Getting up Georgia Pass from the east was no big fuss. Above 10,000 ft I began to see snow and then some hundreds of feet higher drifts began appearing across the trail. The drifts became a small problem nearing treeline but not bad. Many motivated hikers are making it though moutain bikers lose their enthusiasm it seems. The other side is a different story. The trail is truly difficult to follow. The CT is not marked for snow travel. For me my pace slowed to .5 miles per hour once I was in the trees hunting for the trail and then tediously snowshoeing up one giant steep drift and awkwardly descending the other side. There were two sets of boot prints ahead of me but I wasn't going to blindly trust them so I did my own routefinding. To our credit we (me and the boot owners) each did really well and our paths mostly coincided with the rare signs of the trail. When it came time to drop off the ridge is when the problems began. Neither of us found where the CT left an open meadow and we each chose different points to begin the descent through the trees. Let me tell you I hope nobody followed me because it was a struggle. I ended up in failing light listening to thunder hurriedly draping my beta light tent over my poles in a tiny spot big enought for only my mat between two tall snowdrifts on a steep hillside at 11,200 ft. Then the rain came, then the thunder & lightning, then the snow. Amazingly I slept well in my flimsy little claustrophobic shelter.

There was so much more to the experience than that but it is hard for me to describe. I never even wrote up this journal entry until days later in Breckenridge as part of an update on section 6 conditions to the CO Trail Foundation. Imagine my shock and dismay when I discovered that during all those difficult hours I never took even one picture of the truly bad spots and hellacious drifts. I really wish that I had some pictures because what you see here looks like pretty mild snowshoeing conditions. Trust me though. It wasn't good.