CT Days 13-14

Day 13 – 25.1mi

The moon is so bright during the night, I think someone’s shining a spotlight on me.

I ‘sleep in’ until it’s light out, but it kind of never really got dark. Up here, exposed to all the celestial bodies wheeling through the night.

As the air slowly warms, it’s up through the talus, retracing my steps from yesterday evening. I don’t seem to have recovered much, as my legs are still lead, and my lungs are still wheezing. But that’s okay, today is a day to take my time. I’m not planning to go very far. Every break to catch my breath is an opportunity to be amazed at where I am, where my lead legs can take me, this unreal piece of earth.

I finally reach the top of the first pass of the day. It’s always a delight to reveal the view on the other side. I drink it in, like the cold fast wind. This alpine tundra, seemingly untouched. In this valley, aside from the airplanes streaking in the sky, you could fool yourself into thinking nothing has ever changed, and nothing ever will.

I cross a steep slope of talus on my way to the next pass. It’s fun to hop the rocks, until I look up and see just how huge some of these boulders are, stacked precariously on top of one another, balanced directly over my head. I try not to think about that, until I’m back on solid dirt.

Over the next soul-crushing pass. Switchback up the slope, approach it indirectly, never look it in the eye. At the top, a revealing of the next world. More golden mountains, as far as the eye can see.

To reach the bottom seems to take forever, but finally I’m filling water from Chalk creek. I look at the map, and I have much more ascent left in the day than I thought. I say a small prayer for a second wind.

Maybe asking for things aloud works, because I make quick work of the next climb. It feels good, to be in the shade of the trees. The backs of my hands are sunburned, as are my lips and cheeks.

I arrive above, a lush tabletop of green, and wildflowers that I’ve never before seen.

Soon enough, the descent comes, and I find myself on what I believe is an old railway, given the old planks rising crosswise out of the dirt. It’s early, but I’m tired, and I really want to set up camp for the day, but this forest is greying from the beetle kill. Standing dead trees, ready to topple with a breath of wind.

I choose a slanted spot too close to trail, carefully assessing the surrounding trees, and deciding that it feels safe enough for me to lay there for the night.

I snooze the afternoon away in an achy nap, the kind where your mind goes swimming and you feel your body seize up in a bone-deep way. I shiver in the shade. I hear the occasional hiker click their poles along the trail a meter from my head. I wonder if they see my beige tent, and if they do, what they’re thinking.

Suddenly, at around 5pm. I hear the creaking, the groaning. A tree falls, sounding very close to me in my tent, but down slope. Gravity must have taken it away from me.

At this point my brain goes, absolutely fucking NOT, and within ten minutes I’m packed and walking again.

The adrenaline takes me all the way up the valley.

All the way up and over the next pass above Hancock Lake.

At some point I stop feeling it as fear and enjoy riding the energy out. In a weird way, that falling tree gives me the kick I needed to wake up from a lazy, slow inertia.

Still, my motivation to get out of the greying, dying forest compels my body to move, past sunset, into the night, and the headlamp comes on. A few pairs of eyes, but they are just rabbits jumping across the trail.

I don’t know where or when I will stop, but finally I reach Boss Lake Reservoir, and there is a rocky, slanted spot underneath some young, green, very alive trees. I decide to call it.

In a weird way I enjoy the evening, in how it was an unexpected experience. I marvel at how I put ten more miles in when I didn’t think I could take another step. I’m not sure whether to thank that tree or not. But now I’m going to be very aware of the snags whenever I’m setting up camp.

Day 14 – 10mi

When I go to take care of business this morning, I see two pairs of glowing eyes in the trees. They don’t move. I decide I’ve had enough night hiking excitement and wait until sunrise to get going. I don’t have that much to do today anyway, and the weather should hold.

It’s the last climb – a short but steep one. Up to the official continental divide, or so my map says. I can’t stop saying this, but it’s so beautiful. I feel like there’s nothing I could possibly do to give the right amount of appreciation. Some of this is just going to pass me by, I’m not enough to swallow all of it at once.

Then a long, gentle ridge walk in the sky, to the ski lifts in the distance. To end up at Monarch Pass.

These mountains of sand, it’s hard to imagine them covered in snow. It’s such a desert here, I can’t understand how these trees grow. I’m used to the rainforest, where the air is always heavy with water.

I’m so, so tired. I got to the end of this section a day earlier than planned, so I’m taking another zero tomorrow, and I’m so ready for it.

I don’t know if there are any amenities at the trailhead on the highway, but I pray for ice cream. Thank God, there’s a little shop. A cookies and cream milkshake it is, and I slurp it down, suddenly freezing cold.

I’m really glad I decided to do the Collegiate West alternate. It was really hard, and challenged my fear of heights. But the beauty was worth it, to go to places only accessible by foot, that not many will ever get to see. I lucked out with great weather, so that helped too. I’m proud of myself for making it through when I thought it would be too much for me.

Even so. There is a moment when I’m making my way to the ski lifts, over the waving golden grass, when I become aware again of the rest of my life, and the rest of the world. There’s a surge of angry tears, for the feeling of frustration at the impossible task of finding my place in it all. Is this what I’m supposed to be doing? How is this helping anything?

The little things are big out here. Water, shelter, weather. Are they just welcome distractions from something more important I should be focusing on? But what is it?

Sure I can say I accomplished this, but what does that even mean?

I hitch a ride with a guy who is road tripping to pick up his resupply drops from a failed FKT attempt. He was trying to do the entire trail in 8 days, but shin splints on the first day shattered those dreams.

He drops me in Poncha Springs where a sweet woman goes out of her way to take me the rest of the five miles to my hostel in Salida.

Coincidentally, a section hiker from New Zealand I met going the other way on Cottonwood Pass is also staying in the bunk room. We end up going to get Mexican for dinner together.

She’s just ending a solo travel trip of her own, and has some sweet tips to give about travelling in Mexico, which I appreciate. We reflect on the concept of ‘journey’, and what it means to find yourself stumbling into one. How it can change you; how it’s unfortunate our modern culture doesn’t explicitly make room for experiences of individual individuation. I see people craving something more, having molded themselves to fit external expectations their whole lives. This includes myself. We don’t know how to listen to ourselves. Or, we’re starting to, but it’s all muffled. These expectations make no sense. What is there beyond this?

I return to the crowded bunk room. Now, rest.