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CT: Leadville and The Colorado Trail House
I didn’t have to walk very far to the Colorado Trail House but when I came upon it, I stood stunned on the street. The Trail House was an enormous Victorian the color of lilac blossoms whose edifice was accentuated with dark purple details. The side yard was bursting with yellow and white flowers which sprouted delightfully out of control around a patio area, a fire pit, and a hot tub.
Colorado Trail: trailmances are like never-ending first dates
Trails are an exotic and transient world where connections form quickly, burn brightly, and then abruptly extinguish.
Colorado Trail: Absolution and Endurance
There is a state—a bodily, mental, and spiritual plane of existence—wherein absolution is achieved in endurance. Awareness tightens in a gyre of relentless focus. Begets a black hole, a pinprick through which all concerns must pass, reshaping themselves into essential forms: breath, thirst, longing for reprieve. In that place, there is a peace that surpasses understanding. The loosely bounded self is released to the task. Ego eclipsed by the demands of the labor, the will to go on fills the field of vision until survival is all that remains.
Colorado Trail: Internal Terrain of Thru-Hiking
Dark spruces interspersed with slender Aspens adorned with silver, grey, and sage green leaves fluttering in the wind. Columbines appeared in dense patches, swooning softly as though their silken white and violet star-shaped bodies were dancing to a secret song carried on the velvety breeze.
Colorado Trail: Hitting the Trail!
I felt the thrill of heading to trail and beginning my thru-hike gathering in my limbs as we sped down the interstate toward the Rockies and Denver’s skyline faded into the horizon at our backs. Even as we approached the trailhead at Waterton Canyon, I was in a state of disbelief that I was actually going to start the Colorado Trail after months of pandemic induced uncertainty. In fact--if it hadn’t been for COVID, losing my job, and forcibly relocating--I wouldn’t have been in a position to thru hike at all.
Colorado Trail: 5 Words, 500 Miles
In the summer of 2020, when the world was still at a stand-still in the early months of the pandemic, I walked from Denver to Durango along the 485 mile Colorado Trail. “Walked from Denver to Durango” is just five words and there’s no accounting for the people, the places, and the pure magic that is contained within that single sentence.