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 goal. I’m just happy.
Well that started List-Making. We came up with many lists as we walked through the Storybook Scenery.
Our Favorite Pieces of Gear. How many times we got lost. How many things we actually lost. How many miles per day we averaged. How many times we got caught peeing in the woods. Once. Me.
Anyway, it was great fun and Stoney is going to publish the whole thing.
We topped My Last Pass at 12,308 feet. An altitude I hope to never reach ever again.
The scenery was the reason people believe in Fairies and Gnomes and Gods. There is no other explanation for why something so beautiful could possibly exist. We took photos that could never do justice to what we saw. Things that will only live on in our dreams. We stood and stared and memorized the horizon, hoping to burn it into our minds. Hoping it became so permanent, we could conjure it again at the age of 72.
The canyons and the waterfalls and the creeks. The rain way over there. Just in that one spot. The homestead up on that cliff. The rocky downhill. God’s red-rock terraced gardens. Taylor Lake in all its splendor, reflecting the bright green mountainsides in its azure waters.
The Fall Colors.
Heaven.