Maybe the depiction on my atlas was deceiving, or maybe we were just victims of my own foolishness, but I definitely thought that Gardner, Colorado—a town with multiple churches and an herb shop—would have a gas station. With a flickering gaslight, we, the Overcast Adventurers and Ty’s friend Seth, opted to purchase five gallons of emergency gas (at a devastating twenty dollars) from the county store, and made the vexatious fifty-mile detour to return to Walsenburg and back for more petrol.

This turned out to be a good decision, as the drive from Gardner to the Lily Lake/Huerfano Trailhead, though short in distance, was painstakingly slow in my Subaru Outback. We arrived at the trailhead at the ungodly hour of 11AM, far later than our usual arrival for alpine undertakings. We deemed this acceptable in light of the zero percent chance of storms in the afternoon. The views from the trailhead of the towering rock monoliths—some named, some not—were outstanding.

The telltale shape of Blanca Peak drew my wandering mind to future summits. The new landscape, as compared to the hot desert surrounding Gardner, was substantial.

Finally on the trail, our spirits were high and our apprehensions low.

Both friends and users of the 14ers website had warned that the lower portion of the trail had been made difficult to follow with high water from the Huerfano River. Huerfano, which translates to Orphan Boy, was named after the county it flows nearby, which was in turn named by Spanish explorers for a lonely volcanic neck below and to the east of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The area down low was wet, but we had little trouble finding the way forward. Soon enough, we found ourselves swapping our hiking boots for our water shoes to cross the raging Orphan Boy River.

The way to the river crossing had been mostly flat and gentle. After the river, the elevation gain abruptly began. We quickly and painfully gained almost 1000 feet of vertical, following the river and ascending up a wildflower-laden gulley.

As we neared timberline, views of the Iron Nipple served both to impress and make us “adults” giggle.

Mt. Lindsey’s pyramidal summit poked out behind the Iron Nipple’s northwest ridge. Man, I thought, we’ve got a ways to go. Exiting the gulley, we traded the trees for the alpine, and entered the pristine basin below the giants that surrounded us.

We traversed the basin, stopping only for water midway through. Behind us, the jagged likes of the Crestones could be seen guarding the north.

After our break, we meandered up a steep slope that took us to the saddle between the Iron Nipple and Mt. Lindsey.

It was here that a group of foreigners told us we should expect another five hours to summit. Five hours for 1000′ of vertical? It was not the most encouraging or friendly of sentiments, but I reminded myself that their pace might have been much slower than ours. On the saddle, the iconic view of Mt. Lindsey reminded us how much struggle was still left in our day, but it didn’t appear to warrant five hours of struggle.

The northwest ridge and its craggy crux wall looked intimidating. This very view serves to dishearten many, but only inspired a sense of challenge for me. Still recovering from a cold and not feeling well, Ty took pause at the saddle while Seth and I continued upward. We gained the northwest ridge crest and began scrambling toward the crux wall. Instead of staying under the ridge crest, we found it easier to scramble up and down the sharp points along the ridge.

Dropping down to the notch before the crux wall foretold the difficulty we could expect from the remaining route. I had studied pictures of how to keep the route at class 3, but ultimately found it easiest to follow the class 4 prominent crack toward climber’s left of the wall.

Atop the crux, my uneasiness concerning the route’s difficulty lifted, and I remarked on how aesthetic and fun the climbing had felt.

Seth and I regained the ridge crest and worked our way towards the summit.

Up and up we went toward what appeared to be the zenith of our adventure.

As we prepared to top out, we were greeted by a false summit, and found ourselves still ten minutes away from the true summit. The disappointment we felt at the fauxpex was greatly outweighed by the elation the bona fide apogee brought us. The elation, as usual, came at the price of serious fatigue, and we spent time recuperating before truly enjoying the surrounding views and subtle triumph.

What had taken the tourists five hours had taken us one. In fact, the entire ascent from the trailhead had taken us five hours. Around us, inherent contrast lay in the scenery, with the rugged Sangre de Cristo Mountains being juxtaposed against the endlessly flat San Luis Valley.

With little time to spend up high before Ty would start to worry, we packed our things, snapped some photos, and began our descent. Seth chose to descend the North Face route, but I stuck to the ridge, trying to absorb as much climbing experience as I could from our day. Descending the crux wall did feel somewhat sketchy, but taking it slow made it quite manageable. Seeing us heading down, Ty did the same, and we didn’t meet up with him until well below the saddle.

Ty had rested up and felt better. With the sun beginning to set, and with friends and family back home that might worry if we weren’t back that night, we hastily descended back to the Huerfano River and followed it down the gulley.

We made it back to the river crossing with ease, and found ourselves nearing the trailhead as the sun spilled alpenglow onto the peaks above.

We didn’t get home until the wee hours of the following morning. Nearing delirium (serious delirium) upon arriving back home in Denver, I crawled into bed, trying to not think about my morning shift a few hours later. Even with the day’s toil and strife, I still jotted down “worth it!” in my climbing journal.

Until next time, my friends, stay adventurous!