Calvary 4-Wheelers

Tuesday, April 20, 2010 was Leona’s 18th birthday. Leona has been ‘wheeling since before she was born, been driving off-road since she was 12 or 13 and had her own rig since she was 16-and-a-half so, in honor of the momentous occasion, I let her (made her?) serve as trail leader for this trip. Switzerland Trail is an easy trail anyway and she’d driven it several times so it seemed like the perfect opportunity for her to step up into a leadership role. Well, she was nervous enough to begin with then a Rocky Mountain spring storm dumped about a foot of snow on the Foothills the night before the trip. She tried, half-heartedly, to get out of it but I had confidence in her ability and convinced her to go through with it.

We met at McDonalds in Boulder, Richard & Jonathan in the Pinz; Missy in her Sidekick with Karen riding along; John & Tom in Tom’s red YJ; Charlie & J.D. in a Cherokee, me in my Cherokee, and Leona in her Cherokee with Geremy and Trisha riding along. After a little breakfast and chit chat we loaded up and headed for the trail. The lower elevations in town had only gotten rain but as we headed up the canyon we soon crossed the snow line. The roads were clear but there was definitely snow in and on the trees.

When we got to the trail head we found the trail covered in about eight inches of heavy, wet snow with drifts here and there up to about a foot-and-a half to two feet. The snow was slushy and slick but not as deep as we had feared and the trail looked very doable. Leona got us all circled up and went through the safety speech like a pro then asked me to lead in prayer. After the prayer we loaded up and hit the trail.

Leona was breaking fresh tracks as we started down the trail. It was slippery but, by going slow and being careful, we made steady progress without incident. Frequently branches, bent under the heavy snow, hung down into the trail and everywhere we looked the world was sugar-coated. Switzerland Trail is a beautiful area anyway and the snow just made it that much more spectacular.

We reached the little town of Sunset and started up the other side. Now we were headed uphill in the slick snow but still had little trouble. The clouds cleared off, the sun came out and the day started warming up. By the time we reached the Mt. Alto Picnic Area it was a gorgeous, sunny day.

We stopped at the picnic ground for lunch. As we ate, Jonathan demonstrated his model trebuchet launching Milk Bones to the dogs and snow balls at the teenagers. After eating, John and Tom proceeded to make a giant snowball, rolling it around the meadow until it was about four to five feet in diameter.

When lunch was over we loaded up and headed on up the trail. It wasn’t long before we reached the trail head on the Gold Hill side, the official end of our trip. About half the group headed for home but it wasn’t that late and Richard, Charlie and I decided to go explore the trails north of CR 52.

We didn’t get very far. The snow was much more drifted on this portion of the trail. We spent most of our time digging out of drifts and pulling each other back onto the trail. After spending a couple hours to go about a mile we gave up and turned around. It had been another fun day playing in God’s beautiful creation.

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