Sunday, July 31, 2011
Segment 28
The Progress Map includes the latest position reports. The 7/31 position is about 1 mile from the beginning of Segment 28 (Yellow Marker), which is 22.5 miles long. Click here for a larger map.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Silverton
I made it to Silverton yesterday, July 27. That's only three days to travel 53 miles. That's almost 18 miles a day. The reason is not that I have become a superhuman hiker -- I was just trying to outrun the thunderstorms. The Colorado Trail between Creede and Silverton is almost all above timberline, up on the tundra. In fact the highest point on the CT is in this part, above 13,00 feet, and almost all of it is above 12,000 feet. For miles and miles there is absolutely no shelter, not even a willow bush. Because this is such a wet year in Colorado, I had storms to dodge. I just wanted to get down.
I left Creede on Sunday. I decided not to take my chances on hitching a ride, so I paid a nice lady to take me up to Spring Creek Pass, but she couldn't take me up there until after church about 1:00 p.m. Since I got such a late start I only hiked about 8 miles, but I got to stay in the yurt. I had heard about the yurt in 2009 but had not known exactly how to find it. This year I met a northbound hiker just as I was approaching the area it was in, and he told me exactly how to find it. If you go to www.hinsdalehauteroute.org you can see pictures. The yurt is a big, semi-permanent round tent modeled after tents used by nomadic peoples of Asia. It was amazing! It had a Coleman stove, a wood-burning stove, table and chairs, cots and even old blue shag carpet on the floor! I slept great.
The next day, Monday, it started raining early afternoon and rained until about nine that night. There wasn't a lot of thunder and lightning, but it was cold. I saw more hikers this day than I had on most of the others, mainly because everybody was camping early to get into their tents and out of the rain. One older gentleman and I kept hiking, and it was kind of fun to pass all the young people. Eventually he and I camped. I didn't cook or clean, because I didn't want to get out of my tent to walk down to the creek and get the water to do so. I could have used a yurt this night.
The next morning all my clothes were damp from walking in the rain the day before. It was a cold, cloudy, windy morning. Cloudy mornings don't usually portend good weather for the rest of the day, and that was certainly true for Tuesday. Sometime about noon the clouds began to organize into storms, and I got hammered. I had earlier wondered why I had brought my sunglasses, but today I realized I needed them to keep the wind, rain and sleet out of my eyes. Until about 4:00 I was above 12,000 feet with nowhere to hide, so I just kept going. I was so cold my hands wouldn't have worked to set up my tent anyway. There was so much water the trails were slippy, slidy and muddy, and I went down into the mud on one knee once. However, the views were still beautiful. The mountains are completely different on a day like this, with rain and mist obscuring them and the lights and shadows of the storms highlighting them.
One highlight of the day was getting to see Juan, the Peruvian shepherd, the Border Collie Annie, the two Maremma guard dogs Shadow and Picena and the 3000 sheep they look after. He was standing by the point where the trail leaves the Stony Pass road and goes through the area where his sheep range, greeting the hikers as they went by. I had met Juan and the dogs (actually different Maremmas) in 2009 and thoroughly enjoyed our attempted conversation. I say attempted because he speaks very little English and I speak very little Spanish, but it was amazing how well we could communicate. This year I said, "ano nueve" for year nine and he was able to tell I meant year 2009, and he pointed to where I had camped in 2009 and made a gesture like he was sleeping, so I could tell he remembered me. The 2009 Maremmas were friendly, but I think Juan was keeping an eye on the new ones so they would become accustomed to the hikers. Juan indicated that the Maremmas from 2009, Tony and Yenni, were working with another herd of sheep.
A word about sheep and coyotes -- in the seventies and before, the public policy of our rancher-friendly government agencies in the west was to control coyote populations, not control coyote damage. They set out poisoned bait and traps which also killed other species, including endangered ones like the bald eagle. In contrast, even in the seventies the emphasis for the Missouri and Kansas conservation agencies was to control coyote damage, mainly by going after the offending coyote. In the late seventies I applied for a job with the Idaho Sheep Experiment station as a research assistant on a project to test a chemical that would not kill the coyotes, but sterilize them so the couldn't reproduce. I didn't get the job, but I like to think I made a contribution in my interview. I talked to them about controlling coyote damage instead of coyote populations, and I suggested they look into the breeds of dogs that have been used in Europe for many centuries to protect sheep from wolves. I even told them how to get contact a breeder of one of these, the Hungarian Komondor, in Idaho Falls. We moved away from Idaho, but about three years after my interview my mother-in-law sent me a clipping from the Wall Street Journal about the testing of Komondors by the Idaho Sheep Experiment station. This seems to have been the start of a movement toward protecting the sheep rather that killing the coyotes. The sheep ranchers have pretty much settled on the Maremma from Spain, although some use the Great Pyrenees from the mountains between Spain and France. All three breeds are an off white so they blend in with the sheep and they coyote doesn't know they are there until it is too late. They are raised with the sheep so that they bond with them, not the humans, and they live with them all season long. I don't believe poison bait is ever used any more, which is a good thing for everyone.
I finally made it to the trail intersection where the Continental Divide Trail, which has been contiguous with the Colorado Trail for about the last 230 miles, turns south and the Colorado Trail turns west to go down into Elk Creek Canyon past some of the most spectacular peaks in Colorado. As soon as I started to lose altitude the weather became better, and I was able to make it to a nice campsite about four miles down the canyon in time to set up before it got too dark. The only water that night were the drips from the trees.
The next day it was really fun to be passed by the young people who had thought I would be far behind them by now. They had camped during the storm and I had kept hiking. The weather was pleasant all day.
I will leave for Durango tomorrow. I have already done this part of the trail twice before, in 2009 and 2010. It took me five days both times. It is about 74 miles, so to do it in five days I would have to average 15 miles a day, but to do it in four I would have to average almost 19 miles a day, which I don't think is going to happen. This next part is not consistently above timberline like the Creede to Silverton part and the weather forecast is for "isolated" storms, so maybe I'll have an easier hike.
I left Creede on Sunday. I decided not to take my chances on hitching a ride, so I paid a nice lady to take me up to Spring Creek Pass, but she couldn't take me up there until after church about 1:00 p.m. Since I got such a late start I only hiked about 8 miles, but I got to stay in the yurt. I had heard about the yurt in 2009 but had not known exactly how to find it. This year I met a northbound hiker just as I was approaching the area it was in, and he told me exactly how to find it. If you go to www.hinsdalehauteroute.org you can see pictures. The yurt is a big, semi-permanent round tent modeled after tents used by nomadic peoples of Asia. It was amazing! It had a Coleman stove, a wood-burning stove, table and chairs, cots and even old blue shag carpet on the floor! I slept great.
The next day, Monday, it started raining early afternoon and rained until about nine that night. There wasn't a lot of thunder and lightning, but it was cold. I saw more hikers this day than I had on most of the others, mainly because everybody was camping early to get into their tents and out of the rain. One older gentleman and I kept hiking, and it was kind of fun to pass all the young people. Eventually he and I camped. I didn't cook or clean, because I didn't want to get out of my tent to walk down to the creek and get the water to do so. I could have used a yurt this night.
The next morning all my clothes were damp from walking in the rain the day before. It was a cold, cloudy, windy morning. Cloudy mornings don't usually portend good weather for the rest of the day, and that was certainly true for Tuesday. Sometime about noon the clouds began to organize into storms, and I got hammered. I had earlier wondered why I had brought my sunglasses, but today I realized I needed them to keep the wind, rain and sleet out of my eyes. Until about 4:00 I was above 12,000 feet with nowhere to hide, so I just kept going. I was so cold my hands wouldn't have worked to set up my tent anyway. There was so much water the trails were slippy, slidy and muddy, and I went down into the mud on one knee once. However, the views were still beautiful. The mountains are completely different on a day like this, with rain and mist obscuring them and the lights and shadows of the storms highlighting them.
One highlight of the day was getting to see Juan, the Peruvian shepherd, the Border Collie Annie, the two Maremma guard dogs Shadow and Picena and the 3000 sheep they look after. He was standing by the point where the trail leaves the Stony Pass road and goes through the area where his sheep range, greeting the hikers as they went by. I had met Juan and the dogs (actually different Maremmas) in 2009 and thoroughly enjoyed our attempted conversation. I say attempted because he speaks very little English and I speak very little Spanish, but it was amazing how well we could communicate. This year I said, "ano nueve" for year nine and he was able to tell I meant year 2009, and he pointed to where I had camped in 2009 and made a gesture like he was sleeping, so I could tell he remembered me. The 2009 Maremmas were friendly, but I think Juan was keeping an eye on the new ones so they would become accustomed to the hikers. Juan indicated that the Maremmas from 2009, Tony and Yenni, were working with another herd of sheep.
A word about sheep and coyotes -- in the seventies and before, the public policy of our rancher-friendly government agencies in the west was to control coyote populations, not control coyote damage. They set out poisoned bait and traps which also killed other species, including endangered ones like the bald eagle. In contrast, even in the seventies the emphasis for the Missouri and Kansas conservation agencies was to control coyote damage, mainly by going after the offending coyote. In the late seventies I applied for a job with the Idaho Sheep Experiment station as a research assistant on a project to test a chemical that would not kill the coyotes, but sterilize them so the couldn't reproduce. I didn't get the job, but I like to think I made a contribution in my interview. I talked to them about controlling coyote damage instead of coyote populations, and I suggested they look into the breeds of dogs that have been used in Europe for many centuries to protect sheep from wolves. I even told them how to get contact a breeder of one of these, the Hungarian Komondor, in Idaho Falls. We moved away from Idaho, but about three years after my interview my mother-in-law sent me a clipping from the Wall Street Journal about the testing of Komondors by the Idaho Sheep Experiment station. This seems to have been the start of a movement toward protecting the sheep rather that killing the coyotes. The sheep ranchers have pretty much settled on the Maremma from Spain, although some use the Great Pyrenees from the mountains between Spain and France. All three breeds are an off white so they blend in with the sheep and they coyote doesn't know they are there until it is too late. They are raised with the sheep so that they bond with them, not the humans, and they live with them all season long. I don't believe poison bait is ever used any more, which is a good thing for everyone.
I finally made it to the trail intersection where the Continental Divide Trail, which has been contiguous with the Colorado Trail for about the last 230 miles, turns south and the Colorado Trail turns west to go down into Elk Creek Canyon past some of the most spectacular peaks in Colorado. As soon as I started to lose altitude the weather became better, and I was able to make it to a nice campsite about four miles down the canyon in time to set up before it got too dark. The only water that night were the drips from the trees.
The next day it was really fun to be passed by the young people who had thought I would be far behind them by now. They had camped during the storm and I had kept hiking. The weather was pleasant all day.
I will leave for Durango tomorrow. I have already done this part of the trail twice before, in 2009 and 2010. It took me five days both times. It is about 74 miles, so to do it in five days I would have to average 15 miles a day, but to do it in four I would have to average almost 19 miles a day, which I don't think is going to happen. This next part is not consistently above timberline like the Creede to Silverton part and the weather forecast is for "isolated" storms, so maybe I'll have an easier hike.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
The donate button
If you didn't read my first post, you are probably wondering about the PayPal donate button. I am asking for pledges to benefit Care to Learn, a non-profit based in Springfield that assists area schoolchildren with immediate needs. For more information on the organization, go to www.caretolearnfund.org.
Creede
I made it to Creede yesterday. I am using the Chamber of Commerce computer right now. I went through a beautiful part of the trail yesterday. My favorite conditions: high, open, windy and cool. The views were so expansive I could see two hikers a mile in front of me and one a mile behind me sometimes. I remember the open parts from 2009 so much better than the parts of the trail that go through forest. One "long green tunnel" looks a lot like the other to me, but I can remember expansive views.
Another thing I prefer about the high, open hiking is I can see my progress. The trail is marked with posts above tree line (as opposed to markers nailed to trees below tree line) and depending on the terrain the posts may be visible for a mile or more. I can see a post come into view and the pretty soon I reach it.
The only bad side to hiking above tree line is the storms. This has been a particularly rainy, stormy year, and it's not good to be above tree line when a thunderstorm hits. I will just have to be sure and start hiking early, keep an eye on the sky, and be ready to seek shelter if I see a storm building.
I should arrive in Silverton in four days. I will stay in Silverton a day, and then it will take me about five days to get to Durango. I should be in Durango no later than August 4. I plan to fly to Denver August 6. My husband Mike and son Danny will have driven out, my son Jon will be flying in that same day, and we will all meet up and go up to Estes Park, where they will then do some hiking and attempt to summit Long's Peak, a 14'er (over 14,000 feet elevation).
I have met many interesting people on the trail and in the towns. I don't have time to write about them now, but I will when I get to Durango or back to Spring field.
Another thing I prefer about the high, open hiking is I can see my progress. The trail is marked with posts above tree line (as opposed to markers nailed to trees below tree line) and depending on the terrain the posts may be visible for a mile or more. I can see a post come into view and the pretty soon I reach it.
The only bad side to hiking above tree line is the storms. This has been a particularly rainy, stormy year, and it's not good to be above tree line when a thunderstorm hits. I will just have to be sure and start hiking early, keep an eye on the sky, and be ready to seek shelter if I see a storm building.
I should arrive in Silverton in four days. I will stay in Silverton a day, and then it will take me about five days to get to Durango. I should be in Durango no later than August 4. I plan to fly to Denver August 6. My husband Mike and son Danny will have driven out, my son Jon will be flying in that same day, and we will all meet up and go up to Estes Park, where they will then do some hiking and attempt to summit Long's Peak, a 14'er (over 14,000 feet elevation).
I have met many interesting people on the trail and in the towns. I don't have time to write about them now, but I will when I get to Durango or back to Spring field.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Progress Map
This map shows Debbie's progress based on the SPOT Personal Tracker reports. It will be updated as reports are received.
Click for a larger map, with a list of report points.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Halfway to Durango
I arrived in Salida, CO, yesterday afternoon, nineteen days after I left Denver. I am a little over half way. According to my data book, I have come about 250 miles and have about 235 miles left. The remaining miles will be higher, colder and more remote, but will have less of the daily climbing and descending and less hiking in the "long green tunnel," as people refer to hiking in the forest.
I am at a computer in a coffee shop right now and although they aren't charging me for use, I don't want to take the time to journal with daily entries the time since I left Breckenridge. I will try to add that later, maybe after I come home, but for now I am just going to hit the highlights.
I skipped Segment 7 because of heavy snow as I was advised to by the owner of the inn where I stayed. Segment 7 goes from Breckenridge to Copper Mountain over the Ten Mile Range and is about 12,500 feet elevation at its highest. Since both towns are serviced by the free Summit County Shuttle I rode a bus instead of taking a hike. I later talked to two young men who came through later than I did, both of whom attempted and failed to get through, so I guess I did the right thing. Then on Segment 8 I went about eight miles into it and turned back because of snow. I was able to catch a ride to the start of Segment 9 with Dave, the trail adopter for Segment 8. I t was starting to seem more like the Amazing Race than a hike.
I finished Segment 9 on Tuesday, July 5 and it was tough! The trail was buried under deep snow for at least a half a mile and I was glad I had a map and compass and knew how to use them. There were footprints, but the people who left them were as confused as I was so they weren't all that helpful. After I finished I decided I probably could have made it through Segment 8, but I wasn't sorry I turned back.
The scenery in the first half is a lot of long green tunnel with some beautiful meadows and the occasional incredible vista. Some of the best views in the first half are in the segments I missed because of the snow. Trail conditions vary from soft pine needle paths to rocks and boulders. A lot of the trail is sloppy and muddy because of all the runoff from heavy snow.
After Breckenridge my next stop was in the little village of Twin Lakes. I was very disappointed that the restaurant I had eaten at in 2008 was closed, and I was almost shut out of staying at the lodge I had stayed at in '08 also. When I told the owner I would even pay for a couch to sleep on, he decided to rent me a little house for the price of a room in the lodge as long as I didn't use the kitchen. It even had a washer and dryer!
One of my favorite things about hiking the CT is the people I meet. After I got cleaned up and washed my clothes, I walked over to the little general store/post office to get my box and buy some food. I saw three scruffy looking characters with backpacks sitting on the store steps pouring over topo maps, and I knew they had to be through-hikers. Turns out they were through-hiking the Continental Divide Trail, which runs from Mexico to Canada and is almost 3000 miles long. Two were young men in their twenties who are "trail bums" in that they long-distance hike somewhere during the warm part of the year and then work a menial job during the winter to earn money to hike again next season. The third hikers was a retired aeronautical engineer from California who has already hiked the Pacific Crest Trail. I offered them the second bedroom in my house (the proprietor would charge $75 per person) but only the retiree took up my offer. I don't think the other two had the money for it, so they hiked on up into the "death cloud" as they called it, a brewing thunderstorm up on the mountain.
Speaking of weather, I don;t remember weather like this from the previous time I hiked the CT. Mornings have sometimes been completely overcast, afternoons and evenings and sometimes into the night have been rainy, and one night we even had a thunderstorm in the middle of the night. The pattern broke just yesterday, when it didn't rain all day.
Now that I am Salida I have a long to-do list. I have a hair appointment for tomorrow morning, I have to go to the bank, post office and grocery store, and I am picking up m new ultra-light tent tomorrow that I ordered. I had been using what is called a "bivy sack", which I had used on my previous hike, but it wasn't working with my new down bag. I had used a synthetic sleeping bag before, and because synthetic fibers don't retain moisture the way down does, I hadn't noticed the condensation problem on the inside of my bivy sack. I'm sure all the rain made it worse, but I was sleeping in a damp sleeping bag every night. The tent should fix that.
I plan to leave Salida tomorrow afternoon, or I may stay one more night. I stayed last night at a hostel, but the didn't have room for me tonight, so I am at the Woodland Motel. The Woodland won't have room for me tomorrow night, so if I stay another night I will go back to the hostel. It's hard to make reservations when you hike, since you never really know when you will arrive. I met some interesting people in the hostel also, which I will blog about later.
I am at a computer in a coffee shop right now and although they aren't charging me for use, I don't want to take the time to journal with daily entries the time since I left Breckenridge. I will try to add that later, maybe after I come home, but for now I am just going to hit the highlights.
I skipped Segment 7 because of heavy snow as I was advised to by the owner of the inn where I stayed. Segment 7 goes from Breckenridge to Copper Mountain over the Ten Mile Range and is about 12,500 feet elevation at its highest. Since both towns are serviced by the free Summit County Shuttle I rode a bus instead of taking a hike. I later talked to two young men who came through later than I did, both of whom attempted and failed to get through, so I guess I did the right thing. Then on Segment 8 I went about eight miles into it and turned back because of snow. I was able to catch a ride to the start of Segment 9 with Dave, the trail adopter for Segment 8. I t was starting to seem more like the Amazing Race than a hike.
I finished Segment 9 on Tuesday, July 5 and it was tough! The trail was buried under deep snow for at least a half a mile and I was glad I had a map and compass and knew how to use them. There were footprints, but the people who left them were as confused as I was so they weren't all that helpful. After I finished I decided I probably could have made it through Segment 8, but I wasn't sorry I turned back.
The scenery in the first half is a lot of long green tunnel with some beautiful meadows and the occasional incredible vista. Some of the best views in the first half are in the segments I missed because of the snow. Trail conditions vary from soft pine needle paths to rocks and boulders. A lot of the trail is sloppy and muddy because of all the runoff from heavy snow.
After Breckenridge my next stop was in the little village of Twin Lakes. I was very disappointed that the restaurant I had eaten at in 2008 was closed, and I was almost shut out of staying at the lodge I had stayed at in '08 also. When I told the owner I would even pay for a couch to sleep on, he decided to rent me a little house for the price of a room in the lodge as long as I didn't use the kitchen. It even had a washer and dryer!
One of my favorite things about hiking the CT is the people I meet. After I got cleaned up and washed my clothes, I walked over to the little general store/post office to get my box and buy some food. I saw three scruffy looking characters with backpacks sitting on the store steps pouring over topo maps, and I knew they had to be through-hikers. Turns out they were through-hiking the Continental Divide Trail, which runs from Mexico to Canada and is almost 3000 miles long. Two were young men in their twenties who are "trail bums" in that they long-distance hike somewhere during the warm part of the year and then work a menial job during the winter to earn money to hike again next season. The third hikers was a retired aeronautical engineer from California who has already hiked the Pacific Crest Trail. I offered them the second bedroom in my house (the proprietor would charge $75 per person) but only the retiree took up my offer. I don't think the other two had the money for it, so they hiked on up into the "death cloud" as they called it, a brewing thunderstorm up on the mountain.
Speaking of weather, I don;t remember weather like this from the previous time I hiked the CT. Mornings have sometimes been completely overcast, afternoons and evenings and sometimes into the night have been rainy, and one night we even had a thunderstorm in the middle of the night. The pattern broke just yesterday, when it didn't rain all day.
Now that I am Salida I have a long to-do list. I have a hair appointment for tomorrow morning, I have to go to the bank, post office and grocery store, and I am picking up m new ultra-light tent tomorrow that I ordered. I had been using what is called a "bivy sack", which I had used on my previous hike, but it wasn't working with my new down bag. I had used a synthetic sleeping bag before, and because synthetic fibers don't retain moisture the way down does, I hadn't noticed the condensation problem on the inside of my bivy sack. I'm sure all the rain made it worse, but I was sleeping in a damp sleeping bag every night. The tent should fix that.
I plan to leave Salida tomorrow afternoon, or I may stay one more night. I stayed last night at a hostel, but the didn't have room for me tonight, so I am at the Woodland Motel. The Woodland won't have room for me tomorrow night, so if I stay another night I will go back to the hostel. It's hard to make reservations when you hike, since you never really know when you will arrive. I met some interesting people in the hostel also, which I will blog about later.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
The First Week
I arrived in Denver on Tuesday evening, June 24. I had a few last minute details to take care of and some things to buy before I left, so I spent three days in Denver. It was good to have a little time to organize and re-group after the Telluride Bluegrass Festival experience.
My family members from Denver dropped me off at the trailhead of the CT (Colorado Trail) Friday, June 24 about 11:00. The CT is divided into 28 segments of varying length, the main requirement for a segment being that each segment have a trail head accessible by car or four-wheel drive. To look at a map of the CT and the segments, go to http://www.coloradotrail.org/. The first segment was in low forested foothills without much view, but I met some interesting people, like I always do. One nice man from Boulder tried to give me his pepper-spray canister when he found out what I was doing, but Boulder tends to be a hotbed of bear and mountain lion activity, which I think colored his outlook. My observations have led me to think that the closer I am to civilization the more likely I am to encounter a bear. Bears go where the food is, and that's around people. Also, Colorado has hunting season on bear, hunting which occurs in the backcountry, and that makes the backcountry bears afraid of people.
I only made about nine miles the first day before I camped. My pack was way too heavy (44 lbs.) which makes hiking tough. Unfortunately it had to be that heavy because I will have seven to eight days before I can re-supply. The first few days are the hardest because I am at the weakest I will be and my pack is at its heaviest.
The next morning I headed down the steep sides of the Platte River Canyon to start Segment 2. This segment has "The Burn," a feared and hated thireen mile stretch with no shade and no water. The views are decent, but man, was it hot! I pushed hard because I didn't want to get stuck out there without water. The thing I love about the CT, though, is that when Mother Nature abuses you, she always gives you a gift to earn your love back. The gift on the burn was the bluebirds. Someone has hiked out here and put up bluebird boxes, and I got to see the residents. Most were mountain bluebirds, but one had a rusty breast. I need to look in a bird book to see the ranges to figure out if it was a western or eastern bluebird.
Near the end of Segment 2 I met Chris and his two dogs. Newly retired, Chris had alway wanted to hike the CT but didn't have that much time off. His dogs were carrying their own food, bowls, half a gallon of water each, and their own sleeping pads. And they were happy about it!
The start of the third day was pretty unremarkable. The scenery of Segment 3 was pretty, but not spectacular. I met a few people but didn't spend much time with them. The one interesting experience that day was the llama train -- three people and seven llmas out for about 50 miles of hiking. The seven llamas were carrying a total of 280 pounds for the three people. One of the llamas had sore on its feet and the people were applying moleskin and covering it with duct tape, which is what people out here do for their sore feet.
Day three I made a big mistake which was completely due to my overconfidence from having hiked the trail before. I wasn't studying my maps and data book like I should have been and I headed down a wrong trail in the Lost River Wilderness. By the time I realized my mistake and talked to some other hikers to figure out where I was, I decided it was better to keep going than backtrack, because I would eventually get back on the CT. My students would understand if I told them that instead of hiking side c of the right triangle I hiked sides a and b. However, the hike was a beautiful one and everything turned out OK, although it probably cost me half a day. I got back on the CT about the middle of day four and the middle of Segment 4.
I woke up Tuesday morning, the start of day five, feeling encouraged. I had recovered from my mistake, the coming day's hike was mostly level, downhill or gentle uphill, and I planned to make Kenosha Pass which is kind of a milestone. Kenosha Pass is on Highway 24 south of Denver and has a nice Forest Service campground with the luxury of latrines and an old-fashioned water pump. I would be hiking Segment 5, which has some outstanding views. At about the sixth mile of this segment I stopped to filter some water from a stream (that's how I get water, if you didn't know) and a hiker who was stopped to rest by this stream introduced himself as Tex. When I said he must be from Texas, he said, "no, Missouri." As the conversation progressed, we discoverd we have an unusual number of things in common. I am a seventh grade math teacher named Debbie who has a middle school cross country club in the fall and coaches the track distance running program in the spring. Tex teaches at an alternative middle school and coaches high school cross country, his wife (whose name is also Debbie) teaches seventh grade math, and his daughter, who is a high school communication arts teacher, coaches middle school cross country. He is from Moberly, Missouri, and I have been trhough there many times since I used to live in Hannibal. I won't see Tex again. He is hiking slower than I am, and his wife is picking him up in Kenosha Pass.
I got to Kenosha Pass late afternoon. I camped in the forest service campground, which was relatively empty because it is Wednesday. On a weekend I might have had to talk someone in to sharing their site. I was lucky, however, that a large and friendly family was camped there with me who turned out to be true trail angels. They invited me for dinner and fed me a big, fat cheeseburger! Do you know how good that tasted after a week of freeze-dried meals? The little grandson even helped me wash my hair by pumping the pump handle while I held my head under the spigot. They invited me to come for pancakes the next morning, which I should have done, it turns out.
The next day, day six, is also the start of Segment 6, the longest one on the CT. It is 32 miles long and goes over the Continental Divide at Georgia Pass. The pass is 12.5 miles from the trailhead at Kenosha Pass, and it would be a good idea to get over the pass by one o'clock or so to avoid afternoon thunderstorms that could crop up. For this reason I got an early start and missed out on the pancake breakfast my trail angel family had invited me to.
As it turned out I didn't need to worry about afternoon thunderstorms -- the storms started about 11:00 and continued off and on all day,and they were bad ones. I got caught in the first one two or three miles down from the pass. I had wisely put on my rain jacket and pack cover right before the first hailstone hit. Steve, a hiker I had met earlier in the day, pulled out his rain poncho and made a shelter back in the trees with it and sat out this storm, but I hiked on as soon as the hail stopped. The storm broke up, and I made for the pass. I was above tree line when I saw the second storm brewing. I had a big snow field to cross, but fortunately it had a crust, so I didn't posthole up to mid-thigh more than once or twice. The closer I got to the pass, the closer the storm got. I asked the storm to just let me get over the pass and down a little (I talk to the forces of nature a lot out here), and it did. Just as I got to the little trees right at timberline, the full force and glory hit. Hail, gale-force winds, thunder and lightning the like of which occurs nowhere else but the mountains. I snuggled as far in to a little fir tree as I could and waited out the worst of it. When the hail turned to rain and the thunder subsided to distant rumbles I started hiking again.
I had heard that this had been a year of heavy snow, but I had no idea how heavy. For at least two miles, possibly more (it seemed like ten), I was making my way in the trees over drift after drift. These drifts were three to six feet deep, with a steep slope on either side and a more rounded top, lying across the trail. Some of them I could go around, but I would run the risk of losing the trail if I went to far around. Most of the time I followed the footsteps of the previous hikers, who all seemed to have longer legs than I. Some of the time I puched through the crust, and some of the time I just had to slide down the drifts on my seat because the footsteps were too far apart. In between the drifts I could walk on a few feet of trail before the next drift.
I finally got far enough down that the drifts were no longer a major problem. That's when thunderstorm number three hit. Same as the others, only this one had more rain. The trail turned into a rushing torrent. It didn't really matter, because my shoes and socks were already soaked from the snow. I just kept hiking, and the storm subsided to a gentle rain. I reach the bottom of the descent before the trail started climbing again, found a decent campsite, and called it a day about five o'clock. Like I mentioned before, when Mother Nature abuses you badly, she usually gives you a gift to make up. I was looking for a rock to pound in my tent pegs. I found a likely-looking candidate, picked it up to examine it, and it turned out to be a beautiful crystal-filled geode. My first thought was that someone had dropped it, because I had only ever seen these in stores, but I looked around and found several other ones that were not broken open. I was able to find another piece of the open one I found, so I kept them. Just what a backpacker needs is rocks. I am going to ship them home.
The next day I was worn out. I thought it would be a fairly easy day, hiking about thirteen miles into Breckenridge for a rest day. The elevation profile in my data book showed about three miles of climbing and the rest downhill. Not so. After the three miles of climbing, it was about six miles of a mix of climbing and descending, and only the last two miles were downhill all the way. Fornutately there is a shuttle stop right by the trail head, so when I got there, dirty and tired, I was able to catch a shuttle ride the four miles into Breckenridge.
On the shuttle I asked about good places for through-hikers to stay, and people recommended the Fireside Inn. When I got to the inn, I asked the owner if they had laundry facilities. He said,"oh, we'll do your laundry." When I told him that everything I had needed to be washed, including the clothes I had on, he said, in his lovely British accent, "we have spare clothes." He even offered to put up a clothesline for me to dry my sleeping bag and tent. Turns out this place caters to through hikers, even though we come in filthy with pine needles falling out of everything. The place is adorable, filled with antiques, historical photos, documents and artifacts relating to the owner's and his family's long military history. The building is old and the floors aren't level, but it is charming. It has private rooms, a suite, and dorm-style bunking, and I was pleasantly surprised at the price. It also comes with a fantastic breakfast.
Saturday morning (today) I went down to the post office to pick up my box I had mailed myself, and it wasn't there. No big loss, I will just have to buy my freeze-dried meals here, but it was annoying. I am spending the day re-supplying, posting this blog, checking e-mail, calling people, and resting. I may stay another rest day tomorrow. I found out when I got here yesterday that the next segment, Segment 7, is essentially impassable due to heavy snow. The owner here said only one hiker has made it through, and I bet that hiker was bigger and stronger than me. Lucky for me I can ride the free Summit County shuttle over to Copper Mountain, which is where Segment 7 ends and Segment 8 begins. Since I won't be hiking that day, I can afford to take one more rest day here and not get off schedule. My body may need a little more rest after Thursday.
Oh, by the way, Steve, who was waiting out the storm last time I saw him, came in this morning. He actually ended up camping right up by the divide Thursday night and said he almost froze. He said ice was all over his bivy sack.
My next chance to post will be when I get to Twin Lakes, a cute little town a mile off the trail with a gourmet restaurant that people drive from Aspen for. I will probably get there Wednesday or Thursday. I won't be able to upload any pictures until I get home.
My family members from Denver dropped me off at the trailhead of the CT (Colorado Trail) Friday, June 24 about 11:00. The CT is divided into 28 segments of varying length, the main requirement for a segment being that each segment have a trail head accessible by car or four-wheel drive. To look at a map of the CT and the segments, go to http://www.coloradotrail.org/. The first segment was in low forested foothills without much view, but I met some interesting people, like I always do. One nice man from Boulder tried to give me his pepper-spray canister when he found out what I was doing, but Boulder tends to be a hotbed of bear and mountain lion activity, which I think colored his outlook. My observations have led me to think that the closer I am to civilization the more likely I am to encounter a bear. Bears go where the food is, and that's around people. Also, Colorado has hunting season on bear, hunting which occurs in the backcountry, and that makes the backcountry bears afraid of people.
I only made about nine miles the first day before I camped. My pack was way too heavy (44 lbs.) which makes hiking tough. Unfortunately it had to be that heavy because I will have seven to eight days before I can re-supply. The first few days are the hardest because I am at the weakest I will be and my pack is at its heaviest.
The next morning I headed down the steep sides of the Platte River Canyon to start Segment 2. This segment has "The Burn," a feared and hated thireen mile stretch with no shade and no water. The views are decent, but man, was it hot! I pushed hard because I didn't want to get stuck out there without water. The thing I love about the CT, though, is that when Mother Nature abuses you, she always gives you a gift to earn your love back. The gift on the burn was the bluebirds. Someone has hiked out here and put up bluebird boxes, and I got to see the residents. Most were mountain bluebirds, but one had a rusty breast. I need to look in a bird book to see the ranges to figure out if it was a western or eastern bluebird.
Near the end of Segment 2 I met Chris and his two dogs. Newly retired, Chris had alway wanted to hike the CT but didn't have that much time off. His dogs were carrying their own food, bowls, half a gallon of water each, and their own sleeping pads. And they were happy about it!
The start of the third day was pretty unremarkable. The scenery of Segment 3 was pretty, but not spectacular. I met a few people but didn't spend much time with them. The one interesting experience that day was the llama train -- three people and seven llmas out for about 50 miles of hiking. The seven llamas were carrying a total of 280 pounds for the three people. One of the llamas had sore on its feet and the people were applying moleskin and covering it with duct tape, which is what people out here do for their sore feet.
Day three I made a big mistake which was completely due to my overconfidence from having hiked the trail before. I wasn't studying my maps and data book like I should have been and I headed down a wrong trail in the Lost River Wilderness. By the time I realized my mistake and talked to some other hikers to figure out where I was, I decided it was better to keep going than backtrack, because I would eventually get back on the CT. My students would understand if I told them that instead of hiking side c of the right triangle I hiked sides a and b. However, the hike was a beautiful one and everything turned out OK, although it probably cost me half a day. I got back on the CT about the middle of day four and the middle of Segment 4.
I woke up Tuesday morning, the start of day five, feeling encouraged. I had recovered from my mistake, the coming day's hike was mostly level, downhill or gentle uphill, and I planned to make Kenosha Pass which is kind of a milestone. Kenosha Pass is on Highway 24 south of Denver and has a nice Forest Service campground with the luxury of latrines and an old-fashioned water pump. I would be hiking Segment 5, which has some outstanding views. At about the sixth mile of this segment I stopped to filter some water from a stream (that's how I get water, if you didn't know) and a hiker who was stopped to rest by this stream introduced himself as Tex. When I said he must be from Texas, he said, "no, Missouri." As the conversation progressed, we discoverd we have an unusual number of things in common. I am a seventh grade math teacher named Debbie who has a middle school cross country club in the fall and coaches the track distance running program in the spring. Tex teaches at an alternative middle school and coaches high school cross country, his wife (whose name is also Debbie) teaches seventh grade math, and his daughter, who is a high school communication arts teacher, coaches middle school cross country. He is from Moberly, Missouri, and I have been trhough there many times since I used to live in Hannibal. I won't see Tex again. He is hiking slower than I am, and his wife is picking him up in Kenosha Pass.
I got to Kenosha Pass late afternoon. I camped in the forest service campground, which was relatively empty because it is Wednesday. On a weekend I might have had to talk someone in to sharing their site. I was lucky, however, that a large and friendly family was camped there with me who turned out to be true trail angels. They invited me for dinner and fed me a big, fat cheeseburger! Do you know how good that tasted after a week of freeze-dried meals? The little grandson even helped me wash my hair by pumping the pump handle while I held my head under the spigot. They invited me to come for pancakes the next morning, which I should have done, it turns out.
The next day, day six, is also the start of Segment 6, the longest one on the CT. It is 32 miles long and goes over the Continental Divide at Georgia Pass. The pass is 12.5 miles from the trailhead at Kenosha Pass, and it would be a good idea to get over the pass by one o'clock or so to avoid afternoon thunderstorms that could crop up. For this reason I got an early start and missed out on the pancake breakfast my trail angel family had invited me to.
As it turned out I didn't need to worry about afternoon thunderstorms -- the storms started about 11:00 and continued off and on all day,and they were bad ones. I got caught in the first one two or three miles down from the pass. I had wisely put on my rain jacket and pack cover right before the first hailstone hit. Steve, a hiker I had met earlier in the day, pulled out his rain poncho and made a shelter back in the trees with it and sat out this storm, but I hiked on as soon as the hail stopped. The storm broke up, and I made for the pass. I was above tree line when I saw the second storm brewing. I had a big snow field to cross, but fortunately it had a crust, so I didn't posthole up to mid-thigh more than once or twice. The closer I got to the pass, the closer the storm got. I asked the storm to just let me get over the pass and down a little (I talk to the forces of nature a lot out here), and it did. Just as I got to the little trees right at timberline, the full force and glory hit. Hail, gale-force winds, thunder and lightning the like of which occurs nowhere else but the mountains. I snuggled as far in to a little fir tree as I could and waited out the worst of it. When the hail turned to rain and the thunder subsided to distant rumbles I started hiking again.
I had heard that this had been a year of heavy snow, but I had no idea how heavy. For at least two miles, possibly more (it seemed like ten), I was making my way in the trees over drift after drift. These drifts were three to six feet deep, with a steep slope on either side and a more rounded top, lying across the trail. Some of them I could go around, but I would run the risk of losing the trail if I went to far around. Most of the time I followed the footsteps of the previous hikers, who all seemed to have longer legs than I. Some of the time I puched through the crust, and some of the time I just had to slide down the drifts on my seat because the footsteps were too far apart. In between the drifts I could walk on a few feet of trail before the next drift.
I finally got far enough down that the drifts were no longer a major problem. That's when thunderstorm number three hit. Same as the others, only this one had more rain. The trail turned into a rushing torrent. It didn't really matter, because my shoes and socks were already soaked from the snow. I just kept hiking, and the storm subsided to a gentle rain. I reach the bottom of the descent before the trail started climbing again, found a decent campsite, and called it a day about five o'clock. Like I mentioned before, when Mother Nature abuses you badly, she usually gives you a gift to make up. I was looking for a rock to pound in my tent pegs. I found a likely-looking candidate, picked it up to examine it, and it turned out to be a beautiful crystal-filled geode. My first thought was that someone had dropped it, because I had only ever seen these in stores, but I looked around and found several other ones that were not broken open. I was able to find another piece of the open one I found, so I kept them. Just what a backpacker needs is rocks. I am going to ship them home.
The next day I was worn out. I thought it would be a fairly easy day, hiking about thirteen miles into Breckenridge for a rest day. The elevation profile in my data book showed about three miles of climbing and the rest downhill. Not so. After the three miles of climbing, it was about six miles of a mix of climbing and descending, and only the last two miles were downhill all the way. Fornutately there is a shuttle stop right by the trail head, so when I got there, dirty and tired, I was able to catch a shuttle ride the four miles into Breckenridge.
On the shuttle I asked about good places for through-hikers to stay, and people recommended the Fireside Inn. When I got to the inn, I asked the owner if they had laundry facilities. He said,"oh, we'll do your laundry." When I told him that everything I had needed to be washed, including the clothes I had on, he said, in his lovely British accent, "we have spare clothes." He even offered to put up a clothesline for me to dry my sleeping bag and tent. Turns out this place caters to through hikers, even though we come in filthy with pine needles falling out of everything. The place is adorable, filled with antiques, historical photos, documents and artifacts relating to the owner's and his family's long military history. The building is old and the floors aren't level, but it is charming. It has private rooms, a suite, and dorm-style bunking, and I was pleasantly surprised at the price. It also comes with a fantastic breakfast.
Saturday morning (today) I went down to the post office to pick up my box I had mailed myself, and it wasn't there. No big loss, I will just have to buy my freeze-dried meals here, but it was annoying. I am spending the day re-supplying, posting this blog, checking e-mail, calling people, and resting. I may stay another rest day tomorrow. I found out when I got here yesterday that the next segment, Segment 7, is essentially impassable due to heavy snow. The owner here said only one hiker has made it through, and I bet that hiker was bigger and stronger than me. Lucky for me I can ride the free Summit County shuttle over to Copper Mountain, which is where Segment 7 ends and Segment 8 begins. Since I won't be hiking that day, I can afford to take one more rest day here and not get off schedule. My body may need a little more rest after Thursday.
Oh, by the way, Steve, who was waiting out the storm last time I saw him, came in this morning. He actually ended up camping right up by the divide Thursday night and said he almost froze. He said ice was all over his bivy sack.
My next chance to post will be when I get to Twin Lakes, a cute little town a mile off the trail with a gourmet restaurant that people drive from Aspen for. I will probably get there Wednesday or Thursday. I won't be able to upload any pictures until I get home.
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