive through Yellowstone, or Yosemite, or Arches, and see the incredible
sights and beauty in the american west- it is no wonder to me at all how the Native American
people found such religious connections with the land- it speaks to you in no way words ever
could. It’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

Days 26-30
Nothing much of interest happened. I spent my days reading and exploring. I looked to
the skies, marvelling in the billions of stars that stretched from horizon to horizon, loving the
night with no pollution. A few small storms, nothing as extreme as before, and food options
opened up. The onions did better, and a small rabbit started living around camp, I would see him
fairly often on the other corner of the clearing. The days warmed, and got almost hot, and my
snowbank was dwindling. I had made my piece, and made a plan to head out on the 34th
morning.

Day 31
I moved from the tent and was able to get my boots on, shoulder the winchester, and start
the walk down to the cooler to pull out breakfast. I started to pull the cooler out of the creek and
froze. 20 yards away and sitting in a tree was a mountain lion. One of the larger i’ve ever seen,
and he was eyeing me with serious suspicion. I slowly released the cooler and took a step
backwards- to slip on a rock and slice my shin open on an exposed corner. My heart was
pounding. I spun back around on the ground, ignoring the cut, and kept my eye on the lion. He
was up and alert now with the commotion, and we were both looking for the other’s next move. I
went first. I pulled myself up to a sitting position and started breathing again, slowly, trying to
calm the nerves a little to think a bit more logically. He stood up, hopped down from the tree,
and headed out in the opposite direction, checking behind every few steps to watch me.

I pulled myself the 20 feet back to the tent, my boot filling up with blood. It was a cut,
and a fairly deep one, but it seemed to be strictly muscular and not hit any tendons. I pulled
myself onto the makeshift chair, and pulled out my first aid kit. It was on the inside of my shin,
so I was able to put one leg over the other and have a decent working environment. The cut had
been done, but luckily it didn’t spend too much time in the mud, and was fairly clean. I used
tweezers and water to flush out everything I could, and realised it was probably going to need
stitches.

The following hour was some of the least pleasant, most of it was spent wishing I had
taken a class to learn how to sew a little better. It took a few tries but I finally got it pulled
together, sterilized, and wrapped in a bandage. It was time to go home.
After getting camp pulled and cooking the rest of the meat and put on salt for the trip
home, I made probably 4 miles before I had to break for the late evening. My leg was killing me,
and after pulling the bandage off, I had found a good few of my stitches pulled out. Some quick
fixes and I was out, but still alert and cautious of the likely nearby lion.

Day 32
I got an early start and made good progress. Crossed multiple paths of both bear and lion
footprints, as well as plenty of coyote. I was feeling lucky with good weather and nothing on the
horizon, and found that a nice, slow steady pace did the leg well, and was able to make it 7 miles,
leaving 4 for the trip to the Jeep.
 Day 33
I slept in the final day, and took my time going the final few miles. I was still enjoying
my time in the woods, minus the setback. It took a bit to get use to again looking over the jeep. It
felt weird sitting in a chair, and after checking oil and connecting the battery, an automobile is a
very loud thing when you haven’t heard anything louder than your own voice for over a month. I
rattled down the dirt road, giving time to think, and get the hang of driving again, and enjoying a
seat. I pulled onto the pavement, and after a few hours of driving, pulled into a 5 Guys Burgers
and Fries, and spoke for the first time in over a month- “I’d like a Double Bacon Cheeseburger
with a large fry and a milkshake. All toppings. Thanks!”

Closing Thoughts
It’s an interesting experience being stuck with yourself for so long without outside
influence. We take how we act from the others we experience around us. You think you know
yourself and how you would act, but rarely in the human existence do people really see who they
are when nobody else is around. I went in looking for an escape from my problems- and it
worked. But my problems were still there when I got back. You can’t run away forever.

But there is a beauty in that- You have to have problems, because it makes the victories
that much better. I will be forever plagued by the demons that chase me- but success through
hard work makes the hard work worth it.

“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win

glorious triumphs, even though checkered by
failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who
neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a
gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”
-Teddy Roosevelt.