Spot On Epic

Matt and I set out today to RMNP for a last day of altitude and gear training.  We just wanted to run some of our clothing systems through the wringer of cold and windy weather.  And cold it was, temperatures hovered around -15C all day with strong gusts over 60kph.  Clear skies dominated overhead as we trekked up the snow covered trail from the Longs Peak trailhead with 40lb packs on our backs.  We made quick time up above tree line which was where the wind really began to lash at us.  I was quite pleased with the clothing system I had on as I stayed pleasantly cool while exerting on the uphill climb.  A few gusts sought to take us off our feet but we just dug and fought them off.

We made good time up to Chasm junction where we hunkered down behind a great boulder blocking the torrent from the north.  I was also using this day to further test out the new SPOT GPS tracking device I picked up for the trip to Aconcagua.  I had activated it back at the car in order to send an “ok” message, it still had not sent the message 3 hours later while we lunched.  I was a bit annoyed as I had heard this seems to happen often with these things.  We finally packed up as we planned on a short day and I had Matt re-clip the SPOT to my pack, after which we headed back down.  When we got back into the trees we stopped to shed layers.  Off comes the back and…hey, where’s the SPOT?  We search all around and it isn’t where we are at, so not getting enough exercise for the day we left our packs by the trail and started back up to Chasm Junction looking for the lost device.  It was getting later in the day now and I was mostly out of water and food not planning for this extra ascent.  About halfway back up I knew exactly where I would find the device, and once I arrived at our sheltered lunch boulder I bent down and picked up the little orange bugger.  It was still trying to send the ‘ok’ message.

Back down again in the howling wind we picked up the packs and shuffled in the cooling day back to the car.  Back at the house I found out that the tracking option was working through the day (even though the “I’m ok” function didn’t send), and that was good as that is what I want to work for everyone to follow us on our journey.    All in all a good day; stayed decently warm and dry throughout.  Just a few more days of training before I’m done until we start climbing a week from now.

EDIT   A little more judious reading revealed the following:  in order for the OK check in to work you can not have activating tracking and visa versa.  So since I went right into tracking mode at the car yesterday, it never had a chance to send the ok message.  I think I will need to first send an ok message, and then turn on tracking for the day.