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.