Big Gee in Action
Question: What is the Great Colorado Loop? Answer.
I was originally thinking about thruhiking the 3,000+ mile Continental Divide Trail but when I decided to go to grad school I had to abandon that idea. The Colorado Trail seemed like a natural replacement that I could quickly do in less than a semester. The problem was I really wanted to do something longer so I figured I'd yo-yo the trail or hike from Denver to Durango and then back to Denver but then I had the inspiration to hike back without benefit of a guidebook and CT markers. I loved the idea from the start and it turned out to be fairly easy to plot a course back to Denver through public lands mostly on trails.
As usual I journaled the hike. My daily journal is hosted right here and I am going to try and update it from towns along the way as time permits. My GCL Journal Trail Journals provided a place for me to check in and give little trail updates when I had Internet access. : The Great Colorado Loop on Trail Journals. I provided snow reports early in the trip to the Colorado Trail Foundation via their CTF Facebook page. I bounced my little MSI Wind netbook along in a box with some other miscellaneous gear and maps and that proved very helpful. I still have some mixed feelings about transcribing my journal from trail towns on rest days since it is quite time consuming to update the website. I don't know if I would do that again.