Overview

In 2010 the Big Butt crew traveled back to the famous Holy Cross and finally conquered its peak. After this incredibly long day, we celebrated with revelry at the base of the peak and spent the following day enjoying Vail.

Location

Mount of the Holy Cross - 39.4680° N, 106.4798° W
Vail, CO - 39.6403° N, 106.3742° W

Crew

Matt Jack, Chris Coakley, Jon Bathgate, Brian Kinsella, Tim Gilchrist, Mac Stephens

Story

Negligence is often ignored if the nature of the task is unimportant, and as Jimmy Buffett believes, it's not really important to write anything unless you feel like writing it. That said, getting into a rhythm of writing is something that I should aspire to do more. I didn't document BBVII at all here even though I've got some pretty damn good pictures that I'll put up when I get back to SA (on a train headed to NYC at the moment). I wanted to recap last year's trip before describing the recent victories near Gunnison, CO and Big Butt VIII.

I wouldn't say that I marked Matt Jack's inability to speak after being somewhere around fourteen thousand feet as something that was normal until after Holy Cross and this most recent trip, but it is fair to say that Matt, well, Matt got his ass kicked by this mountain even though he did complete the task. We started early in the morning after about four hours of sleep due to Coakley's late flight into DIA. Knowing that we could find a trailhead almost two hours after we had meant to and still summit Handies through a vastly difficult route made my reservation to beer intake minimal as we drove up to Vail the night before taking on the beast.

You could say that Holy Cross is a legend. In the Big Butt sphere it has always been an important marker. Phrases like "ass kicked by Holy Cross," and "Holy Cross are belong to us" filled the receivers of many of Mark Stephens' walkie talkies in years past. Of course back then we were only attacking the mountain on ATV's and not attempting to crawl to the top of this legendary peak. Unbeknownst to Kins and BBB, driving past the Minturn country club reminds me of ordering appetizers and the throwing of Jon's music out of the car.

We started early, climbing over a tall 11,000 ft peak to drop down into a beautiful mountain valley mottled with campgrounds around a cold snowy run-off stream. The hike up from their consisted of wide forested switchbacks until breaking into a tree-line bowl that pushed us up into a mile long boulder field until the summit. Bathgate and Aaron, the first two to reach the apex, hailed us with warm smiles and cheers as the remaining four finally crawled over the final group of boulders to reach the top.

On top, Matt was fine. On the way down, not so much. Instilled with the courage of our v-neck t-shirts, mine exclaiming "bitch tits" Matt and I were quickly left behind the others on the tedious climb down. Favoring my left leg, I was able to stay with Matt the entire descent into the campground site again where Jon had graciously left us a bit off water given that we were completely dry. But the water didn't really help. On the climb back over the 11er, it was ten steps and one minute of rest until finally, we made it back down to the stormtrooper, delusional but happy. There are a few beers in my life that I actually remember the taste; this is one of them. The CL smooth around the campfire, followed by the up-and-coming Bathgate ritual of quaffing Jame-o, made the end of the hike perfect.