Stories from the Road – Weminuche Wilderness, Durango, Colorado
Charlie, my hubby, stays back with Max, our dog, while Johnny and I go on a multiday wilderness excursion with our good friends Kaitilin, David, and their kids, West and Zoe. With full backpacks and scuffed hiking boots, our crew disembarks from the Narrow Gauge tourist train in Elk Park, a grassy subalpine meadow along the Colorado Trail. The gray smoke clears, and evidence of the steam engine disappears down the Animas River gorge. It is quiet and the air is fresh; I feel my ribs expand with an exaggerated inhale and audible exhale.
We drink a bunch of water and share crunchy peanut butter Clif Bars, pose for a selfie at the Weminuche Wilderness sign, and then hike three miles in and twelve hundred feet up to the base of Vestal Peak. We camp in a ponderosa pine forest that smells like vanilla and offers shelter from the afternoon monsoons. A mama moose stares at us from across the emerald-green beaver pond.
On the third day of our adventure, Kaitilin and I wake up early to go for a short run. It is freezing at 6:30 a.m., and instead of walking to warm up, we start running from the get-go. Fifty feet into the single-track trail, I stumble on a jagged ledge and fall hard, instantly feeling the sting of bone on rock.
Kaitilin helps me back to camp. She and David wrap me in their sleeping bags and wake the kids. They eat maple-brown-sugar oatmeal and huddle with David while Kaitilin makes a sling out of a bandanna and holds my pasty hand. Johnny, West, and Zoe (all under ten) are like little chipmunks, scurrying about and whispering to each other as they stuff sleeping bags back into their sacks, roll up the tent flies, collapse the poles, and count each stake they pull from the ground. They redistribute my gear to everyone else and hand me an empty pack, along with a mug of hot chocolate with extra mini marshmallows. They tell me it’s going to be okay. I tell them the same.
We hike back down to Elk Park, board the train, and freak out the other passengers with my bloodied pants and splinted arm. In Silverton, at the end of the line, we meet up with Charlie, who transports me immediately to the Durango hospital. I have emergency surgery for a compound fracture of the right elbow and get a bunch of stitches in my hip. Johnny has since declared he wants to study emergency medicine and be a mountain guide. West and Zoe still love the wilderness.
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