Resthouse Meadows Trail & Lincoln Lake, Colorado

Found a use for Moleskine journals I'm too afraid to write in: hiking journals!

June 20, 2015, 9:14pm
Dean and I are currently encamped in a meadow of beaver ponds in Mount Evans Wilderness awaiting the stars. The new moon was on the 16th, so there's a sliver up there tonight and I'm hoping to see a beautiful sky. Did you know you can see the Milky Way from earth? All these years I thought those stunning pictures of the Milky Way over a barren desert landscape were a Photoshop magic trick. Now I'm obsessed with seeing it for myself. In the meantime, this will do.

The book called this hike "moderate." It definitely hasn't felt moderate. After a late start, we began at Resthouse trailhead near Echo Lake and made it only about five miles (plus a two-mile detour to Lincoln Lake) out of the 6.5 that was our goal. Maybe it's because I'm 20 pounds heavier than my old backpacking weight, or maybe because I haven't carried a pack or been above 9,000 feet in over a year (this hike tops out at 11,800), or maybe it's because much of the trail is a sludgy morass from all that rain/snow earlier this year, but this hike kicked my butt! I actually collapsed on the trail - walking downhill with a heavy backpack is hard on the legs, and mine just gave out.

Unsurprisingly, this meadow is full of mosquitos, the kind of mosquito my mother likes to call "Rodan," but we didn't have the light or energy to go further. I took care of the bug problem by lighting a fire in a fire ring a previous site occupant had left behind. I've always been a very minimal camper, so this was actually my second campfire ever, and the first one I've ever made myself! I didn't use any cool survivalist tricks, I carry a lighter for my pocket rocket, but I still had to collect kindling, arrange it, and tend it, feeding it larger and larger pieces of wood until it was roaring happily. We ate dinner next to the fire and let the smoke keep the bugs away.

Now I'm journaling and Dean is falling asleep. Some stars are coming out, I can see them through the mesh ceiling of my tent. I am going to read for a bit now. I hope it gets dark pretty soon, I'm afraid as soon as my head hits the sleeping pad, I'll be snoring.

June 20, 2015, 10:18pm
The Big Dipper! I wish I knew more constellations.

This portion of the trail was totally wiped out by this fast-running fairly deep waterfall!

Entering the Resthouse burn area, a 1,000-acre graveyard of sunbleached trees - the results of a careless campfire in 1964.

Lincoln Lake.

Golden Gate Canyon State Park and Windy Peak, Colorado

Hiked today for the first time in a long time, a 9-mile loop around Golden Gate Canyon State Park, including the 9000-foot Windy Peak summit.

It will be three years this year since "the incident" and I still don't have my confidence back, but today felt good. And I'm excited to plan some trips this summer.

There's an episode of The Office (one of my favorite shows ever) after Michael has his heart broken by Holly, and he meets this woman while giving blood. They hit it off, but he passes out ("I was so nervous about this I don't think I've eaten in three days.") before he can get her number. She leaves her glove, though, and Michael picks it up, and all day he's hoping she'll show up again for her glove, but she never does. And at the end of the episode, in a rare moment of insight, he says, "Sometimes it's not about Cinderella getting her slipper back, but it's the fact that the prince picked up the slipper at all."

Because it's not about me getting back to snow-climbing and bushwhacking and multi-night backpacking trips. It's about the fact that I'm excited to do a single-night trip on a trail I've been on countless times before. It means I'm getting better. I'm trying to celebrate those victories, however small, rather than expecting myself to overcome a traumatic experience in an instant.

Because I keep planning these elaborate multi-night trips, and obviously I had to go somewhere I'd never been before, and it *had* to be 30 miles at least, and then I'd chicken out and find some excuse to not go. If healing means I'm gonna do eight-mile roundtrip overnights, if I'm gonna walk on trails you could take a car on, if I'm gonna go to Lost Creek Wilderness for the umpteenth time, I'm doing it.

Mount Evans West Ridge via Mount Spalding, Colorado

 

Wigwam Trail, Lost Creek Wilderness, Colorado

First time ice climbing!

I become a certified scuba diver

We left late Thursday and spent the evening in the Glenwood Springs hot springs under a nearly full moon, as well as in Wal-Mart, in true Thomas family tradition. &.&

Friday we hiked to Hanging Lake before continuing on the road to Utah.

We glissaded nearly the entire 1,000 feet down.

We crossed the stateline that afternoon, and we stopped at Dinosaur National Monument, where we saw 1,000-year-old petroglyphs.

Saturday and Sunday were filled by scuba classes in Homestead Crater in Utah, which was a balmy 95 degrees, and I came home an official certified open water diver! Turns out scuba is a lot more fun when you're not confined to a tiny pool.

Sorry about my finger.

Interesting fact: Homestead Crater was featured in 127 Hours! 

The Colorado Trail, FS-560 to McCurdy Creek

I did it!  I got back on the horse and spent a night on the trail by myself and I found my cache from my CT attempt last year, which was hidden between two pine trees about sixty feet from the trailhead at FS-560. I completely forgot about it, but Glenn's been asking after his ammo can. Glad I found it, because I had not idea where it could've been.

The trip was a total of 17.8 miles round trip, 2,440 feet of vertical (2,180 on the first day) - every step of it hard-fought ground; I am extremely out of shape. The Colorado Trail is really lovely in this segment - a peaceful walk through an almost ethereal forest until the trees thinned out into a vast green valley.  I encountered only two hikers - the rest of the time was just me, and the occasional black squirrel which chittered loudly at me any time I got too close.

I had the daylight and the energy to go further when I reached my destination, McCurdy Creek, but it was so pretty and peaceful that I decided to set up camp anyway, within a grove of trees with the burbling of the brook just within hearing.  Instead I read my novel until I lost the light.

Despite the temperate weather during the day, the night got cold.  Even with a sleeping bag, a liner, an emergency bivvy, and three layers of clothes, I shivered through the night.  I really really want a new sleeping bag, but since my camping season is practically up, I'll save the expense for next year.

I think I figured out where I strayed last year. The Colorado Trail in this particular half of this particular segment weaves in and out of an old forest road; at the time of year I was hiking, there were snow drifts everywhere, and I believe that the place where I strayed from the trail was at one of those junctures - however, there was a snow drift covering the juncture with actual trail so I continued along the road instead.  I had absolutely no trouble this time, and now I know to take a second look at snow drifts when I think the trail has gone cold.

The forest was rich with fungi, this Mario-esque red one being my favorite.  I've got pictures of a dozen different mushrooms I spotted, from big brown pancake ones that were a foot across to tiny white buttons that were smaller than my pinkie nail.  I'm going to see if there's a mushroom-spotter's guide the way there are birdwatching ones - it'd be cool trivia to know which of them I can eat and which are poisonous.