Colorado Rocky Mountains Bring Challenges To Venturer Crew 70 Group

By Kristen Coates

And Jeff Corbeil

Living in Connecticut, it is not often that you get the chance to visit the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Even if you are so lucky, a dusty windshield often obscures your view of the scenery or your roadside vista is ruined by the ever-annoying sound of traffic. This July the members of Venture Crew 70, based in Newtown, had the opportunity not only to fly to Colorado, but also to travel off the main roads and spend ten days hiking, rafting, caving, climbing, and bicycling through the scenic and immense Rocky Mountains.

This year Venturers included Kristen Coates, Jeff Corbeil, Jeff Heller, Melanie Murphy and Bill Speirs. The adult leaders for the trip were Chris Ciuffo, Aaron Cox and Amy Cox.

The crew of eight flew into Denver International Airport, and on the first day rented cars and drove to a campsite near Glenwood Canyon where they met with lifelong caver and restoration expert Al Collier. 

The word of the day was most certainly “wow,” as the crew gazed in awe at the changing scenery, cringed at the narrowness of the mountain roads, and dealt physically and mentally with the thinning atmosphere. Starting off that morning at sea level, the crew had flown and driven up to an altitude of 10,000 feet where they would camp for the night.

Incidentally, the chosen name for the crew this year was “Hypoxic Underground.” Hypoxia is the term for the condition wherein a body is deprived of oxygen, due most often to high altitudes. For the first few days of the trip, the crew struggled with its varying symptoms, including headaches and dizziness.

However, these symptoms were all forgotten the next morning as the crew strapped on caving gear and began to crawl through the first bypass in Groaning Cave. For two days, the crew explored a variety of tight narrow passages and large spacious caverns. They found themselves ducking under soda-straw formations and traversing over underground tarns.

“Crawling around in the cave took a lot of hard work and energy,” said Bill Speirs. “However, it was all worth it because the formations in the cave were amazing. It was unlike anything that any of us had ever seen.”

Besides their exploration adventures in the cave, the crew also assisted Mr Collier with restoration work such as scrubbing and removing mud from flowstone and repairing broken formations. This work was done in the beginning sections of Groaning’s ten miles of passageway that makes it, by nearly seven miles, the longest cave in Colorado.

“The cave was huge,” said Melanie Murphy. “It seemed like we had seen everything, but when we look at the map, I realized how much there was to explore.”

On the fourth day, feeling tired and sore, the crew drove to Glenwood Springs for a day of relaxation. There they rafted the Shoshone rapids of the mighty Colorado River and visited the welcome showers in the invigorating pools of the Glenwood mineral hot springs, where they wear able to wash of all the caving mud that covered them and soak their sore muscles.

That afternoon, the crew arrived at their campsite just outside the Maroon-Snowmass Wilderness, located in the Aspen district of the White River National Forest. There they spent the evening packing backpacks for their next adventure.

Early the next morning with full packs and five days’ worth of food, the group started off on the trail hiking up and over Buckskin Pass at an altitude of 12,460 feet. They stopped to catch their breath and a glimpse of the spectacular view before a sudden thunderstorm chased them down to that night’s camp in the valley beneath Snowmass Mountain.

The next day, the group woke up comfortingly late and hiked to picturesque Snowmass Lake at the base of the mountain and began to plan their route of ascent. Several games of cards and an early dinner rounded out the evening in preparation for the group’s four o’clock start the next morning to climb Mount Snowmass. 

It was very, very early but the group was nevertheless enthusiastic. The first hour was spent hiking in the dark to the base of Snowmass. Then, wearing helmets, the group began scrambling up Snowmass’ unstable rock fields to its grassy basin filled with wild flowers. Coming over the lip of the basin, the group saw that the summit was sadly still shrouded in clouds and it did not appear as if they were likely to go away.  Still the crew trudged on for nearly two hours.

The climb was steep and tiring, but by munching on candy bars and cracking jokes, the crew was able to keep morale high. They climbed until they were just below the ridgeline, a short distance from the 14,092-foot summit, when it began to rain. The group threw a few snowballs from one of the mountain’s permanent snowfields, took one final group picture, and turned around after reaching an elevation over 13,000 feet. The bleak weather made it far too risky to attempt the ridgeline.

The crew was disappointed about not reaching the summit but proud of its progress and the knowledge that they could have made it had the weather been favorable.

“It was disappointing having to turn around,” said Jeff Heller. “After all of our planning, Mother Nature had the final say. However, I still had a lot of fun playing in the snow.”

The next day, the eighth morning of the trip, the crew hiked through four hours of rain, hail, sleet and snow, muttering about having to wear winter coats and mittens in the middle of July. As the storm cleared, they reached their last camping site of the backpacking trip, a windy cliff-side spot with a beautiful overlook of the valley below.

After changing into dry clothes and eating a warm lunch, the group settled into the normal campsite routines of hanging bear-bags, taking solo walks in the woods, and playing a card game they had recently invented. Each person was relaxed and almost serene as individuals, but more importantly they had all pulled together as close friends.

As the crew awoke the next morning, members noted how ironic it was that their last day of hiking was the first day of the hike that it did not rain. Enjoying the change of weather, the group hiked down to the trailhead and after packing all of the gear back into the cars, the group spent a few hours exploring a local ghost town.

They then spent the remainder of the day once again at the ever-popular Glenwood Hot Springs and returning to visit Mr Collier. The hikers also stayed at the same campsite where they had been the first few days of the trip.

On last day of day of true high adventure, the crew biked through Glenwood Canyon along US Route 6, where some demonstrated tricks while others simply worked on keeping their balance. They then visited the recently opened commercial cave, Glenwood Caverns and Historic Fairy Caves.

While the crew was impressed with the formation of the cave and their informative tour guide, they felt as they do with all commercial caves — that the adventure and natural aspect of caving, which they had experienced in Groaning and other wild caves, was missing.

That last night the crew held a makeshift mountain barbecue up at camp with Mr Collier, where they exchanged addresses and said their good-byes.

Unfortunately, as the crew knows well from past summers, these trips must come to an end. Each member will now go back to work or high school or college, but their memories and friendships will last. And there will always be next summer.

To prepare for next summer in fact, Venture Crew 70 is holding an open house on Saturday, August 18, to allow new faces to join the adventurous group. For information, contact Aaron and Amy Cox at 426-4602.