Again not too much to say, but at least there was something interesting that happened.
Out of camp by 9:20. What immediately followed was a steep climb over a ridge to the top of Long Gulch and across into the basin below Galena Mountain, where I stopped for lunch at the shore of a small lake.
Although there had been a decent amount of sun all morning, the clouds came in around lunch time with a on and off again light sprinkling. Enough to put my Packa on my pack but not enough to wear it like a raincoat for a little while longer. Later, when the cold wind picked up, that became a more reasonable response.
The trail continued through the Holy Cross Wilderness in the trees with very few views. Up over one of the mountain’s ridges, down into the next valley near Bear Lake, up over another ridge, down over Lake Fork, a tributary to Turquoise Lake which could not be seen from the trail, then up over the saddle between Bald Eagle and Sugarloaf Mountains. All of these ups and downs all day felt pretty steep and rocky and just generally spelled slow going. By the time I had topped the last climb, it was already almost 6pm and I had only gone 12.8 miles. The rain was picking up a little bit too.
It was time for supper, so I stopped to fix it sitting on a rock under the shelter of a big fir tree. I had my Packa on as a raincoat while I cooked, but the tree did a good job of keeping that light sprinkle off along with blocking most of the wind. When I finished, it was nearly dark enough to require a headlamp, so I got mine out to prepare for a bit of night-hiking in the rain.
Just as I was about to finish packing up and went to put the headlamp on, I realized a flange that had held the battery compartment onto the head band was gone. It was unusable in that state. Luckily, I had packed out the SteelStik I had bought to repair my sunglasses in Silverthorne, so I just molded a new flange right there on the spot.
Just as I finished, I saw another light bobbing up the hill. When the owner came into range, I said:
“Hello!”
“Oh my God! What the hell?”
“Over here.”
“You scared the crap out of me. What are you doing up here?”
“Same as you, I reckon.”
“Is that Blast?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s One Day.”
I was a bit shocked that someone I had not spoken to in three months (at East Glacier Village when she asked if I could hike with her) was able to identify me in the dark by voice alone, but it turned out she had a reason to expect me there. She had spent the previous day hiking with Ted before leaving him behind in Leadville following the resolution of a lost credit card issue. He had relayed what had transpired during our time hiking together, so she knew I was nearby on the trail.
Anyway, we chatted a bit as we hiked down together, catching up on all the above, as well as the status of the injury that had taken her off trail for a week in Helena and how she had spotted me from a car while zeroing in Grand Lake. Since then, she had been a day or two behind for various reasons.
She stopped at the next water source to collect some water, so I threw in my earphones and chugged ahead into the night. She stayed fairly close behind me through the next section–out of hearing range but her light was occasionally visible. One long descent and one not so long ascent brought me to a small stream with a nice campsite nearby. She arrived there as well as I was starting to unpack. The spot I picked to camp seemed pretty good in the moment and light of the headlamp, but once I had set up and threw myself inside to do everything else out of the rain, I began to see that it was a pretty tilty site. That had some repercussions, but that’s a story for tomorrow because first I slept.
Trail miles: 17.2
Distance to Twin Lakes: 19 miles
