The Worthless Water Carry and The Scoopy Pond Creek

Miles 15.4

Camped at hostel in Dillon, CO

Dark forests and grassy hillsides and windy, roundabout trails led us into valleys and out again.

The mountains watched us go. All unimpressed with our pride and progress.

We had 10 miles to go without water. We filled up with four liters of water and headed up the pass. Just to find water one mile later. Worthless Water Carry.

But that’s okay. It’s better that having no water at all. We hit the ridge at 11,215 feet and hung out around that altitude for a while, passing a ski resort, and eventually heading back down again.

Five stitches later, Stasha is back on trail after falling and busting her knee open. She, like so many of us, know that this trail ain’t gonna hike itself. So here she is, back at it. We’re happy for her. I even got teary when I saw her. Out here. Doing it.

Into the valley we go, ho-ho. And there we were at the bottom. At the 10 mile mark. Where there was water to carry to camp. Except the water was the tiniest trickle. And Anji had to scoop it out of a puddle with her cup and put it in her Katadyn Filter. And then she loaned me her cup to do the same. Because my cup still had leftover Mashed Potato Residue from last night’s dinner.

So I filled up my filter, and we looked in the Far Out app and found out that a bear ravaged campers in this area last night. So we decided to hike all the way to Breckenridge. We called around and found a hostel that was only $29 a night so we booked that, cooked dinner at the Scoopy Pond Creek, and headed into the waning light of day.

We did eventually make it to the highway. And it turned out that the hostel was quite a ways away from where the trail met up with the road. So we stuck out our thumbs in the light of a street light and waited, getting chilly with our hoods up and our gloves on in the dark.

We did get picked up, and the mountain biker took us all the way to our hostel, which is a total stoner pad. Homemade stoner art covering the walls. Little hand drawn signs saying “Hell Yeah!” on the fridge, and wall hangings of what Alice in Wonderland would look like if you were on acid. A very tidy area of rolling papers and marijuana pipes in the corner.

But it was clean-ish, except for the carpet, and there was a girls’ room with nice bunk beds and clean linens and comfy beds, and Anji and I were the only girls staying there so we had the place to ourselves. We were exhausted, and after a tour of the place, we passed out quite comfortable and safe.