The View from 14,000 Feet

DAKOTA RIDGE RV PARK -- Golden, Colorado -- When we left Denver yesterday afternoon the temperature was peaking at more than 90 degrees. When we got the top of Mt. Evans, it was snowing.

Mt. Evans boasts North America's highest paved road, described as the "highway into the sky." Beginning in Idaho Springs, by the time you reach the top of Colorado's 14th highest mountain, you'll travel 14 miles of white-knuckle hairpin turns to 14,130 feet. The "true summit" is a short hike up to 14,264. That's so far up that until June 4 the last few miles to the top from Summit Lake were still snowed in.

If our goal was to build memories with our kids, I think this just might be one that stands out.

By the time we reached the top we had passed from brilliant sunshine to rain, to hail to sleet and into snow and back again to sunshine several times.

At high altitudes the weather is like a living thing, always changing, moving and often surprising.

Bundling the kids up we were going to make a bid to for the summit, but lightning storms were just rolling in. One woman, who had just come down and looked like an experienced hiker, said she had been absolutely terrified. "My hair was out to here," she said, holding her hands a good two feet from her head. "I touched my glasses and I could actually feel voltage running through them."

The lightning storm was becoming truly amazing with brilliant arcs leaping across the sky just off in the distance. Nearby a ranger was monitoring a device that showed him precisely how far away the danger was. He was beginning to look worried.

"We're recommending people don't go to the summit right now," he said. "It's just too dangerous. If the storm gets much closer we'll tell people to get in their cars until it passes."

A few minutes later, as we were admiring the views from the various observation decks, he started telling people to get in their cars. So, we hunkered down, eating granola bars as the snow and lightning storm moved over us. It didn't last long, and we were able to get out and look around some more, but the ranger was still strongly advising against going to the summit.

And it wasn't long before his radio was crackling with reports of another storm now surrounding Summit Lake below. "They're getting lightning strikes all around them," he said. Soon, it was time to get back into cars. Without much hope of the weather clearing anytime soon we decided to forego our bragging rights of a picture at the summit and begin making our way back down.

Through it all the kids were great. But they were exhausted. It wasn't long before they passed out, which was good because not long after we found ourselves driving through the very heart of the storm. It was exhilarating, if a little scary. I will never forget the sight of watching lightning from inside the clouds, arcing down into the valley below us. Shooting away as Marley drove, at one point I had to quickly drop my camera on the floorboard of our rental car. I was sure I felt the strange sensation of voltage surging through its metal body. Steel-belted radials conducting?

Before long we were back down in Idaho Springs. Just as we were debating whether to stop and get something to eat or go back down into Golden first, we found a long line of cars stacked up on I-70. It was a virtual parking lot. The Germans have a word for traffic jam -- stau. This was a super stau. As we would later find out a west-bound semi had rolled off a steep embankment crushing two cars in the east-bound lane into Denver a few hours earlier. The highway was still closed as crews wrestled with the tragedy.

So, we headed into Idaho Springs which had already turned into a refugee camp of traffic jam weary motorists fortunate enough to be able to take the exit. Originally a Gold Rush town, Idaho Springs does a good job of cultivating its Wild West heritage with antique shops and restaurants for tourists while maintaining a bit of the outlaw with a few rough and tumble saloons.

As we walked down the main street a pair of guys stumbling out of the Buffalo Bar and Restaurant said they couldn't recommend the food -- and the beer --more. Inside, we soon found ourselves devouring delicious nachos, buffalo-meat burgers and stew. And, yeah, some really good local beer, dubbed Pick Axe, from the nearby Tommy Knocker brewery.

Seated at the table next to us, we soon met Jim and Joan, stranded here because of the stau as well. A retired couple, they now travel the country by RV nearly full time, wintering at their home in Las Vegas.

Jim spent 25 years as postal carrier, walking 9.2 miles everyday in the San Francisco Bay area to deliver the mail. That was before the days of junk mail, he said, which have now forced nearly all post offices to abandon walking routes to carry the heavier loads by car.

We shared our story of the waterfall pouring out our RV and he grinned and nodded a knowing smile, saying "it's things like that make RVing an adventure. It's all part of the fun."

After dinner we stopped at a nearby park to let the kids run loose for a bit. That's where we met Lawdon and Tiffany and their two angels -- 3-year-old Malaika and one-year-old Tianshi. Both names were discovered during the couples' round-the-world honeymoon and are literally translated angel, Malaika is Swahili, Tianshi is Chinese.

We talked for at least two hours as the kids played, ranging from topics of faith to raising kids to writing books. Lawdon, a transplant to the Denver area from Chicago, is a science fiction writer and Tiffany works for the phone company. We couldn't have asked for better company while waiting for the traffic to clear.

Here's me with one of our new friends, Malaika (photo by Amelia)

In fact, we hit off so well, we've been invited for dinner at their home this evening.

In the meantime, having finished my Father's Day breakfast in bed and been declared to be "the best Daddy ever!" in a hand-drawn card Amelia has just handed me, it's time to get ready for services at Lookout Mountain. Then it's time for some more soaking in the pool and, if Amelia gets her way, there might be time for another run down the Alpine Slide.