Day 28, 13.4 miles into Durango (Finish Line)

There was heavy rain again last night! Not as much thunder or lightning but MAN was the rain heavy in the early night! Knowing that Claire was driving from Colorado Springs today, I knew I didn’t have to start hiking at 6am so we started closer to 7am.

The Cheese

Best view of the day 🤣 

1st slug of the trail! 

It was a nice and warm sunny day! We charged up the 3 mile hill, and then enjoyed a loooooot of long and gradual downhill basically all the way until the end! Claire was in the parking lot when we finished and Papa John came soon after! 

Cheese and I cruising down the trail! 

Papa John, Scooby, and Cheese 

We took our pictures at the end and then zoomed into Durango where I got my Colorado Trail patch and my free Nut Brown Ale from Carvers! We ended up feasting there too!

Digs and Cheese getting after it!!

We then met cousin Sam at the Animas River, where he was river-surfing in a thunderstorm! I tried to take a pic but the rain hit and Claire and I escaped to a nearby covered pavilion. Here’s a funny pic of my hiking tan: 

😂 

We went and ate some more food (of course), and Quinn and his two buddies stopped by the house afterwards for a bit to catch up on the rest of the trail and how it went for each of us! All three of them start school tomorrow 😱 

Quinn

Tomorrow we will hang with cousin Sam and then make our way back to Colorado Springs probably over the span of a couple days. We want to check our Ouray, the Million Dollar Highway, and some other cool things in the area. I start work again on the 31st.

The Colorado Trail was a fun challenge with a whole different set of unique mini challenges. All in all I hiked 388 miles. I took four near-o’s (under 10 miles) and zero Zero’s (a full day off)! I saw one bear and six moose! As I’ve said before, I’m really stoked to have had a hiking buddy in the last 10 days! It made the weather much easier to deal with  and is just a blast in general! Thank you SO much for following along on my adventure this summer. And as always…

Thanks for Reading!!

Day 27, 16.5 miles

Last night was INSANE!! The hard rain and continuous thunder and lightning made it hard to sleep. Things finally started setting down at about 3:30am. And then, out of nowhere seemingly at about 4am, a SUPER bright flash and an insanely loud and earth shaking boom at the very same time! We are almost certain that the strike landed 100 feet away from Cheese’s tent out in the point! Needless to say, he didn’t sleep at all and I slept for about a hour. We ended up leaving at 8. It sounds really scary but we are both glad we had that amazing experience! 

Cheese’s tent still standing!

I had a slightly more sheltered spot

The PERFECT spot that someone else was in last night! Live trees all around and nice level soft dirt 

Well, as we started… (guess what), yup, climbing! It was… (you guessed it), foggy!! But soon a lot of the most rolled out and even though it was still chilly and windy on the passes and ridges, we had beautiful scenery and quite enjoyed the morning!

As we hiked on we met another Sobo CT’er named Gar. We had seen his campsite along an epic ridge from our viewpoint perched above the scenic outlook last night. He said he had an amazing campsite yet a similar scary experience! Gar is a cool dude! 

Can you spy Cheese climbing up the ridge? 

Zooming out

Even further! (It was a huge ridge)

Photo by “Gar”






Cheese and Gar headed down a STEEP rocky traverse down towards Taylor Lake

After a water break and a pack explosion at Taylor Lake, we climbed just a little more and then started a long descent that took us through exposed screw fields and eventually along a beautiful creek all the way down to 8,500 feet! The lowest I’ve been on the trail since day 3! 

Flowers galore

A lovely aspen grove

Down at the junction of Junction Creek I rolled up to see Cheese had already set up his tent and Gar was chillin’ on a nice log bench. Cheese was airing out his things and soaking his feet in the creek and drying his boots and socks out from the wet few days we’ve had. Gar had an extra dinner and gave it to me since he heard I was low on food (CLAAAAAAASSIC me!!) I was so thankful!

😋 thanks Gar! 

Super cool guy! Lived in Oregon from ‘92 to ‘05, has done a lot in conservation and told me some cool things/groups to check out if we find ourselves back out there! 

After chillin’ for awhile, Cheeseburgler and I decided to hike 1 more mile up the hill to a potential campsite. When we arrived, we discovered that the same people who scored last nights epic site had already occupied the two nice flat spots! It was starting to rain and we didn’t want to go further so we found a couple suitable spots for our last night on trail. I had to get creative! 

Almost literally “On Trail” 🤣 

The boys!! 

Cheeseburgler (real name Greg) 🤫, has become a very good friend. We’ve helped each other out in many ways on the trail. It’s really nice hiking with a buddy. Problems you encounter seem less huge and more solvable. Spirits are better and you have an outlet for all those inner thoughts we think of in our daily lives. He’s a great person and in the last nine days I’ve made a true friend for life! We finish tomorrow! 

Thanks for reading!!