The morning sun rose through a gap in the mountains and warmed the tent, so we arose to walk. A ridge walk along the divide, skirting the highes peaks by contouring high on their flanks. Endless views abound, with more mountains in all directions.
We came around a bend high on the divide and were within 50 to 60 yards of a herd of Elk. Mostly cows and alot of young calves, laying down in the grass soaking up the warm early morning sun. It took them a while to notice us but when they did they took off, some seeming reluctant to give up their prime location.
The ridgewalking was …
After breakfast we walked to the far end of town in order to be best positioned to get a ride, and within minutes we were picked up by a local man going up to the mountains to pick up family from their own backpack trip. We were On the trail by 11:30 and heading up from Wolf Creek pass with loads heavy from 7 days of food. Still the packs were lighter than in NM where we carried fewer days food but also had to leave town with 2 gallons of water each.
Lots of people on the trail: an overnight backpacker from Boston, day hikers, horse riders out for …
Rising in the cold morning air, before the sun has hit the pass where we are camped, we get the start we know we will need to get to Wolf Creek pass 19 miles away.
The trail never strayed more than a few hundred yards from the actual divide from our camp south of Elwood Pass to Wolf Creek pass, so we were walking on the crest or contouring on high slopes all day.
We continue to see more amazing wildflowers, vibrant colors, clinging to unlikely places, thriving in talus slopes or wind blasted slopes. Sunflowers dominate the scene. The way that light is attracted to the talus abundant sunflowers …
The day begins with a contour from the creek we had camped at to another high, headwater creek followed by a series of climbing and crossing ridges and dropping into other high headwater creeks.
We have breakfast on top of the first divide and hear coyotes howling, whooping and hollering as if they had just gained the top of a ridge as well.
There are three long climbs over ridges dividing the glacial valleys which spawn major headwater streams for the Conejos river. It’s a vertical morning and afternoon, with thigh burning climbs, standing in contrast to the rolling grasslands we crossed yesterday.
It was cloudy from the first today and …
In the morning cows were moving around the high altitude shallow basin in which we were camped. Is there anywhere they aren’t to be found? So far almost every day of this trip we have come across cows or their droppings. Even here, camped at 11,700 feet, high in the South San Juan wilderness, in country so wild and remote that some people believe a small remnant population of grizzlies might be surviving, we find bovinus alpinus.
Our walk continues across rolling plateaus, criss-crossing minor divides and climbing back on the continental divide. A few shallow basins are dotted with small ponds and lakes. The sparse trees are mostly some stunted …
