Category: CDT CO Section 9

I woke up with the cough still hanging on. Sleepy and slowly getting my things together, again, I got started hiking around 7:45.

The trail was on the shady side of the mountain, so there were a lot of snow piles in the trail among the blowdowns. After a stop at a small stream to get some water, I decided to follow a suggestion in a FarOut comment, and climbed straight up to the ridge to avoid the trail issues. It was a steep and difficult climb, even once I was out of the trees and deadfall and snow and onto the rocks. It took over 15 straight minutes just to get to the nearest ridgetop.

The traveling and views and breeze were much better up there, sure, but I don’t know if it was worth the extra effort. A half-hour or so later, I reached the warming hut tucked into a low part of the narrow ridge. I was feeling washed out from the heat and the hard climb, and just went inside and took a seat. There was good cell service, so I watched some videos and made a nice drink and chilled for half an hour.

I woke with first light again, the birds and all and some early riser quietly walking past my tent. But despite the rattling of the wind on my tent, I managed to get back to sleep until 6:30, thus earning myself a full eight hours.

From the moment I first sat up and all day long, I suffered from a dry cough. Not like my usual morning cough that subsides. In fact, late in the day, I actually coughed something up. I don’t feel sick in any other way, and I don’t know what I could be sick from after no real contact with other humans for three days…

I woke at first light, around 5 it 5:30 with the birds. I wished I could have gotten more than five hours of sleep, but it was clear I wasn’t going to get back to sleep, and I did have a lot of hiking to do.

For an hour, I just ate and wrote the last post, but eventually I forced myself to slowly start getting ready for the day. I think I started walking around 7:45.

And right off the bat, I had more snow traversals to do before I could get into the valley I had been approaching.

A long brutal day.

I got started hiking a little after 7:30, which somehow felt like a late, slow start.

To start, I was going downhill, and I soon found myself passing lots of ponds or lakes, a trend that would continue all day.

I stopped at a nicely flowing stream to get water, thinking for a moment I had the urge to move bowels, but it went away.

It came back with an emergency vengeance a mile away, where the only places to stop were in a constant wind. I lost my first doggie bag to the wind entirely, even while trying to tuck it under a rock. It ran away faster than I could chase it. My attempt to keep the wilderness clean has slightly polluted it. An apathetic marmot watched the whole affair indifferently.

Alarm at 6:30 but I thought to lie in bed and work on the previous post a bit. Got up to make coffee and start getting ready just after 7. I got my last shave in and got dressed for hiking.

We were packed up and ready to go a little after 8 and drove back to the Chama town center to get breakfast at the Boxcar. I got an enormous sausage and chile burrito and a disappointing crusty burnt pancake. Breakfast at the Boxcar is great as long as you avoid the pancakes.

We both left with cups of ice, and I poured my root beer into mine when returning to the car as my last town indulgence on the 12 mile trip to Cumbres Pass.