Part Fifteen: Welcome to Colorful Colorado

Monday, August 26th – 8 miles from Rawlins, WY

The night laid still and quiet. The steady roar of the passing trucks on the distant highway lulled me to sleep. As dawn edged near, the grumbling of thunder echoed across the plains – a distant warning. I stepped outside of my tent and watched the clouds gather in the north – someone else’s storm, not mine.

At first light, I made my way to the town of Rawlins. Cars rolled by on their way to work, staring at me with a puzzled look, one that couldn’t understand the life I lived, nor why. A dead deer laid on the roadside, half of its body gone, a grim reminder that death was present on these highways. I felt safer in the wild.

I spent a night in Rawlins, tending to my worn-down body. My right foot had become a source of constant ache. I got a bag of ice and pressed it to the top of my foot, thinking to myself that it would pass. It always did before.

I. Vagabond

The next day, I walked out of the small Wyoming town and followed Sage Creek Rd – a Ley alternate of thirty-four miles or so. Thirty-four miles of hard pavement, a shortcut of sorts. The official trail vanished in the shifting plains. This road offered firm footing and easy navigation, but little water. I trusted old maps and a single comment on FarOut, left by another wanderer who had headed northbound.

By dusk, I was already far away from the last echoes of the city and walking on a lonely and silent road. A coyote ran across the asphalt path, pausing for a moment to meet my gaze before vanishing into the sage. As the sun sank behind the hills, I took shelter in a culvert beneath the road, sheltered from the elements. In the half-light, I cooked my meal watching the sun sinking behind the hills before lying down in my quilt. The cars rumbled overhead, and I felt each vibration in my bones. I sensed this quiet satisfaction of a man who felt free and belonged nowhere and everywhere all at once. The feeling that only a vagabond, a wanderer, knew. 

The next morning, I was on the road again by seven. The wind was already fierce, clawing at me from the side, fighting constantly to throw me off balance. The road seemed never-ending – the yellow line of the highway stretched on indefinitely, vanishing into the blur of the horizon. It was hot, though not yet scorching. Cars were few and far between. Empty road and empty sky. One of them slowed to my level: “You need water?” An elderly man named Chris “Grey Jay,” with his wife and their dog Piper, pulled to the shoulder. They offered me water and kindness, and as we traded trail tales, a bald eagle cut across the sky above us.

All day I walked that lonely, endless strip of asphalt, the sun beating down and the wind never giving an inch. Time moved slowly, and my mind ventured into all the places it could find, in a desperate attempt to make the day go faster – in vain. Seconds stretched into minutes; minutes, into hours. The passing of a car was the only sign that the world hadn’t stopped entirely. Still, pain gnawed at me, sharp and insistent, craving for the attention I continued to deny it. My foot was worse than before, each step causing a deep, stabbing feeling, jolting my entire body at every step and forcing me to hobble along the road like a crippled man. I tried to walk on the side of my foot to ease it, but I knew that was no long-term answer. I was only halfway through my journey, with the high peaks of Colorado waiting for me – and winter creeping ever closer. I couldn’t help but wonder: Would my body carry me that far? And what was this pain that refused to let go?

Late in the day, Jim, a trail angel, pulled over with his dog. He told me he’d been restocking the water cache up ahead, and I thanked him the best I knew how: with a photograph of him and his dog, to mark the moment and honor his quiet kindness. Sometimes I think how much harder this trail would be without people like him.

The next morning, I finished the last remaining miles of the paved road and reconnected with the dirt trail at last. My foot pulsated with ache, especially in the morning, but I was eager to walk on softer ground again – eager for the shade of the trees and the taste of cold creek water. As I paused to fill my water bottles, a deer came out of the brush to greet me. It came close enough to see but wary, as though it sensed the difference that laid between us – I stayed human after all.

II. Welcome to Painful Colorado

I woke up at dawn, my tent perched on a rise above the Great Divide Basin I’d spent the past week crossing. I made my way carefully, mindful of my foot, toward the road where Patty would come to pick me up and drive me to Saratoga – my last stop before Colorado. I saw two young sheep tied to a caravan, and later came across a flock watched over by three great white Pyrenees dogs, each one eyeing me with quiet suspicion as they did their ancient work as protectors of the herd.

Later, I stood in the kitchen of the empty house. Patty had dropped me off at the St. Barnacus church in Saratoga – a refuge for hikers and cyclists, with a full-sized kitchen and bedrooms upstairs. For a day, I lived like a normal man again. I cooked, cleaned, and took a long shower. But all that my mind could think about was my foot. Each step down the stairs was a new jolt of pain. I tried to make sense of it – extensor tendinitis, maybe, or worse, a stress fracture. I hope for the first option. Either way, the fate of my thru-hike was in jeopardy.

Sunday, September 1st – Crossing into Colorado 

Patty drove me back to the trail, and I felt a flicker of hope. The pain in my foot had eased a little, thanks to ice, rest, and the warm waters of the Saratoga hot springs. Back on the path, I found a logbook and flipped through its pages until I saw the names I’d been hoping for: Lennon, Grazer, Tom. They were a day ahead, and that thought brought a sudden rush of excitement. I hadn’t seen them since Pinedale, when we’d shared a meal before parting ways.

The trail was green and quiet, and for a time I believed my foot might be better. But soon enough, the pain came back like it had never gone. My hopes for a pain-free hike crumbled. My spirits sunk under the weight of it. My mood turned, and as a result, my mind began meandering in dark places – places set in the past, but which continued to live on in the shadows of my brain. I felt resentment. I wanted to scream. But I couldn’t. I was here, walking alone. Hurting. And yet, through it all, a voice deep inside kept telling me the only thing that mattered: keep going.

Later that day, I crossed into the state of Colorado. I set my camera up and took a picture by the sign, crouched low near the white and green license plate, with shapes of mountains carved in it. I grinned – a grin that hid all the pain and doubt swirling inside me. It was a new state, a new chapter, but the same long road lay ahead. And I knew I had no choice but to walk it.