Saturday, May 12: Climbing the Incline

I was awoken this morning at 9:00 AM from a startling knock on my door. It turned out to be Kevin’s Uncle Brian who told us that it was perfect weather to do the Incline. For those of you who don’t know much about the incline like we didn’t, the following is a description and some facts taken directly from their website. The incline is a series of 2800 railroad ties which gains over 2000 feet vertically in just a span of a mile. It is arguably the most difficult hiking trail in Colorado Springs and is often used by Olympic athletes to train during the summer. Outlining the entire website is the following quote, “Even if you go slow, this trail is difficult. If you’re new to the altitude, maybe swallow your pride and skip this one. That’s not a challenge, it’s a word of warning.” In addition, just a few days prior, there was a story in the news about a middle-aged man dying from a heart attack while on the incline. Needless to say, Kevin and I were slightly frightened but definitely up to the challenge. We showered, came downstairs, ate a hearty breakfast, watched an inspiring YouTube video of a woman finishing the climb, and packed our book bags with food and extra clothes. Just before leaving the house, Uncle Brian remarked, “Worst comes to worst, you guys will pay the $500 fee and get airlifted down. But… I’m sure you will be just fine.” After the 20 minute drive to Old Colorado City -with Uncle Brian’s inspirational words still resonating in our heads- we set out on the hike. Fourty-nine minutes later, we were at the level of the clouds looking down at the city from the summit of the mountain. We took several pictures and even a few videos during our climb -which served as crucial quick resting points- which can be found on our gallery. After regaining our breath, we decided against what we were advised in that it would be easier to simply walk down the steep slope rather than take the 4 mile Bar Trail back down to the bottom. We were congratulated by the entire family in our success and spent the rest of the day just walking around Old Colorado City looking for cool souvenirs to bring back to our families and friends in Cleveland. It truly was an exciting experience and we plan to have the chance to do the incline once more in hopes of shaving a few minutes off our time.

Thursday May 10th: Reforesting the Park

Today Max and I got up early and drove over to Cheyenne Mountain State Park. Stacey Lewis told us that today we would be helping reforest some of the areas surrounding the campsites and park buildings. Max, I, and nearly 15 other volunteers helped unload trees off of the delivery truck. We then gathered to listen to the resident botany expert explain how we should go about planting the different trees and shrubs. We learned all about the specifics of planting such things. For example, we learned that the root-bulb of the tree should be approximately one inch above the soil. We also learned that it is very important to add nutrient enriched topsoil to the mix and to create a plane of dirt around the plant that promotes the absorption of rainfall while fighting erosion. Key things such as those stated were taught to us, and then we proceeded to plant. Altogether, Max and I probably planted around 25 trees/shrubs. By the time we had finished, we were professionals. We had a good time conversing with the different volunteers; all of whom seemed to out age us by a minimum of 45 years. Most of the people volunteering were senior citizens from the Broodmore locality of Colorado Springs. They told us they they simply wanted to help out the community, they had free time and they were putting it to good use. This was inspiring for Max and me. After all of the trees were planted, the whole group of volunteers gathered around a few picnic tables and enjoyed the lunchtime meal provided by the park rangers. We all ate a hearty helping of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn, coleslaw, and biscuits. Max and I tried to be cautious not to contaminate our wholesome diet and workout regimen, but the food was too good looking to resist. We all chowed down and said our goodbyes. It was a fun day working out in the park; we met a lot of new people and learned a few new skills. We said goodbye to Stacy, and set off home to rest for another day of work at the park.

Tuesday May 8th: Road to the Olympics

Today Max and I got up early and drove to the Cheyenne Mountain State Park. Upon arrival we prepped the visitor’s center building and proceeded to organize one of the ranger’s office shelves. We were slightly disconcerted about the fact that our project up to date had mainly consisted of different forms cleaning organization rather than learning how to patrol and run a state park. We decided that a discussion would have to take place with our sponsor in order to make sure we would be doing what we had decided upon in our conversations prior. We finished up work and gave my uncle a call, he told us to meet him downtown. We met up near the campus of Colorado College and he informed us that he was going to show us the Olympic Training Center. The OTC at Colorado Springs is one of three in the United States. The OTC consists of numerous gymnasiums, natatoriums, weight rooms, and a museum like section dedicated to the remembrance of exceptional Olympians and memorabilia they used in previous Olympic Games. The OTC Colorado also has living quarters and a five star kitchen attached to serve and house and Olympians in training. My cousin, Andrew, is a budding Olympic athlete; he is on the road to the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia for figure skating. When back in Colorado, Andrew trains and lives at the OTC. Being ranked among the top three in the nation, Andrew qualifies to live at the OTC. We got a nice tour of the facilities and viewed one of the promo videos for the upcoming Olympics. Overall, it was a very cool place to go, where else can you see gold medalist athletes meandering around like their at home? We left the OTC and went back to CC’s campus. Max and I tossed a football around for about an hour, we met a few nice kids who let us in on a soccer game with them. We left the campus and came home, relaxing for the night, and ready for more adventure in the following days.

Friday, May 4: Not All Fun and Games

A 6:00 AM wakeup call meant that it was once again time to volunteer at Cheyenne Mountain State Park. Seeing that yesterday’s work consisted of shoveling dirt and digging up weeds, our expectations were somewhat tempered. Today, we were given a project consisting of organizing the interpretation building of the park. This is the place where the rangers would teach the children campers the dangers of the park and how to get by if emergency were to strike. We were first instructed on some of these counterintuitive procedures such as what to do if a bear or mountain lion was on the campground; you must raise your hands in the air and yell loudly to try and seem as intimidating as possible before retreating. We were then led into the storage room and our task was to re-organize the entire area so that there was at least room to walk in and out. We began by taking out all of the posters and organizing them into 4 groups: wildlife awareness, rocks and minerals, emergency information, and campground information. We then arranged various miscellaneous materials into storage boxes labeled by the events they pertained to. After about 5 hours on Friday and a few more on Sunday, our latest project was completed. All in all, from this week’s volunteering, we learned that running a state park involves hard work and dedication. We were learning all of the faucets of the park from the bottom up, and had high aspirations that the following weeks would offer more hands-on activities that pertained much more to our original goal.

Days Three and Four

Wednesday, Day 3: Today, Kevin and I went to “Garden of the Gods” to finally explore the mountains that we had only been able to see from afar. Our excitement was somewhat hampered by the very first thing that we saw: a sign warning us to beware of rattlesnakes and mountain lions in the area. Luckily, we didn’t have any encounters with them. The “Garden of the Gods” itself is a huge area with a long trail leading from one rock formation to the next, allowing visitors to get up close and even climb some of the smaller rocks. Kevin and I climbed a few and took some pictures (to be posted later), and even saw some actual licensed rock climbers descending from the tips of one the larger rocks. After a short trip to the ­­­­­­­­­trading post (ironically the place where Kevin’s cousin, Allie, was married) where we got lunch and bought a few souvenirs, we went to go see Balancing Rock. There Kevin learned a very valuable lesson: just because you can climb up, doesn’t mean you can necessarily get down. Luckily he was able to get down- with just a scratch ranging the length of his arm and a very entertaining recording of the entire ordeal. We soon drove home, grabbed some dinner, and then headed to Gold’s gym to fulfill the fitness portion of our senior project. After a grueling upper body workout, we drove to Allie’s house, played some PlayStation, and went to bed awaiting our first day at the park.

Thursday, Day 4: Today was the first day of the volunteering portion of our senior project. We drove down to Cheyenne Mountain State Park to meet with our sponsor- Stacey Lewis- and finally start what we came out here to do. After a quick introduction of all the staff and tour of the entire park, we set out to do our first “project”: plant identification and sediment transportation. We soon found out that this is just fancy for weeding out the trail and shoveling dirt off of the road. A hundred feet of trail and a few hours later, our duty was done and it was time to drive home and relax. We jumped in the hot tub, watched a few movies with Kevin’s family, and called it an early night.

Days One and Two

From the moment Max and I stepped off of the plane, we knew that this was going to be an amazing project. Colorado is nothing like either of us had ever seen. We have both done our share of traveling, but this was the farthest west either of us had ever gone. One of the most striking things that we noticed as soon as we stepped out of the airport doors was that of the "big sky". In Colorado "as far as the eye can see" literally takes on a whole other meaning. From a distance you can look out and see a mountain that is well over 70 miles away. It seems that the sky stretches from one end of the horizon to the other unobstructed. Cleveland almost seems claustrophobic in comparison to here. So if you haven’t figured it out already, we were both pretty astonished by Colorado, every little difference stuck out to us. We were picked up by my Aunt and Uncle and took the short hour ride from Denver to Colorado Springs. We woke up early the next morning and decided to take our first day to get situated and see the city. We spoke to our sponsor and she wasn't able to meet with us until the day after. We hopped on the number 9 bus as advised by my uncle and took the 45 min ride to downtown. Colorado Springs is a nice little Colorado metropolis. We took the first hour to walk around and get our bearings in the city. We got a little bit to eat and then found ourselves musing among the little trinkets in a small Buddhist souvenir shop. We decided to go to the numismatic and civil war museum, the only one of the kind in the world. We spent a good hour and a half looking at the antiqued monetary items and reading up on the civil war, it was a surprisingly interesting. We decided that we had a little time left to meander until we had to go to the bus stop for home, and so we went to check our Colorado College's campus. It was a quiet campus, but nevertheless very nice. We noted that the CC campus seemed to reflect all of the values and qualities that we noticed in the short time we had been in the city. Colorado is a very relaxed and open place, people do as they please and spend little time judging or commenting on others. We went to the local Wal-Mart upon returning to Chapel Hills (my uncle's neighborhood) and decided it was a good idea to do some shopping. We came out of Wal-Mart with a plethora of healthy foods in order to prepare for our athletically grueling hikes to come. We felt that in order to prepare for college, we better learn how to shop for ourselves in a sustainable and healthy manner. We also knew that managing our own time and getting where we needed to go was important. Certainly a key underlying value that this project was helping us achieve was that of responsibility and self-sustainability. We went home, enjoyed a nice meal, and prepared to go to the Garden of the Gods the following morning.