May 30th, 2026
My Spring Plan is almost complete. I spent 4 days at Saint Vrain State Park near Longmont, Colorado. I like to start there as my site has a cement pad with full hookups. The pad made it easy to jack up the trailer axle so I could grease the wheel bearings. The hookups made it possible to treat my fresh water tank and pipes with bleach. I was able to cycle the water a couple of times to remove the chlorine. I was also able to de-winterize the plumbing.
After completely re-organizing the truck and trailer storage, I moved on to Boyd Lake State Park by Loveland. There I loitered for 2 weeks, waiting for the temperatures to increase up higher in the mountains. I did get a couple of snow days (2-4 inches) while there.
I made my annual appointment to see the cardiologist. The news was not good. My Atrial Fibrillation has returned after 2 1/2 years of normal rhythm. I was given the warning that this will cause my chance of stroke to go up (about 2% per year). My meds were adjusted, but there was no discussion about doing anything else. I was scheduled for a Nuclear Stress test, 2 days later. Then I was told that failed and they wanted to run a catheter into my heart to look for any potential sites to place stents. I told them, no thanks, I would get a second opinion.
Next, I relocated to Kelly Dahl U.S. Forest Service campground near Nederland, Colorado. This is only about 35 minutes up Boulder Canyon, but is at 8,500 feet in elevation. I experience 4 days of cold, cloudy weather and 10 inches of wet heavy snow. I had to “jump through some hoops” to keep the trailer pipes from freezing, but everything was covered with clumps of sticky snow, buffering all sound and creating a silent world.
I was a little worried that the increase in elevation could cause breathing problems at night, given that I had Afib and a failed stress test (these stress tests have about a 30% false positive rate). However, I experienced no problems the first 5 days I was there. Then as usual, the other shoe dropped. From the sixth day on (12 days there altogether), I did have problems. I could get to sleep in the evening alright, but any time I woke up, would be the end, as I felt as though I was going to suffocate as I tried to doze off again. I got about 2-3 hours of sleep those next 7 nights. A couple of days, I drove back down to Boulder, which improved my breathing and made things slightly better the following night.
Given the issues, I had a decision to make. I could go back down to Boulder, pay for an expensive campsite, breath better, suffer the wicked heat, and possibly have the heart procedure. Or, I could continue on with my previous schedule and campground reservations and keep increasing elevation. My next site was to be at Peak One USFS campground near Frisco. It is a little above 9,000 feet. That however, would put me further away from breathable oxygen if things continued to escalate. This scared me quite a a bit as I had already had several nights where I was so tired, I couldn’t keep my eyes open, and when they closed, I was instantly back awake with that panicked feeling that I was taking my last breath.
After a lot of thought, I decided to move on higher into the mountains. I can’t write now, why I decided that, as first being a man, and second be a very logically thinking man ( spent 35 years in an Information Technology career where everything has a yes/no, true/false, or 0/1 possible outcome ), the decision was against everything that made sense.
Sometimes, the other shoe comes crashing down, and others times, it goes flying off into the forest somewhere. I have now been near Frisco for 3 nights and have had little to no breathing problems. I still wake up for a while after about 1am, but am getting 7 or more hours of sleep each night. Today, I hiked 3 miles on top of a ridge overlooking Dillon Reservoir, and felt fine. I have no clue what changed for the better. Was I camped by some plant to which I was allergic back at Nederland? The air is colder up here? My body acclimated to need less oxygen? The whole situation sucked so bad that I just gave up, so my brain psychology changed? Whatever it was, I’ll take it.
Tuesday, I will move again, up to Leadville, another 1,200 foot elevation increase. I hope that there, I can get an appointment with my old cardiologist who is now located in Montrose (back down to 5,500 feet) and see if he can advise me on next steps. My educated guess is, that he may just say do nothing, or more accurately, stay in the mountains, hike, fish, camp, and enjoy life as much as possible until that stroke provides a final solution.
Don’t count the days. Make the days count.
Starting All Over 