Is the trail half done, or is there half left ahead to be done?
We’re in Steamboat Springs, our last town stop in Colorado and we are “barrelling down” on Wyoming. We have been hiking for 4 1/2 weeks now with the same amount of time left (exactly half the time we allotted). And we have done about 400 miles, a little less than half the distance. But now we are getting picky. Back to the question. We both look back at the trail we have seen so far in Colorado with wonder and awe, and look ahead at the rest of the trail with…….well, wonder and awe.
Our walk turned west …
The CDT from Silverthorne to Grand Lake does a lot of Up and Down. A lot. And it spends a lot of time above timberline. A lot. Of all the trail so far in Colorado, this section probably offers more Rocky Mountain High per mile than any other.
Our rainy days continue, and in the mountains that also means thunder and lighting. High ridges and extreme weather don’t mix well. We had several morning, yes mornings, where we stayed in the tent until the skies cleared enough to climb the next ridge. We sat out several mid day storms, and we camped short of our destination on a couple of nights …
We continued our march through mud from Leadville to Silverthorne. Heavy “monsoon flows” continue to characterize the weather with rain, off and on, through each day. Despite that we generally able to stay dry and/or dry out at least once each day. Still, I would love to know “who’ll stop the rain” so I can chat with them about upping the time table.
Leaving Leadville (Tennessee Pass) we encountere about 40 mountain bikers over the next 48 hours. Appears to be some kind of “race” along the length of the Colorado Trail. Most were pleasant enough, and looking pretty tired. At Copper Mountain Resort (which has exploded with growth since the …
At over 10,000 foot in elevation, the air is thin in Leadville CO. Living in Colorado in the 80’s Leadville was a “quiet” town with no real reason to stop. But times have changed and the city now boasts a dozen or more restaurants and quite a crop of summer tourists.
In fact, a lot has changed in these parts since the 1980s. More people have brought more tourism to these mountain towns, but they have also brought more ATVs, motorbikes, mountain bikes, trail runners, day hikers and, of course, back packers. The barely passable Tincup Pass of 1985 is now a parade of OHV vehicles (at least 200 in just …
After nine days on the trail we are enjoying our first zero day at the home of our friends William and Colleen who run the Los Manos Bed and Breakfast out of their home in Buena Vista (lovely place – beautiful straw bale house totally off the grid, amazing mountain views and a B and B friendly resident feline).
“Buena” or “good” to you gringos does not even begin to describe the views (vista) from the town or the nearby Continental Divide. Most definitely an understatement. But, then again I think that words, and even photos, fail to adequately portray the sublime alpine scenery. From micro scale: Moss Campion, Stone Crop …
