It was early when we went to the airport. John drove. It was Ruthless and me and Stoney. The airport was so small they barely had coffee, and though they had tea bags, they had no hot water, so Ruthless was left with no tea. We were animated and probably loud. Complaining about the trail. Laughing about our adventures. Standing up with huge arm gestures. We’d forgotten there were other people there. Pickles was at Read more…
Miles 14.6 Camped at mm Durango, Colorado We camped with Laura and Ruthless again, our lovely womanly Trail Family. Tramily. The first Tramily I’ve ever created in all my hiking. A wonderful crew of women. It rained last night, and Stoney and I got up at 4am to try to get a head start on the other two. We were getting a ride from Ruthless’s family, John and Betty, at the finish line, and we Read more…
Miles 16 Camped at mm 471.8 Do you have any mixed emotions? Stoney asked me. Nope. I said. None? She said? About going home or this being over or anything? Nope. I said. I’m happy to be going home. I’m happy to be leaving Colorado. I’m happy to be headed to lower elevations where I can breathe again. I’m happy to be going to get my feet looked at. I’m happy to have completed our Read more…
Miles 13.9 Camped at mm 455.8 Today was a short day, and a good thing, too. We wandered through live tree forests. Oh, the Live Trees! We feel so safe and wonderful amongst their branches. We wandered along steep embankments with views that lasted a million miles. I know now why not every mountain in Colorado is named. There are gazillions of them. They’d run out of names in the 2023 Baby Book of Names Read more…
Miles 15.2 Camped at mm 441.9 It’s a Ghost River. Stoney said. Yeah. I said. Because I still say that a lot to Stoney, which is why she still likes me. But it was totally true. The water ran ghostly white with calcium deposits. We knew we couldn’t fill up our Katadyn BeFree water filter bags here. The deposits would clog our filters. It was eerie. We took a hundred photos, hoping to capture it’s Read more…
Miles 14.6 Camped at mm 426.7 The trail was generally smooth and uncomplaining, and the skies were carefully crafted with the most stunning blue you could imagine.We loved the day.The unrockiness of the trail was pretty easy going, and the passes were easily climb-able, even with our Freshly Laden Packs, heavy with 6 days of food to finish out this journey.Our spirits were high and our legs well rested.We talked all day of doing 20 Read more…
Miles 0 Camped at mm Smedley’s Suites, Silverton, CO Today was Our Zero. No miles hiked.I slept like the dead. I slept and slept and slept some more. When I awoke, Anji had already gone to the store and made breakfast tacos.I greedily devoured them with barely a word of thanks.Then I slept some more.We found out my food box wasn’t going to make it to the post office today, so we picked up Stoney’s Read more…
Miles 8.4 Camping at mm Smedley’s Suites. Silverton, CO I slept long and hard at this lower altitude. Plus the goats had to eat before anything else could be done, so Stone and I could sleep in for once. But the goats and Kathleen and Jeremy were all chased off from their breakfast area by two bull moose and everyone had to get tied up at camp again and we all ate breakfast and got Read more…
Miles 15.7 Camped at mm 403.7 I woke up and couldn’t breathe. Slow hypoxia. I think whenever I go into REM sleep, I can’t get enough oxygen, and I wake up. I thrashed around like a little fish. I grabbed my oxygen and took three breaths off of it. Then I gagged for a while and almost threw up on my sleeping bag. I heaved and heaved and my eyes watered and I felt helpless Read more…
Miles 11.3 Camped at mm 388.0 Since we were above treeline, two things were true. We could see everything for a million miles, and it was freezing ass cold. The mountains folded one range on top of another, gradually turning a deeper shade of blue until they blended in with the sky or until their craggy crowns disappeared around the curvature of the earth. Who knew there could possibly be so many mountains on Earth? Read more…