Miles 8.5 Camped at mm Salida Hostel TRIGGER WARNING: VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN Anji there’s someone coming! I said in a hushed but frantic tone. We both leaped out of our tents. It was 4:40 am. There were lights all over in the forest, headlamps, and we could hear men saying things but couldn’t make sense of it at all.Hello? HELLO? We called out…no answer.Abandoning Sleep, we got up and packed up our belongings to leave.My Read more…
Miles 12.4 Camped at mm 244.8 Mice Are The Enemy. They climbed into the hole at the tiny mouth of my Ursack and chewed the top of my garbage ziplock bag and chewed a hold in my Opsack. They got a few mouthfuls of plastic but did not, thankfully, even touch any of my food. It makes me think about sleeping with my food, but then the mice might chew through my tent, and besides Read more…
Miles 13.3 Camped at mm 232.4 The sunrise caught in my throat and turned my heart to gold. It was pink and ribbony and smelled of secrets and Promises of Happiness. The trail was forgiving. Just what my foot needed. The Universe was in Love With Me. We started the road walk and my body didn’t mind as much as I expected it would. In fact, it didn’t really mind at all. It reminded me Read more…
Miles 2.5 Camped at mm 219.1 I woke to Stone Soup plopping coffee and yogurt and a banana and an orange down next to me. Here you go, she said. Wow, awesome! I croaked. We got up and blogged and charged things and did all the things and then Denise came over! Our OG Trail Angel from Denver who took us to trail in the very beginning was camped at the Avalanche Trailhead, hoping we’d Read more…
Miles 13.3 Camped at Super 8 Motel, Buena Vista, CO Are you Fire? Stone Soup asked them. What? They said together. You know. Firefighters. I said. No, why? They said. We pegged you for fire crew because you’re in such good shape. We said. They ate that shit up. But it was true. They’d gone right up the mountain lickety split while we took our sweet ass time. Like Usual. But the views were phenomenal. Read more…
Miles 11.7 Camped at mm 203.3 The signs were old, my legs were old, the mountains were old, even the clouds looked old today. Walking through the world, Reminiscing with the Ancients. Whispering to my father. Dad. Daddy. Papa. Do you hear me?These climbs just never get any easier. I feel them all throughout my body. Clear into my little tiny baby toes, and clear into some tiny muscles in my back that I didn’t Read more…
Miles 7.5 Camped at mm 191.6 I couldn’t eat. Just the thought of food was so disgusting it made me want to vomit. So we hiked on without it. I was so sleepy I couldn’t function either. Whever we sat down for a break, all I wanted to do was curl up and sleep. I felt like I was hallucinating. I walked along and the grasshoppers were in abundance. They pop pop popped out of Read more…
Miles 6.6 Camped at mm 184.1 I put on my rain jacket and then gathered up my rain fly and tent and ground cloth and schlopped it all into a giant sopping wet ball. I put on my pack and picked up the ball. The jacket kept my clothes from getting wet from the tent. I made my way over to Bravestone’s cabin. She flung open the door with a grin and started fussing about. Read more…
Miles 18.1 Camped at mm Twin Lakes, CO Let’s make it to town, she says, as though it’s the easiest thing in the world. Okay, I say, as though it’s the easiest thing in the world. We packed up all our crap and zipped under the power poles and out onto the mountain. The sun crawled its way along the distant mountains, changing them from the darkest blue, to an orange hue, and eventually shooting Read more…
Miles 14.1 Camped at mm 159.4 We woke up at 5 and pretty quickly found ourselves in the Holy Cross Wilderness. It was beautiful, but the going was hard. We saw some tracks in the mud that coud’ve been a moose or an elk or something but we don’t know what moose feet look like so it could’ve been a 20 foot tall deer for all I know.Then we found some giant turd pellets and Read more…