A different kind of adventure. 1986, John Callahan, Steve Marolt, Roger Marolt and I would start at Little Nell and walk some place every fall before heading back to college. This trip we started, walked over Aspen Mountain to Telluride. No trails. Just maps and a compass. This is crossing the blue mesa over the mountains from Crested Butte. There was no water out there in the fall for miles so the discussion was do we chance it and go ahead or walk back to the reservoir 15 miles. We were on the trail for a week doing 25 miles a day, all self supported so 15 miles was a day. We went forward and found a small spring with a dead cow right in the middle. We doubled up on tablets and made it work but it was totally disgusting. I will never forget that cow hide over the bones with maggots all over the place. Ugh! Those were some tough but fun trips. Roger worked at a high end clothing store and they couldn't give those shirts away until we took them. haha. You just wouldn't believe the stories from those adventures. I just came across the slide show. But back then, we would climb and ski all summer and then do these hikes. It was long before Callahan was an Olympian or we did all the high altitude climbing /skiing, but those trips were a major part in teaching us to be self sufficient, tough, and most important to think well out of the box for adventures. Back then, people didn't really go on those super long adventures locally so we were and continue to be total odd balls....haha
