Yesterday I went to check out Mt. Evans. I had never been there before, and neither had my climbing partner, but we got slightly unclear directions from a friend of mine (who, incidentally, I could barely hear over the noise of the restaurant we were in at the time). The day kinda turned into what in Moab we like to refer to as a f**k show or junk show, but hopefully makes for a relatively entertaining story.

So, I had directions that I had hastily scribbled on a napkin in yellow crayon. What I had written down didn't really amount to much, so I was basically working off of my imagination and bad memory. As we drove up toward Mt. Evans, I text messaged my friend in the car in front of me: "I'm kinda just winging it."

That became the motto of the day, as did: "Whatever Katie suggests, do the opposite."
Anyway, in the vague directions that I clearly had not been listening very closely to, I remembered something about being able to drive to the "top" and make the approach much shorter. My friend who had given me directions was adamant about hiking in but I decided that I wanted to drive to the "top." I put this word in quotes because I wasn't clear what exactly was meant by top. I assumed it meant the top of Mt. Evans and then you would drop down to the bouldering. I had been told that the bouldering was at the end of the Chicago Lakes Trail, so I thought "There must be a way to drive up above Chicago Lakes and drop down." The ranger lady informed us that yes, you could park at Summit Lake and scramble down the talus field to Chicago Lakes. Perfect, I thought. That must be it. We parked and started scrambling downhill. There was no trail and the lake looked really far down. I thought this was supposed to be a shortcut....

We kept going though, and eventually got to the lake. It took some time and I was thinking that the shortcut thing wasn't really adding up. We hiked around looking for boulder problems and continually struck out. Eventually we decided that maybe we should just continue down the trail and see what we could see. We formulated the grand plan to hike all the way out and then hitchhike back up to where the car was parked. (Mine was at the bottom and my climbing partner's was at the top, but I had stupidly left my car keys in the other car so taking my car back up was not an option).

As we walked, I gradually remembered things that my direction friend had told me. "I think he said something about a y in the trail, and to go left."

Sure enough, twenty minutes down the trail we see a y heading in the other direction, and try it. Lo and behold, there are the boulders! We boulder for a bit but everything is pretty hard and it's already relatively late in the day due to our wanderings.

We continue down the main trail again, and run into some ladies hiking. They tell us about a dirt road down further that the trail crosses. Suddenly a light turns on in my brain. "Oh! I think my friend must have been saying that you could drive to the top of the dirt road, not the top of the mountain. Duh!!" My climbing partner looks at me and rolls his eyes in exasperation. Why weren't you listening?! He is clearly thinking.

Anyway, we hike out, find the dirt road, continue hiking, and finally get back to the ranger station. "Maybe you should try your car and see if it's locked and if your spare key is in it, just in case." My climbing partner suggests.

I agree but am SURE that it's not. I try the passenger door and it pops open. Sure enough, my spare key is in the glove box as well. I have so far been right about nothing that I've suggested today.

We hop in and drive up to the other car. "Well, unfortunately I don't have a hitchhiking story to blog about now," I comment.

Oh well. Next time I'll pay better attention to the directions I'm given and hopefully will be 'winging' it less.