I was woken first by a herd of something (elk?) crashing through my campsite, then by early morning day hikers on their way up San Luis Peak. I got moving quickly in the cold and warmed up fast as I climbed out of the Stewart Creek basin and up the slopes of the mountain. I passed the day hikers and had the top to myself. It was beautiful but really, really cold.

I came down the other side, reconnecting with the CDT and then I ran into a bunch more hikers out bagging San Luis. I was already tired out but had more climbing to do all day. I could have just taken it easy, but I figured I could get to Lake City by dinner time if I followed a regular pace.

The last 6 miles to the highway were on Snow Mesa, a relatively flat area up really high, with great views of all the mountains I’ll be in for the next week.

I hitched into town with the 3rd car to go by in about half an hour. For some reason I didn’t have cell service, and town is split in two parts, all the restaurants at one end, and groceries/lodging at the other. I wanted to stay at a hostel, so I went in but it was deserted. There was a sign saying to call the guy that runs it, but my phone wasn’t working, and there were no other phones around. I ended up just hanging around until other people showed up later that night, eventually calling the guy at 9pm, only to find out the hostel was totally booked up. I had enjoyed their wifi and TV all evening, so I wasn’t too upset to walk over to an RV park in the dark and camped there.

Daily Summary
Date: Sept 24, 2011
Day 93
Daily Distance: 21.3 miles
Trip Distance: 1778 miles

I forgot to say yesterday that the terrain has changed quite drastically in this section. There’s much more of a desert feel, and the mountains have been a lot less jagged and huge. Water has actually been an issue, and today there was evidence of cows everywhere.

When I got going this morning, I filled my water bottle from a stream and it *froze* by the time I went to drink it an hour later. I caught up to Lucky Joe and Chance after lunch and they said it had been -8C overnight. I actually didn’t notice the cold until I was walking and my hands wouldn’t warm up in spite of multiple pairs of gloves.

Today I noticed that fall is happening, and it’s pretty beautiful. There are tons of aspens and they are slowly turning shades of gold and red all up the slopes around me as I walk.

Chance quickly convinced me to do an alternative with them, to summit San Luis Peak (14,014ft). I hadn’t really planned to do it, but I didn’t need much arm twisting. After dinner we turned off the main trail and started ascending a river valley that ends on the slopes of San Luis. In the morning I will summit and then rejoin the trail. Im guessing it will be quite chilly, but it will be the highest peak I hit on this whole hike.

Daily Summary
Date: Sept 23, 2011
Day 92
Daily Distance: 31 miles
Trip Distance: 1756.7 miles

Not a lot to say about the hike today. More Colorado Trail, except a lot rockier than before. I crossed paths with Matt a few times before leaving him behind after lunch. He was listening to a guy named Dan Mangan on his iPod, a favorite around our house, but I didn’t realize he was popular enough to be heard in Southern California.

That’s it really! I’m back on maps and guidebook pages I actually have, so that’s nice.

Daily Summary
Date: Sept 22, 2011
Day 91
Daily Distance: 30.9 miles
Trip Distance: 1725.7 miles

Spent Tuesday hanging out at the Hostel and really only leaving to use one of their free bikes to get to restaurants. I arranged to have dinner with Lucky Joe, Chance, and his parents. I met up with a CDT hiker named Freebie, who has been just behind me pretty much the whole way. He was very nice. I also re-met Matt the section hiker, who had bailed out half way through the section. His partner wanted to go too fast and he decided to just bounce off the trail, and then get back on in a few days after some rest.

Chance tried to tempt me with a slack pack, but I stuck with resting.

I talked to my parents, brother and girlfriend. Great to really catch up with so many people :). Dinner with Chance’s family was really nice, and then we played their crazy variation of spades for a bit (Hailey here.. my fault.. I taught him a crazy way 🙂 ). Eventually I headed back to the hostel.

Wednesday I wanted to head out to hike, but I had to wait for a FedEx delivery of warmer pants. No one else was around by midmorning, so I had to stay at the hostel to greet the FedEx guy. Around noon I got hungry and ran over to a pizza place and ordered, then went back to the hostel while I waited. Sure enough, FedEx guy had come in the 5 minutes I was gone. I chased him down on a bike and got my package. Then my pizza.

I finally packed up and headed out of town, which turned out to be a bit of an adventure. First a 2 mile walk to the highway, and along it to a good hitching spot. A cop pulled over and told me there is no hitching in town, but I could go another mile and it would be OK. Then he ran my driver’s license “just to be sure”. He was actually very nice about the whole thing. So after walking the mile, I quickly got a ride by an older guy in a Camaro. He immediately offered me a hit off his pot pipe (for the record, I declined politely). Turned out he was only going a few miles my way, so he dropped me off at a highway intersection and I went back to hitching. After another hour I got another ride and another pot offer (declined). The young guy (whose name I sadly forgot) was a snowboarder and mountain biker who builds trails for a living. He has been up to Whistler to ride downhill and we had a good chat as we drove. He also wasn’t going where I was but decided to take me up to the trail anyways. Great of him for sure.

So I finally hit the trail about 3 hours after I left Salida. I immediately discovered that I had lost/forgotten my maps and guidebook pages for the day. This drives me crazy because I look at them constantly, even when the trail is obvious. Also there was a karma aspect, as I had somewhat bragged to Freebie and Matt that I never lose stuff on the trail. Anyways, it turned out this section is joined with the Colorado Trail so it was well marked and well graded.

I hiked until sunset, walking through beautiful orange and red rays until the perfect campsite popped up.

Daily Summary
Date: Sept 20-21, 2011
Day 88-90
Daily Distance: 11 miles
Trip Distance: 1694.8 miles

Another cold morning, this time though the sun didn’t find me until I had been hiking for two hours. I climbed up a pass then and out of a deep north-south valley and the sun instantly warmed me. I then had a long descent to a junction where I could go to the highway and head to town, or climb back up to the divide and loop to the same highway further up, in about twice the distance. I debated on the way down, that I was too tired, my legs too turned to mush to keep going up when town was right there. What did I have to prove by going the “hard” way?

My pro arguments were pretty lame – I had food that would be wasted, and maybe the views would be worth it (the cynical part of me certain that it would all be the same as what I had already seen in CO). When I hit the junction, I went the hard way and all I can say is that I’m wired to do things “right”. Or I’m too stubborn to take the easy way sometimes. That’s not as profound a reason as it could be, but seriously I don’t know why I do what I do sometimes.

It turned out well. I stopped for lunch high on the climb up to the divide. Marmots frolicked around me while I lounge in the sun reading my book (actually I think I was near their nest and they were mad). When I got up to the top, the loop was mostly on good trail with a bit of snow. I had great views that managed to be unique and interesting. Can’t complain 🙂

I eventually got back to the highway and quickly got a ride with an RV containing an older couple and their 20-something daughter, Tanya (?). By strange coincidence she had planned to do the CDT this year but had it derailed by some career stuff. They drove out of their way to drop me off at the post office in Salida. I got my box, checked in at the local hostel, then went out in search of Monday Night Football, beer, and food. I’ll probably take tomorrow off and let my legs recover a bit before heading back up into the mountains.

Daily Summary
Date: Sept 19, 2011
Day 88
Daily Distance: 19 miles
Trip Distance: 1683.8 miles

Great weather today, but super cold all night and morning. I was actually glad to have my warm sleeping bag…. and it was awfully hard to convince myself to get out of it before sunrise! There was ice and frost everywhere but the hiking was good anyways.

I met some hunters, and by met I mean, snuck up on them and scared the crap out of them. Really I just walked up and assumed they had heard me since they were HUNTING! But apparently you don’t listen for game, you just look. Anyways, I felt a bit like Bugs Bunny – I had to start alerting the hunters to my presence so they don’t get startled and shoot me.

I spent a lot of the day traversing huge basins with views in every direction. The downside was getting between them required a ton of up and down, making this another very tiring day.

I made a very inspiring speech (if I do say so myself) in my head to Clay, the captain of an Ultimate Frisbee team I’m hoping to play for next summer. I won’t get into the details, but yeah, it went on for probably 20 minutes.

I also noticed today that when I see certain shapes in the distance, I almost invariably think it’s a bear. The only exception is when I think it’s a sniper. Go figure. Either way, always gives me a start.

Daily Summary
Date: Sept 18, 2011
Day 87
Daily Distance: 28.3 miles
Trip Distance: 1664.8 miles

I camped at the base of Mt Massive last night, not thinking that today is Saturday – i.e. regular people would be out to hike up it… At 5am. I got up eventually and passed a huge group from “Air Force Academy” headed up. Weird to see all these young guys in cotton hoodies and sweats doing this, in the rain. Do they teach them nothing??? Cotton kills!

My first decision of the day was whether to climb Mt Elbert (the tallest of the Rockies). I hardly even considered it :). My body wasn’t keen and the weather didn’t seem very good for it – raining/snowing. Instead I went around and quickly dropped to Twin Lakes, which were really beautiful from above. I stopped in at the general store for a nice morning snack (Coke, HoHos and frozen breakfast burrito). Then I had a huge climb up to Hope Pass which I had to finish after lunch.

I got snowed on while eating, which got me moving pretty quickly again. The view from Hope Pass was cool because you couldn’t quite see the tops of all the mountains, so they all seemed huge. I pounded down into the valley on the other side, then walked on a gravel road for a few hours, meeting some nice people along the way. They told me I was only a mile behind Chance and Lucky Joe, and sure enough, I caught up to them at the next pass. This pass was cool because the north side had a few inches of new snow which we put fresh tracks in. The snow also dusted all the surrounding peaks, making them seem extra majestic :).

We dropped down and camped a bit early due to a lack of upcoming camp options – the trail traverses steep slopes for the next while.

Good to see the boys again, they have been taking full advantage of having Chance’s parents around. They climbed Mt Elbert and made me very jealous 🙂

Daily Summary
Date: Sept 17, 2011
Day 86
Daily Distance: 27.1 miles
Trip Distance: 1636.5 miles

Lately I can’t sleep well in motels. I woke up repeatedly, ready to get moving, but it was still dark out. Once I knew the continental breakfast was open, I was up, eating and gone very quickly. As an aside, I am no longer a coffee snob… drinking lots of crappy drip coffee on this trip!

Got out to the highway, third car picked me up – a nice Navaho guy on his way to work. Leadville was easy hitches – first car on my way into town. The trail was deep in forest most of the day, traversing around Mt Massive, a 14,000ft peak. I had glimpses of it, and across the giant valley to Leadville all day. I’m still on the Colorado Trail, so great tread all the way!

I spent some time last night frustratingly trying to order some cooler weather gear, and today had the bright idea to pass it off to a friend – I had been doing it on my iPhone and just couldn’t find what I needed. I found some cell service and sent off an email, hopefully it works out.

My thoughts were with Gadget, who I know is struggling with the weather and big climbs. Last I had heard he was thinking of getting off the trail, so I was composing an essay in my head on why he shouldn’t quit. When I turned my phone on, I had an email from him saying he was going to keep going, as he had run into some hikers who had encouraged him to continue. I’m relieved, and going through the exercise in my head helped firm my resolve to get through Colorado.

Daily Summary
Date: Sept 16, 2011
Day 85
Daily Distance: 23.9 miles
Trip Distance: 1619.4 miles