Journal Entries

Well, we made it to Wyoming!!

I have to say, crossing the border of Colorado and Wyoming felt like a pretty big milestone. We are slowly getting to Canada, which feels awesome. Here's hoping we can make it the rest of the way!

We both actually loved the section from where the Silverthorn alternate rejoins the official route to Berthoud Pass. The trail takes you up onto the actual continental divide and keeps you up there. It leaves you feeling like you are walking in the sky. My Achilles tendon was still not entirely on board with the whole hiking thing, so Bourbon and I mellowed out our distances so that we were only doing 4000-5000ft of ascent and descent each day. Which in Colorado is keeping it as mellow as we could manage (which is hilarious, it's almost double the gain and loss we would do on our biggest days in New Mexico).

Wyoming sunsets get 10/10. At least the hiking has got easier. Sunset near Devils Peak on our first full day in Wyoming.

Wyoming had plenty of little Hills on the way to the Battle Pass trailhead (where we hitched down to Encampment from). It did feel a little like Wyoming was trying to prove that it had mountains too. It was windy, as we expected, but the views were refreshing and different. We started seeing Mesas again, and rolling hills rather than jagged mountains.

Mt Zirkel Wilderness was one final, beautiful hurrah. It was a lot drier than further south, but there were still plenty of pretty meadows, lakes and a few little streams. We stopped at the top of Lost Ranger peak and enjoyed the view for lunch whilst we dried out our tent.

Northern Colorado was wonderful. We got a gap with pretty good weather and pushed on through. It was hard to leave Steamboat Springs after 3 days off, but 5 of us packed into an old school jeep wrangler with a great local called Calder. It felt like a clown car. We were packed into that car so tight I don't think even a single extra M&M would have fitted in there with us.

We made it into Steamboat Springs and luxuriously took three whole zeros. I hate how there is this weird culture of pride around not taking any zeros. Rest is important (in my real life I'm a Physiotherapist/Physical Therapist) but you can't tell thru hikers their bodies need a break. So often hikers talk to me and sound astonished they are tired/injured/struggling with fatigue, but when you ask them when they last had a rest, they tell you with great pride it was in Lordsburg or somewhere equally distant in time and space. People, take some rest!

We've taken a lot of zeros, and we plan to take several more. As inspired by our friend 5 star, we wanna spend all our money, take lots of zeros and meet as many hikers as we can. As long as we don't get stuck in blizzards up in Montana, we want to enjoy the trail as much as we can.

Staring at a Mountain you are due to climb all morning is not a great motivator for me. Parkview mountain looked intimidating from the moment we got it in sight. It also didn't help that Jonathan Let's comment was along the lines of "it's steep but mostly worth it". And several people commented on the shelter hut near the summit. Yet again, thunderstorms were due, so we were under a time crunch. We summited around 1pm, and could see the storm rolling in quickly. We legged it to get down off the ridgeline and into tree line, and managed to get down into treeline about 70 hours later (read: two) because the "trail" was just a cross country pile of cairns for the most part, and included several surprise climbs. We finally got to the next water source (did I mention this Mountain was also completely dry?), But only after we had been rained and hailed on. Luckily, the sun came back out as we got to camp, so we could dry ourselves out before bed time.

Another hike recommendation for you all: the Bowen Pass loop trail. Get on it. It's beautiful, and currently bursting with wildflowers. 10/10 would recommend.

Saw a few moose, dodged another thunderstorm, and only got rained on a little. Generally kicked butt on the 6th July. Sadly, it is now definitely mosquito season, so we are forever on guard from the blood sucking marauders. Our camp that night was the worst spot by far, and we weren't even near any water!

We pushed pretty hard to get up and through Rollins pass and then down off the ridgeline before the storms on the way down from James Peak towards Grand Lake. We also didn't have any way of getting a permit to camp in the Indian Peaks Wilderness, so we had to be careful where we stopped. The views were great, but the impending storm didn't give me much time for photos. The trail was pretty decent for once and we camped late (around 8pm) up on a random hill top in the national Forest 21.5 miles south of Gran Lake. July the 5th had epic thunderstorms forecast all day, so we got up at the crack of dawn and pushed as hard as we could to get into Grand Lake by 2:30pm.

There are two things I want to tell you about this day. One, despite the thunderstorm it was HOT. And Two, the climb up the knights ridge and the walk around the lake epitomised classic CDT pointless climbing and poor trail maintenance. Knights ridge, despite being cleared, still had a fairly large amount of blowdowns (trees that had fallen across the path) and the trail past there around the lake was literally eroding into the lake, which felt neither safe nor enjoyable to walk on. We had hoped that since it was in the Rocky Mountain National Park maybe the last section the trail would be clear and we'll graded but no. We had a bare 10 inches of trail, actively slipping into the lake, to walk on. Not my favourite day of hiking if I'm honest. But we made it into town before the storm hit, and a shower and a sleep in a bed does wonders for a person's view of the world.