Total Weekly Mileage: 230.2
“Beat Up”
Frozen and five miles before the road, I decided to call it. Chattering teeth, my numb, fat sausage fingers. The wind and hail were whipping my legs, but they were so cold I couldn’t feel them anymore. Above 12,000 feet in a storm, feeling the onset of hypothermia—pushing on would not be a smart thing. I’ve been an idiot plenty of times in my life, but this wouldn’t be a good time to prove it.
At the top of the plateau, there was a low spot 30 feet off trail. Enough room to pitch my tent and get some sort of reprieve from the storm. Cold and wet, the night was miserable—hardly able to move and only doing so when I started cramping up from staying in a single position for hours. I would have to roll over, cold and wet. This was the bivy situation I wanted to avoid, and I just kept thinking about staying at the Butterfly Hostel days before and how I could be out of this storm and in town if I hadn’t stayed there. I know the trail will bite you every once in a while, but my decision to be lazy and stay there created this frozen mess.
It was so hard getting packed up and moving the next morning, but I survived at 12,300 feet in the storm. With 5.1 miles to the road, I hiked hard. It was whipping wind and snowing for the first four miles until I started to descend. Funny—I ran into the two ladies I had met the morning before. They were doing a section, and I told them it wasn’t pretty up there. They said they’d check it out, and if they decided to turn around, they’d give me a ride down to Lake City.
I made it to the road at 8:30 a.m. It was raining now. As I stuck my thumb out, shivering, another poor soul came wandering from the parking lot on the other side. His name was Robert, a young kid hiking the Colorado Trail. He too was frozen, and we both stood there praying for the next car to pick us up. The next vehicle was a camper van that pulled into the parking lot across from us, did a loop around, and as they got to the exit, the driver gave us a peace sign and took off in the direction we needed to go. Really? You acknowledge us, see that we’re freezing, and take off in your big, overpriced Mercedes? I gave them the finger.
I told Robert about the two women I had passed on the hike. I was starting to lose hope after an hour. I should’ve scared them more about the weather and turned them around with me. At approximately 9:30, coming down the trail were the ladies—Kelly and Kathy. Lifesavers. They gave us a ride down, complete with all their hiker food, a free hotel room in town, breakfast, and a ride back up to the trail in the morning. Amazing trail angels. It’s crazy how quickly you can go from the lowest of lows to the highest of highs out here.
Back on trail about a mile later, I came upon a dead sheep. Fangs in the jugular—indicates a wolf attack. At least that’s what CSI has taught me. I lost Robert, a.k.a. Milk Man, a ways back, but I did run into the two Seths again. They didn’t want to do my pace anymore. After saying goodbye, I took off—back into the big mountains. A lot of hunters through here. The climbs were long, but that was fine as long as the weather held. 110 miles to Chama and lower elevation.
9,000 feet per day was average for ascent, doing mid-30s mileage. Nights were below zero. A lot of hunters—gunshots often. I wish I had brighter colors. Two hunters I met, a couple of Mormon boys from Utah, told me they’d killed a deer the day before. After field dressing it and carrying it all the way back to camp, they laid the meat out to dry, and coyotes had eaten the whole thing by the next morning. Somewhat demoralized, but they gave me food—including biscuits and gravy. They had a 10-hour drive ahead of them; I had 3,000 more miles.
Making it to the campsite and lake that night after a hard-fought 39-mile day, I came upon five more hunters chilling around a campfire. I stayed there that night and hung out with Colt. The other guys slowly pulled the Irish goodbyes—something my friend Bob Mickle has perfected over the years. Froze again that night, and after one more good 1,000-foot climb in the morning, it was a speedy 15 miles to Cumbres Pass and a hitch into Chama.
The feeling of relief to be out of Colorado and those big mountains in mid-September was amazing. A tough state. Add in the storms, and it was really difficult. I made it through relatively unscathed. Unfortunately, two young hunters died in that bad storm, struck by lightning as they huddled underneath a tree to get out of the weather.
It’s easy to sometimes think I’m doing this great American adventure, but then the reality of the situation comes back tenfold, and I have to refocus on what this is—what it means to be outside for over seven months and 95% of the time. It’s hard. It’s dangerous.
