Journal July 23 Popular Trail
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 the day and a youth group from Dallas. The Weminuche wilderness is a popular place to be. And rightly so, as the Weminuche wildernees is the largest in Colorado at almost 500,000 acres.
We stay close to the divide for much of the day, with all it’s ups, downs and convolutions. Sometimes we are in woods with deer and elk and some of the day we spend on high open ridges. The views are always shifting and never unsatisfying.
Thunderheads form and move on, leaving us pretty much alone. As evening comes the sun drops below the clouds and cast long yelllow, golden orange rays up the mountains and ridges. A herd of elk in one of the deep valleys is already in their “night” mode, grazing contentedly. We drop into a small pass and set up camp in the shelter of some stunted trees, with views of nearby Sawtooth Peak glowing in the setting sun.
14 miles
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