CDT Sobo, days 61 – 66, entering Colorado

Day 61 – 0 miles

The bed is empty when I wake up. 6 am. As silently as possible I make my way down to the kitchen to find a big yellow bag of Swedish coffee in the cupboard. How did it end up in a church hostel in Wyoming?

Funnily enough, my first solo thru hike attempt started in Sweden, 9 years ago. It didn’t go well at all, but that’s a story for another time.

One sleepy hiker at a time appears in the kitchen, woken up by the smell of freshly brewed coffee. LAF starts making cookies from the remaining dough. The kitchen smells of cinnamon and coffee while slowly the rest of the crew trickles downstairs.

We drink coffee, eat warm cookies and talk non sense. Three of us will spend the day here, plus Daniel, the rest will head back out on trail. I wonder if I’ll see them again.

“Try this”, the man keeps handing us wooden spoons with bites of ice cream even though  the first one was already so good that I was ready to get a whole scoop. Sakura, lavender honey, blood orange with cardamom, strawberry passion fruit, blackberry and hibiscus, rose petal. One better than the next, melting smoothly on our tongues.

LAF plays pacman in a tiny plastic console on the counter. Three shooting range instructors walk in and order double scoops of maple bacon ice cream. “Oh Wyoming”, I think. “What are you doing to me?”

Hiking through Colorado will be like a dream come true. It’s a place I’ve been fantasising about, hearing stories about, seen countless times on my Instagram feed. But dreams come true –  or rather, you can make them come true.

But they can also wait one more day while I savour Wyoming for a bit longer. I’m not ready to leave just yet.

Day 62 – 27 miles

A few license plates and the letters CO laid out with rocks mark the Wyoming-Colorado border.

Finally getting here feels like a massive milestone, way beyond what the Wyoming border felt like. Or the idaho border, which honestly we’ve crossed a dozen times without realising because the cdt weaves along it for days.

Colorado, the home of 14ers, ski towns and exclusive fleece hoodies (if you know you know).

Day 63 – 36 miles

The trail is lined with ripe raspberries and thimbleberries. More than I’ve ever seen, more than I can eat and I’m hungry. I didn’t bring enough food, of course. That’s not new.

When I climb the first pass, the sky is dark. 2 minutes later, it starts hailing. „It will pass“, I think. But instead, it hails harder. Little icy bullets hitting my ears and bare legs. There’s nowhere to hide, no trees, no boulders. It hurts and the wind is freezing.

I clench my teeth and hike as fast as I can across the plateau. Welcome to Colorado, I think. Thunderstorms and Monsoons.

Finally, the hail stops and it’s just raining. Constant, drumming rain. I‘m slow, too slow. Am I tired or am I feeling the elevation?

And it’s almost dark when I pass Rory setting up camp, a silver full moon lights up the lake when I finally set up my tent too a few miles later. The night is cold, for the first time in weeks I have to clip my quilt onto my foam pad. It is a cruel teaser of fall. Summer is almost over.

Day 64 – 22 miles

Rory catches up to me just before Steamboat. Three big herding dogs are barking at us while we pass their sheep. Usually I’m not scared of dogs, but these are trained for a job, they aren’t pets. For once I’m glad I’m not by myself.

We chat until we reach the highway, where the third cat picks us up to get to the ski town steamboat springs.

Rory and I treat ourselves to Greek food before visiting the Big Agnes HQ a few streets down.

Steamboat is expensive and I’m a little lost where to stay until Mosey and LAF catch up.   While it’s rumoured that the CDT has “no” trail angels, there is in fact a google sheet with contacts. And lucky me, including a few steamboat locals.

In the end I spend a cozy night in Oat’s guest room after being fed with Quesadillas.  Day 3 and Colorado is already as wild and as beautiful as expected.

Day 65 – 0 miles

When I walk up to the address LAF texted me, there isn’t one hiker sitting at breakfast, there’s 4. Our dirty backpacks lined up on the patio of the restaurant.

Initially it wasn’t my intention to zero. But they were getting a hotel room to split, I liked their company, so staying was an easy decision.

Day 66 – 16 miles

LAF picks up a new backpack from the post office before Beans / Karen drive us back to trail. “Come to the dark side we have fresh cookies” reads a wooden sign in front of a trailer, Jim is a trail angel supplying snacks and water.

It’s already dark when I reach the abandoned radio shelter, a little hideaway I’ve discovered in the farout comments. There’s some ominous equipment and a narrow wooden “bed”. I scan the floor in the light of my headlamp but I can’t see any mouse poop. Lovely.