Colorado Trail - Day 2

We started this day (May 18) with a beautiful morning.  Our campsite was so pretty.  Nobody was in a rush and we just enjoyed each other's company as we broke down our campsite and made breakfast.

Dave preparing for breakfast as Jody gets ready to load up her pack.

It is about 55 degrees.  Pretty warm.  It was kind of hot sleeping.  I hate hot sleeping.

It was too cloudy that morning to take a pic of the sunrise but the mountains looked beautiful in the morning light.

Ominous clouds approaching.
The weather forecast was for thunderstorms in the afternoon and evening.
Fortunately it also called for cooler temps.  The day before was a roaster.
We were hoping this day would be cooler since we were heading into the burn area.

I notice the vegetation along the trail as I am hiking since I spend most of my time staring at the ground trying not to trip and fall over rocks and roots.  I thought these were pretty.  Like delicate yucca plants.

Pine trees make artistic additions to a photo.

We spent the morning climbing.  When we stopped to do a map check Jody dropped one of her poles.  It fell and rolled down over this boulder.  We laughed because nobody reacted and tried to stop it from falling down the mountain.  We all just stood there and watched it go.  We were too tired to react.  So this is her climbing down to retrieve her pole.  As Dave and I stand on the trail watching her.  Hey, at least I took a photo.

A view from the high point on the trail.  See the lake? That is the dam we went by.



Betty standing on the high point.
Not going any further since the edge is a drop off.

Further down the trail we had another vista view.
This time it was of the burn area.  There it is baby, the dreaded hot, windy section that has no shade.
Everyone talks about how awful it is.  It is miles and miles of no trees due to the fire in 1996.
The guide says the vegetation is coming back nicely.
They must be talking about flowers.  I see no trees.

We also have cell signal.  Full bars.
So I took this pic and sent it to Alan.
Just to let him know we are all ok.
I do have a SPOT locator and send a signal to him in the morning, lunchtime and when we get to camp to let him know we are ok.  It has the Lego Movie song "Everything is Awesome!".

The trail levels out which is nice.

This area has a lot of blow down.
Blow down by chain saw!
Must have been infected with the pine beetle.

A cave along the trail.
Not sure how far back it goes into the mountain.
We didn't check.
Just glad nothing is coming out of it.



Figuring out where we are.
The Guthooks app works really well with the databook.
My pine needle pointer works well too to show the others what I was looking at.

Then we started going up again.
I must have been delirious when I took this pic.
Not sure why I took it.  The flowers must have been prettier in person.

We are close to the top.
Trees are shorter.
What goes up must then go down.

These little guys were all over.
According to my wildflower book this is "Sulphur Flower".

The nice thing about being up high is the view.
I could see the snow capped mountains in the distance.

This is a sad foot on a rocky trail.



A dorky hiker.

Pretty.

Heading down the switchbacks.
Jody in front of me and David below.

What goes up must go....up.
We are supposed to be heading down to the river.
This is not down.

Another pretty view with picturesque pines.

Now we are heading down.
Serious down.
Making up for the incline we had earlier I guess.

Dave's laundry.  It turned out to be a good morning to dry it out.

This looks a lot like Spiderwort.
Just one little flower.  All alone.

The Scarlet Paintbrush flowers are blooming early too.
They are so pretty.
Especially when you have a bunch of them all over a mountainside.



Getting closer to the bottom.
A good view of my green "Women of the Colorado Trail" bandanna.

Cactus on the trail!

We are probably a day or two too early to see them bloom.
They have really pretty flowers.  Makes me want to just pitch my tent and wait to see what they look like.

The Platte River.
Yep.  It looks nothing like the Platte in Nebraska.

You can't really see it but this area had a whole bunch of really pretty pink flowers.
Just sprinkled all over floating on top of their stems and waving in the breeze.

This is also the end of Segment 1 and the start of Segment 2.
This is a typical trailhead with parking and a vaulted toilet.
Colorado has nice vaulted toilets.  Very clean.  And big.

The trail continues over the river on this bridge.

This is the Gudy Gaskill memorial bridge.
She was considered the mother of the Colorado Trail.
My kind of gal.

This is a pic of Gudy and here is a nice article by the Denver Post when she passed.
https://www.denverpost.com/2016/07/18/gudy-gaskill-dies-colorado-trail/

Helpful info about the trail you are about to embark on.

See the red truck and the guy standing behind it?
That is Travis.  My first Trail Angel.
He had just finished mountain biking and was heading home.  He stopped to chat and we talked about bike stuff.
Then he offered me food and water.  I was going to say no since I knew we had plenty of food and were going to get water at the river.  I didn't want to add any more weight to our packs.  But then I realized this was my first offer of Trail Magic!
Trail Magic is typically food but can be anything that strangers (Trail Angels) provide along the trail.  Often the trail magic is left in a cooler along the trail and marked for hikers only.  Sometimes they set up a big production and provide pancakes or grilled burgers and such.  I have only heard of this.  Never experienced it.  Last August we came upon a cooler but it was empty.  This was my first actual food experience.  So I said Yes!

Perfect.  He offered 3 bars.  There are 3 in our group.
I gave the Pro bars to Dave and Jody and I took the Epic bar.
(Bison and cranberry - who knew this would taste so good?!)
Thanks Travis!

Funny sign in the toilet.

The river is low and algae is forming.
Not a good sign.

It is maybe about 67 degrees.  Wonderful compared to yesterday.
This is of course down by the river.  It could get hotter in the burn area.

This is the rattlesnake (bull snake) Jody saw in the bathroom when she went to use it.
Dave was nice enough to go and shoo it out.

Fly fishing on the Platte.
What a great spot.  Made me want to join him.
Maybe someday I will learn how to fly fish.

The trail wastes no time going up.
The river is just out of the picture on the left.
The switchbacks begin.
We are loaded up with extra water since we won't have a water source until tomorrow at the fire station and we are headed into the hot, dry, no shade burn area.

Oh yeah, it is also very rocky.
Here is a sad foot.

Going up.
Staring at the ground.
Breathing hard.
Stopped to take a pic of these little guys.
Mouse-Ear Chickweed.

I tried to get 3 sections of the switchbacks in this pic.
The third one is juuuust in the pic on the far left side.
I have to admit, with each step I'm thinking "fuck, fuck, fuck".
The extra water we are carrying is very heavy.

So then the thunderheads start popping up.
I am almost to the top of the first climb.
It does get easier after this.
Good thing.

Hello there fuzzy little pasqueflower that looks like a columbine.
I have no idea what this flower is but it is cool.

How pretty.  The burn area is doing nicely.
This floral entrance into the burn area is a great way to enter the area.

The clouds are getting darker.
Our steps are getting quicker.

The dirt/gravel was very red and it was striking against the dark clouds, the reddish bark of the dead trees and the green vegetation.  It was also very easy to follow the trail.  You could see it quite a ways.

I didn't check this out but Jody did.
It apparently is some mining thing.
Not too descriptive I know.  I really didn't care.  The extra water I was carrying made me not care.

No forest but so pretty.
By the way, it is not hot.
It is windy yes but the temp is cool and it is cloudy so we aren't sweating buckets of sweat.
At least we weren't until the lightning started.  

Jody helps give the area some perspective.

The trail rolls up and down through the burn area turning left and right winding its way towards an area that is still forested.  Our pace is quick because we are looking for the spot we intended to camp at.  We have a mileage goal for the day.  We came upon this really sweet spot but it was too early so we kept going.  We were all thinking that the spot we intended to camp at better be awesome because this spot was really nice.  And we hoped we could make it to our campsite before the storm hit.  

The storm rolls over us and so does the thunder and lightning.
We go over what to do if we feel the electrical charge.
Our pace is quick and we are glad we aren't the tallest things in the area.
(We never did feel an electrical charge in the air)

Our goal campsite was a bust.
Too high, not enough room for 3 tents.
Just all kinds of bad.
So we push on.

I noticed the wall cloud approaching.
I have been caught in a hail storm in the mountains before.
Hoping I don't do it again on this day.

Then we found a perfect spot.  Not too low, not too high, not surrounded by dead trees.
It was just right.
This was our view.

We managed to set up our tents before the storm (didn't) hit.
It just kind of blew over us.
A few sprinkles, that was it.
It did rain later that night but I didn't hear it.

All that extra freakin water.
About 12 pounds.
I didn't drink enough through the burn area.



Dave had to toss the rock bag over the branch.  I would have been there all night trying to get the stupid thing over it.

This is my crap strewn all over the place.
Socks drying in the tree, my sit pad on a rock. (hard to see due to it's natural brown color)
I laughed and told David and Jody that they must have a hard time seeing me with my camouflage clothing and my camouflage sit pad.  I waved my arms to make sure they could see me ok. 
Our campsite was close to a gravel road so we did hear some cars go by. 
That's ok.  We were tired and didn't care.
We all went to bed before dark.