August 12th
We slept at the hostel last night which was never our plan but we completely forgot in our exhaustion. Zach reminded us that we had stayed an extra night the next morning. Wow 4 nights town just slipped by so quickly! We had a wonderful morning sleeping in, my body felt better and rested. Watercolor and Rush More had also spent another night. We drank coffee, wrote, ate breakfast and sorted and packed our backpacks. We hugged Zach good bye and thanked him for his hospitality. Then the four of us girls split an Uber back to Copper Mountain to continue our south bound journey.
That’s the pass we went over the day before!!
The girls stayed behind at the ski resort to do some last minute shopping while Jodie and I hit the trail. My pack felt the heaviest today. It shouldn’t, I only have 3 days worth of food and a light water carry. My body must still be tired. The trail was gentler today, smoother, rolling and less rocks. We were both grateful. We stopped for a late breakfast around noon by a creek that drowned out the distant highway noise.
It started to rain. We packed and finished our chores in the rain, filtering water and stretching.
Watercolor and Rush More passed us on the trail. I hope they have a safe hike over the summit. I hope Watercolor finds a hiking partner, Rush More is returning home for school in Leadville.
We hiked, we rested, we discussed different goal options for the day and settled on an easy day, turn in early, get good rest and get up early tomorrow for more serious hiking. We met a woman name Alicia who is hiking solo and we hiked together and chatted until we found a potential camp site. The rain had stopped so it was the perfect time to set up camp. Someone was already camping in the group campsite. I said hello and an older woman said hello back. She welcomed us to share the campsite with her. She said she was going to have dinner at the campfire ring. I asked if we could join her and she said sure. We set up our tents and joined Jenna at the campfire. The fire was dead and cold but provided a communal eating space. We all got out our camp stoves out and started cooking our meals. Jenna said she was out here doing trail work. She’s part of a volunteer trail maintenance organization and no one else was able to come this weekend so she decided to come by herself. She’s been out here a few days and plans on returning home tomorrow. She proudly showed us her tool, which we thought was a McCloud, it’s actually a Rogue Hoe. Jenna is well into her 70’s and her trail name is Nine Lives. She said one of her nine lives was cancer. She showed me pictures of a tree recently struck by lightning and how is exploded and sent giant splinters everywhere because the heat of the lightning heats up the sap in he tree. She gave us advise about how to deal with a moose encounter and shared with us about her recent hike of a few hundred miles along the Colorado Trail from Marshall pass to Denver and summiting the highest point on the trail that with a girl friend of hers! Her backpacking equipment is ultra light and far more advanced than mine and I am totally impressed by her. I told her I want to be like her when I grow up and I thanked her for letting us have dinner together.
Jodie and I left for our tents early. We plan on getting up at 5 tomorrow. There’s another woman camper that arrived around dinner time and it sounds like the girls are still chatting by the cold fire ring.
Jodie’s blog hikebikerepeat.com