Last Updated on January 17, 2023 by James Dziezynski
A cool Google Earth view of Lone Cone shows how isolated it is from surrounding mountain ranges.
In the far southwest corner of Colorado lies Lone Cone. In a state of enormous peaks and expansive ranges, Lone Cone sits as a solitary volcanic corpse, surrounded by spanning farmland that dissolves into the arid deserts of Utah. Conversely known as The Devil’s Armchair, Lone Cone is perhaps the most accurately named mountain in the state (along with Mount Massive).
When I climbed the peak in the late summer of 2006 for my book Best Summit Hikes in Colorado, I was especially looking forward to hiking Lone Cone. It was cool and remote, kind of like a mountainous The Fonz. By the time I finally got there, I had already climbed over 80 summits in the past 3 months and was strong as ever. Nearly all of those hikes were done solo and off-trail yet loneliness was never part of the equation.
Lone Cone on a stormy afternoon.
Lone Cone was different. I had just come off a strong but unexpectedly tiring climb of Hesperus Mountains and not gotten into “camp” until nearly midnight. And by camp, I mean sleeping in my battle-worn 1989 Honda Accord. The roads to the closest trails to Lone Cone were hard to follow, thick with clay and mud. My motto had generally been “trailheads or bust” but I was so out of sorts, I just pulled off into a pasture and settled for a night of uneasy sleep.
In the morning, flat grey light and misty fog did nothing to encourage my spirits. I could only drive about a mile from the trailhead before I pulled the old mountain bike off the rack of my car. I biked up the muddy road to the closest thing Lone Cone has to a trail. Something felt off — this was an easy hike mileage wise and there were no great technical aspects to it. But as I wandered through the forest, the soil was black and a surplus of animals’ skulls littered the duff and downed lodgepole pines. Trails were mere illusions and it was not until I broke out of treeline that I saw I was on target for where I needed to be.
The scramble up Lone Cone was fun– rocky and scrambly but never too sketchy or exposed. The whitish-grey plates of rock on the ridge matched the palette of dull clouds in the sky. On the summit, views stretched out with unexpected clarity despite the overcast clouds above. And I felt, for the first time in my odyssey, lonely. The few entries in the sparse summit log were surprisingly distant and sad. One, in particular, took up two full pages and addressed an anonymous hiker’s losing battle with alcoholism.
It took me a moment to recognize the sensation I had as loneliness. I think all of us, especially the young and adventurous, have a high threshold for isolation. It was odd to feel the desire for companionship, especially after nearly two seasons of going solo. It occurred to me that where I stood, not a single person in the world beyond myself knew where I was. I hadn’t seen another person on the last three mountains I hiked and today was no different.
I wasn’t overwhelmed by the loneliness, but it struck a chord that reminded me it was time to go home. I wasn’t going home to much. Prior to beginning my book, I had squandered a wonderful relationship with an incredible woman, my full-time job at Hooked on the Outdoors magazine had disappeared when the publication unexpectedly closed its doors and I had barely a penny to my name. I did have my sweet cat, a modest apartment, and a focused goal. It wasn’t much but it was home and I craved it.
Of course, everything was fine — it had to be– and a momentary lapse of solitude was nothing new.
It was nothing new then and it’s nothing new now.
