MistyCastle

Archive for the ‘Trail Journals’ Category

Return to La Paz
We packed up and got ready to go. Ruben is supposed to have found a different route to get to us, but it is a long way round and involves more back-country roads. It is a different route than what we came in on.
We took the opportunity to finish up some loose ends, getting some interview questions answered and visiting a house or two.

The guides from the other nearby town, Komucala, showed up this morning wanting us to go now. We said we couldn’t because we were leaving. We will have to catch them next time or possibly find another EWB chapter to support their community.

We had an assortment of lumber left over, which we donated to the community to help finish the new church. We also left the egg incubator we had brought with us to test the water samples for bacteria. I was surprised that there were no chickens around. It seems like a logical solution to have hens laying eggs. The livestock in the community consists of lots of sheep, a few cows, and pigs. Mules, too.

Ruben arrives in the later morning and we packed up the LC and said our goodbyes. I let Amanda sit up front, as the trip out promised to be challenging and she is prone to motion sickness.

What a journey this was! After leaving Suncallo Valley, we headed east, down into the rugged sides of the Andes to the river, across the river and then back up the other side. It took two hours over some of the narrowest, twisty jeep trails I’ve ever seen. Once on the other side of the river, we passed through a small community that has one of the few medical clinics in the area.

We continued going up, although mostly on the ridge with some spectacular views of the Andes range and Mount Illampu in the foreground. We stopped for lunch at an overlook. The GPS put us at 15,500 feet, with Illampu towering at 20,000 feet in the background. We were on wide, easy roads now, although still gravel through our descent back to the main highway. The remainder of the trip back to La Paz was uneventful.

Amanda did not fare well. We eventually had to get her to a doctor for dehydration and nausea. Fortunately, she recovered fully by the next afternoon. Tess was a faithful friend, and stayed with her through her ordeal.
The rest of us went out and found some pizza and then a coffee shop, which put a nice cap on my day. I had not had any coffee since I had gotten there. Lastly, we found an Internet café and were able to send home a quick email.

The next day was spent in La Paz relaxing, shopping, and attending a soccer game.

The following day began a little too early as we needed to be downstairs to meet Mike and load up for the trip back to the airport. Thus began a very long and frustrating travel day that finally ended back in the Denver airport at 11PM. It sure was good to get home.

Assessment Days
Morning arrived along with Catalina’s breakfast. The plan was to hike up the hill to visit the water sources. The community has an existing drinking water system that was installed many years ago, but there is not enough pressure to deliver water to all the houses. Senor Gregorio explains to us, as we walk back up the mountain, that there are two existing water sources that are piped down to the community. He wants to add two more, and that is where we were going… to see the water sources and look at the pipeline route they have identified. (Six or so locals went with us)

We passed by fields growing barley and some small ponds that have potatoes soaking. Sr. G. explained how the different potatoes are grown and processed so they have unique flavors. He tells us there are over 100 varieties of potatoes grown here. Some of them we see are soaking in pits, others are drying in the sun. Aside from some grains and a few beans they grow primarily potatoes and that is their main source of food.

Sr. G. pointed out an irrigation pipeline in the other side of the valley. It provides water to another community down the valley further.

After a steady uphill hike of a mile or so, we got to the furthest water source. It is a typical mountain spring about 1,000 ft higher than the community. We took a break and Sr. G. offers a prayer of thanks for the project to succeed. I fired up the GPS and marked the spot. They have already roughed out a proposed pipe route and we started following that back towards the community, marking points with the GPS. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, it finally happened. All the effort I have put into getting a professional chapter of Engineers Without Borders started here in the Springs has come to fruition. We adopted a drinking water and sanitation project for a remote Aymara Indian community in the Andes Mountains last fall and have been raising funds and making preparations for a site assessment trip in the Spring of 2009. In mid-May I led a team consisting of three members of the professional chapter and three members of the Air Force Academy student chapter to Suncallo, Bolivia. What follows are the notes I wrote up on the plane coming back. It consists of many observations and side notes on the trip. There was a great deal of adventure getting there and back but overall we accomplished our mission and brought back lots of data and pictures which will help us in our engineering design work. Note: if you click on the pictures you can see a larger version.

Our trip was delayed by a day due to an American Airlines requirement that all travelers must provide proof of yellow fever vaccination. The American Airlines policy contradicts the guidance given on the US Governments Center for Disease Control (CDC) website which indicates that travelers proceeding to No-Risk areas in Bolivia may sign a waiver at the point of entry.

Our pre-trip research into the vaccination requirements on the CDC website clearly identified the project site to be in a No-Risk area and to keep the costs down and eliminate the risk of introducing a live vaccine into our bodies four of the team decided not to get the yellow fever vaccinations. It is worth noting that the US Air Force declined to provide the yellow fever vaccination to the members of EWB-AFA for the same reasons.

The last thing we expected was for the airline to deny us boarding our aircraft. Regardless of our justifications and documentation supporting our position American Airlines refused to allow us to board the aircraft. Other EWB chapters should be made aware that the airlines have this authority and that the airlines policy may differ from the US Governments. It should be incumbent upon the travel agency to make the travelers aware of any requirements levied by the airlines. Apparently, the $360 in “fees” we paid the travel agency didn’t include this small courtesy.

Fortunately, we were able to locate the required vaccine and proceed the following morning on a direct flight from Denver to Miami and thence on a direct flight (overnight) to La Paz from the Miami airport. Visa fees were paid, Immigration was cleared (no they didn’t ask to see our yellow fever vaccination certifications) and Customs was cleared effortlessly. Read the rest of this entry »

Three men went camping in the Puma Hills, an area in the Pike National Forest. What made this particular camping trip unique was; they were all Grimes men. Three generations in fact. Now that may not seem like a big deal but surprisingly, this camping trip took a long time to organize. I’ve been camping at various times over the years with both my Dad and with my Son but never at the same time. It seems like a simple thing to organize but with all of us serving in the armed forces at one time or another it just never made it past the good idea stage.

I’m the middle generation now but I remember trying to make the same scenario happen when I was a young man. We lived in Iowa at the time and the goal I had envisioned was making a trip up to the Boundary Waters in Canada. Dad was retiring from the Air Force and moving back to Des Moines but my Grandfathers health began to fail before I could make it a reality.

Time passes swiftly and I began to realize another opportunity might easily slip by so I got a commitment from everyone to make it happen this summer. Dad caught the train to Denver and slipped through the “Gestapo” as he called them [Denver was hosting the Democratic National Convention at the time and the Secret Service were all over the place to include boarding the train in Ft Morgan and checking everyone's "papers".] and rode the bus on down to the Springs. Read the rest of this entry »

The Continental Divide Trail (CDT) has a section that runs through the canyon. We drove back down the river to Skull Bridge and parked. Once you leave the road you are in the Chama River Canyon Wilderness. The trail heads out through the Ojitos Canyon where cattle are being grazed on the grassland. The walls of the Chama Canyons are a striking variety of colors from yellows to maroons marking the distinct sedimentary layers of rock. We hiked several miles across the canyon and then the trail headed up a side canyon and began to gain some elevation. We continued to follow it and it eventually started paralleling a small stream.

The clouds settled back in but they were high and did not seem to be threatening rain so we continued for awhile until we got tired. Didn’t see any wildlife to speak of but the canyon walls were quite interesting throughout the hike. We thought we might get to the point where the canyon narrowed down but decided we had best turn back. The hike back went pretty quickly and by the time we got back to the car we had covered eight miles. We hadn’t planned to go quite so far but it felt good to be out and about and not cooped up by bad weather. Read the rest of this entry »

I’d been planning on a camping trip to Utah’s Canyon Country after the wedding in the hopes of getting out into red-rock country. There is something I find fascinating about this beautiful but desolate area and I was looking forward to the warmth, photo opportunities, and no responsibilities. However, in the end we opted out of the long drive and decided to try something a little closer to home. A little research on the Internet turned up a similar area in the Santa Fe National Forest. Located in north central New Mexico, the Rio Chama Canyon became our destination for an extended Memorial Day weekend.

The forecast was a bit dubious but we headed out and worked our way south through high winds and rain arriving at the Coyote Ranger station a few minutes before they closed. We snagged a map of the area and located a nice lookout point on the map at the end of a 4WD forest road that promised extraordinary views of the canyon and river. It took another hour to get there but the view did not disappoint. The only problem was the stinking weather! The winds were still kicking up and it was hinting that it might snow. We decided that setting up camp on the exposed lookout was not the best idea and retreated back into the forest where we pitched the tent among a bunch a small trees.

Misadventure #1: I forgot to pack the sleeping mats. Doh! Rhonda came to the rescue and created a comfortable bed out of the materials we had on hand.

The wind died down and I made a nice campfire but after supper the big old fat snowflakes started coming down. It was pretty but we didn’t linger too long after such a long travel day. We crawled into the tent and quickly realized we should have brought our winter bags. The down blanket and vests we always bring saved the day, er…night, and we managed to stay warm. At least for awhile. I woke up in the middle of the night wondering why the dog was sleeping on my legs. It wasn’t the dog. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the last Saturday that the three of us ‘at home’ will all be here before Kristina leaves for California next week. We decided that was reason enough for an adventure so off we went to Einstein’s Bagel shop for breakfast to get a good start on the day. It was a somewhat cool morning so we skipped eating out on the terrace. We chatted over breakfast about Daniel, the military, school, and of course, California. It was great to hear Kristina share some of what is taking place in Daniel’s life, how God is working and how that affects her future.

Taking Abby a little snack from our breakfast, we headed off to Glen Eyrie, a part of Colorado history, owned by the Navigators. It is an awesome facility down in Queen’s Canyon, named after Col. Palmer’s wife, Queen. He built a castle for her in the Canyon before Colorado Springs was founded. It is now utilized as a seminar facility for Christian seminars of all types. A truly beautiful place, the grounds are often frequented by part of the Big Horn sheep herd that makes its home in the canyon and on the adjoining Greg Francis Big Horn Sheep Refuge. The canyon is no longer open to the public on the weekends but one of Kristina’s perks as an employee of the Navigators is to have access whenever she wants it. Flash her employee ID badge at the gate and we are on our way.

The canyon was arrayed with reds, golds, and still a fair amount of green foliage as we drove through to the far end parking lot. We are hoping to see some of the Big Horn sheep in the canyon so we were constantly looking up the canyon walls for any signs. The cloud cover provided great lighting for my two photographers. Josh recently gave Kristina his old 35mm and so she is shooting today as well as her Dad. We have written previously about the trail and posted pictures so I will not go into too much detail as you can read the old post for a more in depth description of the trail. The trail doesn’t go very far in to the canyon before it crosses over into the National Forest and begins a continual, gradual increase to a tall waterfall. The trail was a magic place today – the leaves were falling and the stream that supplies water to Glen Eyrie was babbling as we followed along. Read the rest of this entry »