EXPLORING THE “COLORADO TRAIL’

 

                                                                September - 2001

 

We drove for twelve hours from Hailey, Idaho to the trailhead at Frisco, Colorado to start our hike on the Colorado Trail.  We were able to camp that night just above the Gold Hill trailhead.  The elevation for entry was 9,200 ft our goal on this section was Georgia Pass at 11,900 ft then hike back to the car and re-enter on a different section after a couple of days.

 

The first nights camp on the trail was a “Colorado Welcome” and it scared the living daylights out of me.  We were very conscious of the lightening, thunder and rain.  I am usually counting from the lighting to the sound of the thunder to determine how far away the lightening is.  I was hiking with a good friend and hiking companion for the past few years who is a Benedictine Monk from the Monastery in Jerome, Idaho. He has PCT 85, 95 behind his name.

 

About five pm the rain started so the Tarp tent was quickly put up and we sat on our pads to wait out the storm.  The lightening was getting closer and closer and finally I could not even get the word “one” out.  We had three big strikes directly above us.  I of course leaped on the Monk and held on for dear life, I am sure he thought he had been hit by lightening.  We smelled smoke on the third strike. Then the rain came down in buckets for about fifteen minutes.  When it stopped we were able to get out and determine if the forest was on fire.  We found nothing only the ground smelled just outside the tarp tent and I am sure this is where one of the strikes hit. Now the weather was clearing up……….”Welcome to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado”.

 

The rest of the hike on this section was uneventful, and we saw only three hikers and hundreds of young people on mountain bikes, pumping their way up to 12,000 ft.  We saw a couple of fellows with small trailers behind their bikes.  They were riding from Keystone to Denver CO.  They said once they get up to Georgia Pass it would be all downhill from there to Denver.  This was over the Labor Day weekend, but we later found out there was an international bike race planned for the area. 

 

We saw absolutely no wildlife during this time, also no scat.  We did see a couple of chipmunks who were really scared of us, not too many birds either. Our food stayed in

our packs.  We had great weather during the day for hiking, some little rain showers in the early evening with lightening and thunder far away most of the time.  We were in the trees the entire time until we got close to Georgia Pass.

 

The next section:  After a fabulous drive up a highway called “Top of the Rockies” which had marvelous views the entire way, we went by Copper Mountain and Vail ski areas and then came to Tennessee Pass at 10,424 ft.  We entered here at Tennessee Pass trailhead. There was a memorial for the 10^th Mountain Division on the highway and parts

of the trail was the original trail for the training of the 10^th Mountain Division, and parts were cross-country ski trails.

 

This was a pretty area and we soon had great views of the surrounding mountains.  We camped at Porcupine Lake, which would be the highest at 11,480 ft in this section.  Part of the time we were in the Holy Cross Wilderness area with views of the Continental Divide glaciated walls.

 

Here again was one of those nights from hell. At 6 p.m. the rain starts.  I dive into my tarp-tent.  My friend dives into his Bivy sack, which at this moment is set up a little bit out of hearing and sight from me.

 

The lightening and thunder and pouring rain kept up until 1.30 a.m. The lightening changed to sheet lightening and lit up the entire sky for another hour.  The worst was the wind and the strong gusts. I think I could have selected a better place for my tarp set up.

I was sure that it was going to blow off on one side.  I had become complacent in my set up and did not even lower one of the ends.  I was hesitant to try and change anything at this time as I did not want to get wet or loose control if part of the tarp got loose.

 

I was getting some water on my down bag at the foot end.  Then I remembered something the Monk had told me previously.  I took my Gortex jacket, did it up and put my feet in it and pulled it up over the foot of my bag. This worked great and I did not get my bag wet.

Due to this storm I did not get much sleep during this night and was a little cranky the next morning.

 

Again on this section we did not see any wildlife, but we are seeing evidence of Moose and Elk.  We finally dropped down to the end of this section to the Hagerman Pass road at 10,360 ft.  We had planned to camp here and then start the hike back up to the car the next morning.

 

This is when the rain and the snow started and it began to snow very hard.  A lady came into the trailhead from another day hike trail and she offered to drive us to our car, we graciously accepted.  She drove us back to the car at the top of Tennessee Pass. We drove to the town of Leadville at 10,200 ft and had a great dinner and watched the mountain get covered with snow.  My friend does not like hiking in the snow, so we decided to end the hike a few days early.

 

We had hoped to see Flying Brian. We did see one Continental Divide hiker named Chris, and we talked with him for about a half hour on the trail.  I do feel if the weather had not deteriorated we would have seen Brian at some point, he was in the area.

 

Maybe another hike will take us the length of the Colorado Trail.