HikIng bros

With Nathan here, I decided best to just enjoy the time with him and not bother with daily updates. I also feel that cutting down on posting will help my mental state a little bit. Sometimes it feels more like a chore rather than unfolding a story as it happens. Ima try it out and see how it works. Update ever few days in a single post. We shall see!

Anyhow, on the 5th Nathan and I flew out. We were on different flights, and I went out earlier and got some gear and additional food items and sort out our hotel. He was coming from Long Island after staying at his friends for the 4th, and got in a bit later. Luckily, the area of CO we are in has an epic free bus shuttle service. From right outside our hotel, we were able to take a free bus to the trailhead. So we already had our ride and gear sorted by the time Nathan arrived, and we got our packs in line and went to bed to start the hike. 

The first day of hiking was a doozy. Mainly uphill the entire day, and reaching nearly 13,000 feet. Fortunately, the town we spent the night in was 8500, so we were able to have a night getting used to the elevation. The trail was packed. It’s prime Colorado Trail hiking season, and this is the last stretch that runs along the CDT. I wouldn’t have been surprised if we saw more than 100 people on trail that day, between CT hikers, day hikers, and bikers. 

Water sources were stretched out a little far for our mileage, so we were planning to push 24 miles. However, the uphill definitely gave us a workout, and it was getting late with lighting on the horizon and us having to ascend to get to the next water source, we decided to call it a night after 21 miles by a patch of snow we could melt for water and cooking. 

Nathan was pretty wiped. He pushed himself pretty hard and did a great job, but was asleep before his sleeping bag was even out of his pack. 

With a solid nights rest we woke up the next day and pushed onwards (and upwards). Filled with ups and downs we were pretty wiped from the start. We did see lots of mountain goats, who were very curious and “friendly” (no, never pet, feed, or overly engage with wildlife). Their little babies came barreling down the hill where we were getting water a few miles into the day. We even saw a Rivian (electric pickup) rolling along the trail. Sadly, I got distracted by the car and we missed a turn off and went half a mile passed the trail and had to backtrack. 

Overall, we were moving pretty slow, and were pretty tired. So we decided to take a side road down into Montezuma and get some real food and rest. We did about 8 or 9 miles on trail, the about another 4 or 5 to get into the town. So we still did quite a bit of hiking, even though we were exhausted. 

We once again utilized the epic bus service around here, and picked up another Summit Shuttle route that brought us into another town down the way, Dillon. We showered, ate burgers (Nathan had two) and relaxed, it was well earned. 

We ended up taking a zero day the following day. What can I say, it was a nice early evening of rest, buuuut why push ourselves? We’re just out here to have fun. Nathan was a champ with altitude, mileage, and elevation gain, but he was definitely feeling the first day still.