The Air That I Breathe

We’ve been on the case regarding today. We shall be at 11,000ft by late afternoon, neither of us have been above Mt Blanc-type elevation before and as ROADTRIPLIFE rule 4a proclaims: You must under no circumstances become ill or enfeebled. That will instantly ruin the trip and it cannot happen.

So we’ve spoken to medical people at home and the conclusion is to drink a lot of water on the way up, a lot, litres every day. And take a couple of days to get there. Friends who have gone from UK airports straight to Colorado ski resorts got altitude sickness. All of them. This is not an option. Ashly has had a few borderline respiratory issues so we shall not let this happen.

The high desert beyond Moab is black, windswept and desolate save for a few ranches. Some might find it forbidding, you wouldn’t want vehicle failure out here, but I fall in love with it. We take a lot of moody pictures which look like they’ve been filtered into black & white mode – they haven’t.

We find Cisco ghost town by accident and it feels familiar; “Someone should shoot a movie here”… they have. Parts of cult picture ‘Vanishing Point’ were done here in 1970 and Thelma & Louise pitched up at the ‘post office.’ The only sound is the constant high-pitched wind that would certainly drive you utterly crackers if you lived here – but nobody does live here. The graffiti instructs us to take nothing but pictures. Kowalski lives!
Within a few hours it’s like the desert never happened, lush forested bluffs and Colorado Rocky Mountain clichés are flying around the car. Roadside stores selling full-size carved bears and elks, the odd Marijuana ‘superstore’ and the feeling that we’re getting ever higher but we still feel fine. We even tolerate the Christian Rap Metal station for a minute or so. Are those animals small deer or big goats? Or both? Who cares? 300 miles disappear; the road through Aspen is still closed for ‘winter’ so we detour to reach our actual log cabin by our actual mountain stream with an actual old cart wheel in it. We’re at Mt Elbert Lodge (slightly grand name) at 11,000ft and my wife cannot stop smiling.
We’ve heavily over-shopped at Safeway’s in Leadville CO; it’s the highest elevation of any city in the United States and was at the heart of the 1858 Colorado gold rush, there is a suspiciously well-preserved saloon bar which is of course named The Silver Dollar Saloon Bar. Drinking Diet Coke in there seemed churlish but always stick to the rules: no alcohol until the car is in bed.

The cabin is exactly as you’d imagine a cabin in the Rocky’s, we do all the cabin stuff and Ashly cannot seem to lose her fixed grin. The kid of the owner is mostly home-schooled as they can’t really go anywhere in winter, oddly enough he doesn’t seem scarily weird. We try and chomp through the kilos of animal we’ve purchased, it’s hotels for a week now so it’s got to be consumed, Ashly wishes this was not a one-night stop, but it is and The Schedule is always king.

N.B. No altitude sickness whatsoever – medical advice taken and medical advice proven wise. I’m a bit short of breath at night but I put this down to not having had a fag for weeks. Medical professionals take notes now…

N.B. If you ever thought John Denver‘s music a little ‘lame’ come to Colorado immediately. It suddenly makes perfect sense, you can’t play The Velvet Underground up here…