The beds at the Avon are honestly very comfortable. My bottom bunk was a little close to the ground, but I had no desire to leave it when the light started coming in.
But there was ice water and a k-cup maker in the lobby that would clear my brain fuzz and wet my dry mouth. I went down to have some coffee and water.
I decided to take advantage of the open kitchen offer instead of paying for breakfast, and spent the next hour or so making a couple of spicy bacon breakfast burritos from ingredients in the walk-in fridge and open shelves, along with a heaping bowl of microwave cheese grits and a banana. I was pretty full and didn’t spend a dime, which is 20 dollars less than I would have had to spend to be less full at one of the breakfast restaurants in town.
Next, I got involved in a phone conversation home that lasted well over an hour, at one point during which I had to retreat from my bunk mate Levi blasting some horn heavy jazz music.
Following that was some more down time in my bunk, at the end of which I had written and uploaded one more blog post. I started to get distracted by the internet, but Levi shut that down by asking me to get up and move his dog to the floor.
So I finally started getting myself put together to leave. But I kept putting on my hiking clothes in the wrong order and having to start over. Part of it was the distraction of Levi’s conversation about the upcoming weather, but mostly it was just the nonstandard setting and my head not being completely in it.
I was dressed and packed by a little after 11am, so I stuck the last of my loose cash in the tip box, put my key in the drop box in the lobby, and set off up town.
My main goal was the Pickle Barrel Restaurant whose online menu showed some amazing sandwiches and said they did takeout. I wanted a nice gooey sandwich to take on the road when I left town.
But what’s this? Souvenir shops? Yes, I do need to send a postcard home…let’s cross the street and buy one! And now I need to rush to the post office before it closes and mail it immediately!
It was nearly noon when I made it to the Pickle Barrel. When I asked the man who met me at the host stand if I could make a to-go order, he declined, saying it was just him and his wife running the show, it was lunch time, and they were only going to do table service right now. No problem. I thanked him and walked across the street to the Coffee Bear. They had plenty of staff and made me an iced tea and a melty ham and Swiss on croissant to go in under ten minutes. Not as amazing sounding as the sandwiches I had been seeking, but it sure was wrapped to-go.
I started walking north out of town. I was thinking I could make it to the 1pm gold mine tour, but the road was longer and harder than I thought. I walked the first 2.5 miles, managed to swing a ride in the back of a passing pickup for the next mile (from a driver whose name nor face I caught–only the passenger talked to me, and he wasn’t interested in details), then walked another mile up the side road. Multiple other cars were headed up to the sand same venue, but none would give me a ride, so I took another twenty minutes to climb that last hill alone, arriving about 1:30.
I bought a ticket for the 2pm tour and a can of root beer to drink with my sandwich while I waited. There was a covered area with picnic tables on the front of the store. The woman at the next table was sitting a brindle-colored puppy named Gypsy. Four months old and already answering to her name and recognizing basic commands. Very impressive and very cute.
I took the large part of the wait time to start sewing up some seams on my gloves. I got one done and barely started another when it was time to go in and grab a hard hat and rain coat. I pulled out my headlamp to attach to the hard hat, and grabbed my own jacket to carry into the 47 degree mine, but didn’t put it on yet. Soon the train pulled up and started preparing to take our group in. There were enough of us to fill two passengers cars on the mine train, whose seats were uncomfortably hot after some time in the sun. I sat on my coat while waiting for the ride in to start.
The train carried us straight into Galena Mountain, some quarter to a third of mile before stopping to let us get off and begin our walking tour.
The path was a sort of triangle of by three connected drifts, and in some places we could some natural eroded features and crystals and the sort of vein gold was found in, but our guide said the mine had not been at all productive, and lots of investors had been milked for a lot of money while seven levels of drifts had been excavated with only a pittance of gold found. He had worked a much more productive mine on the opposite end of town for many years (the third most productive in the country at one time, so he said).
Along the way, he demonstrated all the machines and tools that went into drilling, blasting, mucking, and clearing a gold mine, and brought us back out into the light by 3pm on the dot. I returned my coat and hard hat, finished up the seam I had started sewing, and started hiking up the valley.
After a mile climbing this dirt road in the sun, a pickup truck came up behind me, and since these miles wouldn’t count, I turned around and stuck out my thumb. Matt and Erin, parents of two boys in the back seat, let me climb in the bed with the dog (Mollie? Hollie?) as they drove up to their free BLM campsite. Matt offered to drive me up to the trailhead after dropping off the family at the trailer, and even brought me a beer for the road. I’m having such good luck with angels in CO.
He left me at the Highland Mary trailhead and I started climbing up alongside Cunningham Creek around 4. It was steep, rocky, and slow going for wimpy little me. It was a couple of miles to the Highland Mary Lakes, and I didn’t take any long breaks, but it was well after 6 when I stopped beside the second lake for supper.
It was a beautiful spot, but the wind off the lake hardly ever stopped. I had to build a windbreak with my pack, bear can, and Tyvek to be able to light my stove. It was well into the 7 o’clock hour when I started walking again.
And by walking, I mean climbing. It was just more up, past another lake, over the creek, through some mud, and just when I thought I had reached the top and started descending to Verde Lake, I saw on the map that I had been supposed to continue climbing, so started up the hillside to meet the trail again.
I stopped a half mile or so later because it was getting late. I was within a mile of the CDT, and there seemed to be a nice little shelf below the trail to put a tent on. The wind was basically gone here, and I hoped it would remain that way until morning.
Miles walked: maybe around 10? no trail miles though.
Distance to Lake City: About 38 miles
