T. Duren Jones - Tales from the Trails

Book Description

T. Duren Jones gets out into the wilderness as often as possiblecamping, fishing, hiking, desert trail trekking and bagging peaksand does he have stories to tell! Hes hiked hundreds of trails, completed the nearly 500 miles of the Colorado Trail, and has summited all 54 of Colorados 14,000-ft. peaks. He loves the outdoorsand check-off lists. Hes kinda crazy that way.

Hell often drag friends and family on his wilderness quests...and most of them have survived his escapades. Tales from the Trailspart adventure journal, part travelogue, part motivational encouragement, part stand-up comedyincludes 26 mostly-true outdoor stories from trails and climbs around the American West.

This book is for anyone who loves spending time in the outdoors, who wish they could be outdoors more, or who simply enjoy reading about other nuts who spend time outdoors.

Mostly true stories of changed lives (and socks) in the wilderness of the West, featuring those who survived the authors adventures

T. Duren Jones
Foreword by Kevin J. Anderson

Smashwords Edition 2014

WordFire Press
www.wordfirepress.com

ISBN: 978-1-61475-183-0

Copyright 2014 by T. Duren Jones

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover design by Tim Duren Jones
and
Art Director Kevin J. Anderson

Book Design by RuneWright, LLC
www.RuneWright.com

Kevin J. Anderson & Rebecca Moesta, Publishers

Published by
WordFire Press, an imprint of
WordFire, Inc.
PO Box 1840
Monument, CO 80132

Contents

Dedication

This book is dedicated, with love, to my dear wife, Diane. She has believed in me for just about every endeavor Ive set my mind onno matter how harebrained at times. Diane sacrificed time and resources for me to climb all the Colorado 14ers, worried about me on every trip, and has not only supported me in my writing passion, but also kicked my rear end to keep me going. I want to thank Diane for her backing, organizational skills and good content suggestions. Her involvement in this process was indispensable, and she has always been my best fan for anything in life.

Diane is my best friend and has been my trail companion countless times, even though that wasnt her favorite activity. We had an agreement, however: She would hike with me; Id go shopping with her. I got the better end of the deal.

Acknowledgments

My sincere apologiesand gratitudeto friends and family who participated in my trail adventures but fortunately lived to tell about it. I may have put you through some unpleasant ordeals in my quests. Thank you for memories to last a lifetime, and for not beating me senseless with a hiking stick along the way.

I could not have written these stories without the help and support of many. My best buddy since the third grade, Bruce Peppin, believed in me enough to set writing deadlines and make little flags of encouragement to display on my desk for motivation.

Special thanks to my writing group guys, Ray Seldomridge and Gino Martinelli, who thought I could do something ridiculous like putting out a book. They regularly gave of their time, resources, funny margin commentaries (to keep my feet on the trail), keen observations, and great edits. Without their good word doctoring, Id have fallen off a literary cliff.

My appreciation goes to Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta for this publishing opportunity. And thanks to Kevin (who is featured in several stories) for his inspiration and passion for the outdoors that spurred me on to explore more paths less traveled. Thanks to Lou Moesta for providing excellence in proofreading, making me look better than I am.

I must also express gratitude heavenward. One simply cannot spend time out in nature, in the wilderness, surrounded by beauty and splendor, without sensing something greater, and pausing to say Thank you.

Foreword

Getting away from it all- and
getting to the heart of it all.

So far the dentist appointment has been the best part of the dayand that should tell you what kind of day it was. Numerous deadlines, complications, and administrative details as the publisher of Wordfire Press; several new releases coming out at once as well as some major revisions to a six hundred page novel manuscript of my own; a looming deadline for an entirely different (an entirely unfinished) novel manuscript and travel arrangements for a convention appearance; ninety-six story submissions to read for two anthologies my wife and I are editing and on top of it all getting a new crown put on at the dentist. Bombarded by all that, as I was driving back home from the dentist appointment, I saw how beautiful it was outside. A Colorado February day: sixty degrees, blue skies, only a few patches of un-melted snow remaining, it made me recall how long it had been since I went hiking

Which of course reminded me that I had to write this introduction for my hiking partner and brother-in-law Tim's book. Sigh. Another deadline. Then I realized that writing the introduction was not actually a burdenbut an opportunity. Rather than being locked in my office, strapped to the keyboard to fight back the constant flood of emails or to wince each time the phone rang with someone requesting "just a quick little thing," I could think about all of the wonderful hiking adventures I'd had done with Tim. And since I do all of my writing by dictating into a digital recorder, I could actually go outside in this beautiful day, walk along a few wonderful trails, breathe the fresh air, listen to the trickle of melting snow. No, that wasn't a burden at all. I could get away from it all, I could be outside, surrounded by beautiful Colorado scenery and just recharge my batteries.

When my wife and I had moved to Colorado seventeen years ago, I was already an avid hiker in California, but I did most of those hikes alone, climbing Half Dome in Yosemite, Mt. Whitney, Lassen Peak, wandering dozen miles of trails in King's Canyon or Sequoia National Park, exploring the deserts of Death Valley. Tim and his family had moved to Colorado a few years ahead of us. An avid hiker and outdoorsman, he had done plenty of exploring on his own and had discovered many places that I simply had to see.

On the Christmas before we moved to Colorado, Tim gave me two books, a set of books as a gift. Trails and instructions on how to climb all fifty-four of the mountain peaks in Colorado that were over fourteen thousand feet high, comma dubbed the "Fourteeners." Time had decided to climb them himself and was hoping for a hiking partner. I spent that winter (as many forlorn hikers do) looking at the guidebooks, reading descriptions of trails and imagining myself out there on those dotted lines, wending their way up ridges, over saddles, and up to the final ascent.

When we did move to Colorado that following July, I already had my marching orders and Tim had his plans. Although I did climb some of those peaks solo, Tim and I ascended many of them together. We tried to get friends to join us, most of whom had insufficient lung capacity or endurance. We did the harder and harder ones. Each summit had its own unique character; each name checked off on the list felt like another triumph. While staying in shape throughout the winter season we would go snowshoeing up around Rocky Mountain National Park or in other high mountain trails. We'd exchange tips and maps of new places we had discovered, new trails to explore.