Telluride Bluegrass Festival

I had a whole summer's worth of fun in four days at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival last week Telluride is a little village tucked away in an incredibly beautiful mountain box canyon with two waterfalls at the end of the canyon. The normal population of the town is 2300, but during the festival at least 11,500 people are added to that. If you would like to read more about it, here is the link: http://www.bluegrass.com/telluride/. I especially enjoyed Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Mumford and Sons, Emmylou Harris, and Robert Plant and his Band of Joy.

I camped at the high school, which was the family-friendly, extended quiet hours non-alcohol site. It was mostly families with children, retired couples, and middle-aged women in pairs or alone. I made many new friends, both at the campground and at the festival. I have e-mail addresses and intend to stay in touch. I even have a ride from Denver next year if I want one, and a contact with Frontier Airlines for standby fights out of Branson. Everyone I met was happy, friendly, and having a great time. Lots of tie-dye and dreadlocks, but also retired couples, young families, couples and even a few solos like me. I met a nurse from Lincoln, Nebraska, who thought I was brave to come alone, but I thought she was brave because she came with her two daughters.

I had a few challenges getting out of Telluride, however. Sunday night, when I was standing by the fence watching Robert Plant and his band, my water bottle, chair and bag disappeared. I had left these things at various places on the festival grounds all through the festival and no one touched them, but it was still careless of me not to have worn my little belt pack with the important things in it when I went up to watch the band. The important things I lost were: a credit card, my driver's license, cell phone, and the keys to the car my friend in Durango had so kindly let my borrow. Complicating the situation was the fact that I had broken camp that morning and my tent, sleeping bag, clothing, cash, other credit cards and bank card were locked in the trunk of a car I had no key for.

When I discovered my things were missing, I searched all around the area with no luck. I walked the mile back to the campground to see if perhaps friends had brought my things back for me, but that hadn't happened. When I was at the campground, a guardian angel in the form of Brent, a festival volunteer, took me under his wings. He walked all the way back to the festival grounds with me, took me into the warming hut where the lost and found was located, went out on the grounds with me and helped me search again, offered me clothing, food, cell phone use, and contacted a locksmith for me so I could get into the car and drive it back to Durango. While I was at the warming hut another volunteer, Sandy, found me a place to sleep, gave me a toothbrush and food, and tried to give me some money but I wouldn't take it. Sandy also found me a pair of reading glasses in the lost and found, without which I would have had a much harder time making all the phone calls and writing down the information I needed to write to straighten out this mess. I slept a few hours, then started making calls early Monday morning. I had to reschedule my flight, put a hold on my credit card, call people who were expecting me, and call my cell phone provider. About 12:30 the locksmith came with a set of keys for me and I headed down to Durango.

All the while I kept thinkng that in such a beautiful place with such wonderful music and kind, helpful people, no one would have intentionally stolen my things. Why would anyone even have wanted my old beat-up waterbottle and my chair which would have been wet and muddy from the rain that had started about 4:00 Sunday afternoon? My hope was that someone in a group had gathered things up to leave and inadvertently picked up my things too.

When I got a new cell phone in Durango and was able to access my voice mail, there was a message from my credit card company that someone had called them to report that he had found my bag in a pile of tarps. I have a name and phone number and am waiting to hear back. I am hoping to have him mail the important things to me on the trail.

I plan to start my hike some time tomorrow. My first town will be Breckenridge, which I hope to reach in 7-8 days. I will be able to get to a computer there for sure, so I will update then. There is a lot of snow still up in the higher elevations, so I'm not in a big hurry to cross over Georgia Pass yet.

Packing

I've added a few pictures of the preparation process. My plane leaves Branson today at about 3 p.m., so Idon't have time to write much, I'm glad I have a little time before I start my hike. I probably won't start sooner than June 22, which will give me time to get things I forgot, and time to get over this cold I came down with Sunday.

Time to Panic

Friday, June 10 was my father-in-law's 90th birthday. Since he lives here in Springfield, preparation duties fell to my husband Mike and me. I started cleaning my house the Sunday after school got out on Friday, June 3 and cleaned until the guests started arriving on Friday, June 10. I also had to shop and prepare for the birthday party on June 10: order the cake, buy the candy and mints, make the punch, decorate and so on. It is now Sunday, June 12, the last guests have left and I have about 48 hours to get ready to catch my plane to go out to Colorado. I am washing sheets and towels now, and I also have to clip my two dogs before I go.

Fortunately I have all my equipment more-or-less together, since I brought it all to school with me one day to show the kids while I gave them a talk and slide show on the Colorado Trail. The biggest job I have at this point is to prepare my drop boxes. I will mail myself a box addressed "Debbie Good, General Delivery, Town, Zip Code" to each of the towns I will go in to as I hike. These boxes will contain food, maybe fresh socks, and any other items I am particular about and may not be able to buy in the towns. I don't need to have them all mailed (my husband can mail them after I leave) but I need to have them ready.

To know how many drop boxes to ship and what to put in them, I had to come up with a projected rough-guess itinerary. Based on how fast I moved in 2008 and 2009, I am planning to average between 13 and 15 miles per day, slower early in the hike and faster as I gain fitness. I studied the map, calculated distances and decided which towns to go in to and how may days apart they will be, and that tells me how much of what food to put in my box. My experience from the previous hikes is that I am usually wrong and put in too much food, but that's better than not enough.

Here is my rough-guess itinerary:

Denver - Breckenridge         105.1 miles              8 days
To Twin Lakes                       71.3                      6 days
To Salida                               76.7 miles              6 days
To Creede                             105 miles               7 days
To Silverton                           53.3 miles              4 days
To Durango                           74 miles                 5 days

This itinerary is on the conservative side and I will probably move faster than this, but I need to be prepared for these distances. On the previous hikes I spent two nights and one full day in the towns, but if I want to speed up I can just spend one night in town and head out the next morning.

So far the fundraising is going well. I have checks totalling $180 and verbal or written pledges for another $100 or so.  I have passed out a lot of flyers, so I hope things will trickle in throughout the summer. Tomorrow I will post some pictures of my equipment and supplies and explain what I use it for. I am not sure how to post pictures once I get out on the trail, since I will be using hotel or coffeehouse computers, but I'm going to try.