Album: journal:20110627 | ||||||||||
I was slow getting up this morning because of the cold but it warmed up quick. I was soon hiking up Elk Ridge where I was startled to see another hiker coming down. She was very well geared and had that thruhiker look. She goes by the name Speedstick and is hiking northbound on the Continental Divide Trail. She started a couple months ago at the Mexican border and finished here first thousand miles a few weeks ago. We talked for a long time about the trail and snow adventures and other thruhikers. She told me there are a bunch of CDTers back in the San Juans waiting out the snow but a lot just skipped ahead. It was great getting to talk to another thruhiker although her 3,000 mile trip dwarfs mine. It also made me a little jealous. My original plan was the CDT this year but then I decided to start graduate school and couldn't do both so I cut 2,000 miles off the walk and decided to just loop around Colorado. It still makes a good summer's jaunt though. :P The snow was reasonable. There were some snowfields that mostly held me without putting on the big Atlas snowshoes. Soon I took off my extra layers and was humping down the valley to Cataract Falls where I spent some time relaxing and drying out my boots, socks, and feet. I usually love Merrell boots but these do not live up to their claimed waterproof rating. They also have some blown stitching that might start to be a problem and they are the same ones that jacked up my right heel back in January. I look forward to swapping out these boots and leaving them in a dumpster. Anyway, after the falls the trail descends to Camp Hale, the former training grounds for the acclaimed 10th Mountain Division. From there it was a six mile uphill to Tennesse Pass. At the pass I really began to worry. There wasn't a lot of traffic and nobody was stopping to pick me up. I was beginning to think that I'd be spending another foodless night out in the woods. After an hour though a young local ski bum picked me up and dropped me off at the Leadville Hostel. The hostel is really cool by the way. I'll come back even when I'm not hiking. |
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