Campers Contribute Colorado Cannabis

This morning I was so comfortable and warm that I wound up sleeping in pretty late. We all woke up after 7am and began packing up. By 8:15am I was out of camp and began walking. Then we officially left Wyoming and permanently entered into Colorado from here on out. At least for the next 700 or so miles.

Syrup hiked out just before me, and then I hiked out just before 9 Lives and Sidequest did. The morning was nice and easy with just a few small hills. But none of the climbs were more than 400 or 500 feet at a time. Which felt very nice.

We had a fairly steep climb along a bumpy dirt road at one point. The worst part was probably how sandy and rocky the road was. Every time you stopped, your feet would slip out from under you which definitely got annoying. The grade was super steep, but the climb only went on for about a mile or so. Then we were walking along relatively flat dirt road for a while.

Sidequest walking along the trail up ahead of me.

At one point we saw a northbound hiker heading towards us. He stopped us because he recognized 9 Lives from her YouTube videos and he recognized me as well. We talked to him for a little bit before continuing on. He’s hiking the CDT, but is staying on the divide the entire time. The red line of the CDT tries to stay within a mile of the continental divide, but isn’t always right on the divide. So he’s doing a similar trek which involves staying on the divide the entire time. It seems like it’s more slow going, but that is a very interesting hike.

When we were couple hours into the day, we decided to stop off under a shady tree for a break. At this point, we thought that Syrup was still ahead of us. But it turns out he was actually behind us. He had stopped off at one point and we didn’t realize we passed him. So while we stopped there, he caught up to us and we all regroup. Then we sat there and ate some snacks before we began another climb. This next climb was the biggest one of the day so far. It went on for a couple of miles but the grade was not too bad. After spending so much time climbing along the Teton Crest Trail and the wind river high route, I feel like I can handle any climb.

The views this morning were incredible, even from a dirt road.

When we were almost at the top of this climb, we passed by a water source and stopped off to fill up. Then we decided to go another 4.5 miles before stopping off for lunch. We only had a small bit of climbing to do and then it was mostly downhill to this next river. That’s where we planned to stop and take our lunch.

Over the course of the day we passed by a ridiculous number of hunters. Apparently hunting season actually started yesterday. When we were hiking towards the trailhead to get a ride into encampment, we passed by tons of hunters. They let us know that the hunting season had just started this weekend. There are tons of guys out today on ATVs doing some bow hunting. It seems like for the most part people are hunting for grouse in this area. But it’s probably also elk hunting season as well.

A little bit of graffiti on a gate along the trail.

That next hour or so of walking went by fairly quickly. Before I knew it we arrived at the river where we planned to take our lunch. I decided to make a super filling meal for lunch. Sometimes in the afternoons, I just snack and I feel like I don’t get nearly enough calories in. Lately I’ve been eating these dehydrated refried beans which cook super fast. So they’re really nice and easy to eat for lunch. Today I made some dehydrated refried beans and added taco seasoning, cheese, and a packet of beef creations taco meat. This packet of taco meat comes just like tuna packets do. When I opened it, I was shocked how good the meat smelt. It honestly smelt exactly like ground beef that you add those packets of taco seasoning too. I added it all together with the refried beans and it turned out amazing. This is probably one of the best meals I’ve ever made on trail in all of my years of thru hiking.

Today we entered into the Mt Zirkel Wilderness.

It felt so good to take down a large amount of calories. Then I knew that I was going to be feeling energized for the rest of the day. I even dipped some voodoo chips into the beans, which was ridiculously good. We didn’t wind up staying at the lunch break for too long before continuing on. I felt like it was the perfect amount of time to take down calories and get ready to move again.

Leaving that lunch break the next 12 miles or so miles looked relatively easy. We didn’t have any particularly large climbs to do. So it seems like we were going to make really good time. About 3 miles past our lunch break we got to a road. From there we were able to follow along that road for a little while to connect back to the trail. That made for some nice easy walking. And we were headed towards a campground apparently. Our plan was to stop off at the campground to get some water before continuing on.

The road we were on brought us all the way to the campground, which was super nice. We stopped off in a parking area by the campground that everyone could use it. There was a sign with a small overhang and we sat underneath it as it began to rain lightly. Luckily the rain didn’t keep up for too long.

Then we walked down the road towards the camping area to try and get water. There was a large group camp area with a bunch of people hanging out. We didn’t want to crowd them or anything so we just headed over to the water spigot. But then it began to rain again, so we went under the gazebo where the whole group was hanging out. The people were super nice and they had no problem with us crashing their party. They talked us for a while and asked us about the CDT.

One of the guys made some joke about hiking and using cannabis. I mentioned that we just got out of Wyoming where we weren’t able to have cannabis because it’s not legalized there. We just crossed in Colorado yesterday. One of the guys wound up going over to his car and getting some edibles to give us which was super cool. I knew that would help to get through the rest of the day.

A Colorado surprise! Thanks to a kind stranger at a campground.

It was tempting to just hang out there for the rest of the day because the campsite was so nice. But we plan to do another 7.7 miles for the day. And we really had to get that done. Leaving this campground we had some relatively easy hiking for a bit. Then we began a long climb. Because of how steep the climb was, we did not plan to do the entire thing today. Once we got up to the top of the climb, we were going to be around 12,000 feet and riding along a ridge for a while. So it wasn’t a particularly safe place to set up camp for the night. Instead, we could do 2000 or so feet of elevation gain and camp. That would only leave us with about 1500 feet of elevation to do tomorrow morning.

Later on in the day we walked through this wide open valley.

The last hour or so of the day we wound up hiking into the dark. We were getting close to camp, so I really didn’t mind it. We wound up getting to this lake area and then wandering around, trying to find a place to set up. There were a couple tents set up in the distance, but we didn’t want to crowd those people. In the end, we found a really nice grassy area to set up camp. Everyone filled up on water and then got their sleep systems set up. Because it rained on us earlier we were assuming it was going to rain more tonight. That was a good call and I was glad that everyone set up their tents and tarps.

Not long after I got into my tent for the night it began to rain again. I sat in my tent and cooked dinner in there. It’s so nice to be out of grizzly bear country and to not have to worry as much about cooking near your campsite. I’m really not that concerned about black bears. Just after years of experience with them in the backcountry.

After I cooked and ate dinner, I did my stretching and some writing. Then I called it a night. It wound up raining on and off over the course of the night. But that just helped me to sleep like a baby.