Leadville to Buena Vista

Leadville to Buena Vista: 6 Days 210 miles traveled from Denver

We are alive and well and have made it through the toughest section yet. It is really hard for me to find the right words to describe my experience this section because I struggled so much, yet I feel stronger mentally and physically as a result of pushing myself when it got super tough. I have never wanted to keep doing something and wanted to quit that very same thing all at the same time before. I know I keep saying this, but this experience is really really hard. I have given in to the fact that for the next four weeks my body won’t ever really truly be comfortable, something will always hurt or ache or be bruised, blistered, burned…the list goes on.  I am beginning to feel worn in, worn out, and to be honest a little worn down and in many ways (though different than mine), I think Mike is too. With 210 miles covered and 275 to go, this tough place to be mentally right now and our next push is challenging in more ways than one. We have less water sources available to us as we get into cattle country and we are getting ready to push almost two weeks straight through to Lake City, Colorado with no layover days. One day over the 2 weeks, Aunt Sara and Mama Lynn will come and meet us on North Pass with a resupply box, but we plan to hike that very next morning. High mileage goals and high altitude are also playing a role moving forward. Not to mention Mike and I have been inseparable for three solid weeks (your imagination can decide what that comments means).
Everyday this adventure becomes a more multi-faceted endurance experience.

While most often the beauty of your surroundings and a good hot drink at camp can help to mend the unpleasant feelings from a long hard day on the trail, this is not always the case. Below are just some harsh realities of this experience thus far:
1. If you are hiking through an exposed section in the heat and you are climbing 4,000 feet elevation over a 5 mile climb straight up with absolutely no deviation or turn or anything (Imagine here if you will an Escher painting, or for you younger folks that hallway at Hogwarts where the stair cases move and you always end up back where you started. I kept thinking I was at the top and it took two days to actually get up there), just straight up and up and up and up and you begin throwing up and then having visual and auditory hallucinations of men wearing orange saying that there was soup being offered at the top of the mountain… you have to keep going because you are in fact in the middle of the woods and have to at least make it to a camp site for the night… and you must do this even when you realize there is no soup.
2. My own smell makes me nauseous and is truly unbearable, for me that is saying a lot too!
3. Diarrhea… no toilet… enough said
4. The backs of my legs look like some one beat me with a baseball bat they are so black and blue and I am not sure what happened, that is just how they look
5. My shins are covered in bugs bites of various types
6. I have a sun burn regardless how much sunscreen I use, at 12,000 feet those rays are coming for you no matter what
7. Blisters that form on top of blisters that then form blisters on top of those.
8. I am still only able to cover about 11 miles a day and that isn’t even totally consistent so we are usually behind schedule, this plays mind tricks on you and can add stress to an experience that was intended to reduce it. We have had to make multiple changes to our course as a result of that particular reality.
9. The sight of the food we have packed is becoming unbearable, I never realized how much my body would crave diversity. This caused some struggles for me in the last days, as my body began rejecting everything I put in and the very thought of food was enough to make me gag.

… and these are just a few things we are dealing with out here.

I was feeling low about my physical abilities upon arrival in Buena Vista, I guess because I thought I would be bagging 11 miles per day no problem by now, and it is still extremely hard for me. Additionally, I was naive about this entire endeavor when it came to how much work there is to be done outside of just getting in the miles each day, and I can feel Mike’s patience and generosity wearing thin; it is not always easy being together 24/7.

Despite all of this, I want to keep going. Why? Well number one I am stubborn as hell and number two because this really is amazingly enriching and every day when I wake up alive after going to bed thinking it may be “my time for the long sleep”, I feel empowered and brave and strong and all the good things one would hope to feel from an experience like this one. So onward I must go, no matter how hard it feels at the moment.

We had the chance to see some very majestic things over the last 6 days, we are in Collegiate Country and have passed under most of the Collegiate Peaks. At Twin Lakes the trail diverges and we had the option of hiking the Collegiate West or Collegiate East portion of the Colorado Trail and we chose the east. This was where the climb from hell was located (soup hallucinations), at the time we thought we were choosing the easier of the two routes, not sure there is such a thing now that I was on the “easy” side. Nothing out here should ever be called easy! We would like to hike the West portion sometime as well just to compare the two sections. On the east section we lacked perspective because all these huge 14,000 ft mountains were directly above us. You could feel their presence looming high over you, yet we didn’t get as many spectacular views as we would have hoped. As I am writing this entry from Buena Vista, I am looking out on a storm forming over Mount Princeton. Over this stretch we have experienced the most challenging ups and downs in terms of terrain so far with some really spectacular views to go along with it. The fires out west I think have been causing the haze we’ve seen since coming into the Arkansas Valley. We hiked to Twin Lakes and Mike tried his hand at fishing there with no luck, another attempt was made at a pond upon entering the San Isabelle National Forrest near the trail head to the Missouri Basin, still no luck. Then on our last night out at Harvard Lake, Mike landed two Brook Trout that we ate for breakfast the next morning, what a treat and the first food I’d kept down in over 24 hours.

The dogs are just so fun to hike with, and on the really tough days I just tell myself this is all for them. Every day continues to be the best day of their lives. Joey has caught two squirrels and didn’t quite know what to think; he was definitely proud of himself, he just didn’t know what to do with them once they were dead. Mike and joke he has now caught 2 of at least 10,000, I don’t think he is a major risk to the woodland creature population so we will let him get on for now doing his thing. Lil Britches has two turbo rockets for back legs and blasts with all her might chasing Joey through the forests each day, it has been a blast watching her trail confidence grow more and more. People are always surprised she is doing as well as she is. To be honest, he is better shape than me right now, and that’s no lie!

We hiked out to the road where our dear friends Paul and Ashley came and picked us up and took us into Buena Vista for a layover and resupply. Their faces alone were enough to almost make me cry, it felt so good seeing them. The time spent with them was amazing, they treated us to the Hot Springs and a meal, but the time spent catching up with them was what was really special and much needed. We have rested for 3 days here in Buena Vista and will set out again tomorrow. I am feeling recharged and ready to push on, this time with less giddy excitement pumping through me and more determination. I feel older somehow… it must be because I am 29 now (hahaha).

Thanks For Reading and as always thanks for your love and support.

Breckenridge to Leadville August 14th- August 17th 2015 (156.9 miles traveled to date)

Getting back on the trail after our nice respite in Summit County was not as tough as I initially thought it might be. Mike’s parents picked us up early on Friday morning from Leah’s house and decided to join us for our hike that day, over Breckenridge ski area into Copper Mountain ski area on the other side. We all knew it was going to be a really tough hike that day with over 3600 feet in elevation gain and just less than that in elevation loss, but none of us (except maybe Mike because he is so experienced) could have anticipated exactly how hard a hike like that actually is. We did around 13 miles from HWY 9 at Gold Hill Trail Head in Breckenridge up and over the ski areas highest peaks (well above the chair lifts), then down  down down south of the SKY shoots near Copper Mountain and then catching the Wheeler Trail all the way down to base of Copper Mountain’s parking lots. I think it took us around 11 hours to do this challenging hike, but the views and sense of accomplishment both physically and mentally was well worth it. And I’d like to think we have some pretty good stories for the future to look back on and chuckle at. For Mike spending such a hard day hiking with his folks was what he said was, “a career high point” for him. He helped each of us individually successfully get our butts up and over some tremendous mountains that day. I can only imagine his sense of pride and accomplishment when we all got to the bottom safe and sound that day. I know it moved him deeply and was an experience he nor I will ever forget.

My body felt strong after such a long hard day and it made me feel confident about this next 4 day push we were just beginning. While this was only a 4 day segment, the elevation was much higher and sustained for longer stretches than before. So just breathing was going to require more of an effort along with everything else trail living entails. Much of our last segment was above tree line, which you will see in many of our pics. For me this was by far the longest I had ever spent up this high, and the alpine tundra is a beautiful place, all I can say is, “I want more!”

So after parting with Mike’s folks we set up camp right off the river near Copper and I70 and some power lines, lucky for us the river masked the sounds of the highway, and we got a beautiful rainbow that evening under the crossing power lines, which made for a cool picture, again all worthwhile indeed. Needless to say we were happy waking up the next morning and getting a move on out of civilization yet again. We hiked four miles across the Copper ski area, they were holding a Tough Mudder event that day so it was a total zoo, we power hiked past all that crazy as fast as we could (tourists were taking pictures of us with our packs on).  As we hiked past all these people doing the Tough Mudder, hurling themselves over lame ply board walls and crawling through a man-made mud pit and club music blasting across the mountain we couldn’t help but mention to one another that we in fact were the true Tough Mudders, self-satisfying I know, but also a good confidence booster when you are trying to walk 500 miles over high mountain passes. After getting through Copper we took a sharp turn into a gigantic mountain valley and suddenly all the geology and geography was different. We also commented on how much healthier the forest looked with every mile we hiked as we found ourselves getting further and further away from the areas devastated by beetle kill. We hiked up the valley all day long until Janet’s Cabin appeared on the horizon just at tree line. Due to storm clouds rapidly forming and wind really picking up we decided not to push over Searle Pass and then 4 miles to Kokomo Pass above tree line from there and set up camp in the last grouping of trees looking down onto Janet’s Cabin. It dumped buckets on us that night and early the next morning. But just before the storms came in the sun was super-hot and intense and I had my first chance to strip down and bathe in a Colorado mountain stream. It was so amazing and happened to be one of the main things I wanted to do while on the trail, so I can check that one off for sure! It may be my favorite trail activity yet. I let the hot hot sun dry my skin and I scooted back to camp less than an hour before the down pour.

The next morning we slept in an extra hour (well I slept in and Mike worked keeping everything dry  I imagine) and let the rains pass over us and then began working our way up to Searle Pass, once there we met some other thru hikers who offered to take a photo of us which was nice. Then we continued above tree line for 3 or 4 miles up to Kokomo Pass and then down down down to Camp Hale. This section reminded me of a Lord of the Rings novel, something out of Mordor. The cloud inversions were epic making everything look like it was bathing in the steam of ancient volcanoes. It was other worldly. The down hills are what really kill my body, I’m still adjusting to carrying the weight of my pack day in and day out. We pushed as far as we could that day before I just had to call it, my feet were beyond swollen and my ankles and calves looked one in the same, I had “Cankles”. We camped in a stunning meadow just three miles shy of Tennessee Pass, where we hiked up to easily the next morning. We decided to put a thumb out on the pass to get to Leadville, cutting off some mileage but a smarter more trafficked area to be able to get a ride into town for our resupply and respite. While waiting for a ride we met some really nice Colorado shroomers, going to their secret chanterelle spot and then a retired couple training for an epic road cycle tour of all the mountain passes of the Rockies from Mexico to Canada. Their son had hiked the trail before so it was great chatting with them, they were so encouraging of us. Just another bright spot on this journey brought to us right from the direct kindness of perfect strangers. Eventually, after about an hour of thumbing a large 15 passenger van picked us and the dogs up. The driver was a soft spoken artist named David. He was a peaceful warrior. He lived in his van doing freelance nature photography and fall photo workshops and tours across the country. Mike and I were impressed with his lifestyle and his calm grounded demeanor and so grateful for the 10 mile ride all the way into town.
The hostel in Leadville is a perfect place to relax and take care of business for the next pack out. It has been a pleasure staying here and I hope to come back so I can climb Mt. Massive and stay again. Leadville has kinda stolen my heart, it is a true gritty mountain town and I really really like it here. We are adjusting to the altitude and are getting set to take on the epic Sawatch Range and all it has to offer us.

As always thanks for the love and thanks for reading!

Denver to Breckenridge August 5th- August 12th 2015 (105 miles traveled)

Well we are off to a great start, the dogs are still alive, we are still married (hahaha), and we plan to keep moving forward toward Durango. The stretch from Denver to Breckenridge was kind of surreal and eight days, looking back seemed to fly by. However on days 2 and 3 I was living in my own personal Hades, but we will get to that in just a minute. Let's start from the beginning...

Day one of our hike was amazing, we were riding the high from the party the night before. All of the positive vibes and well wishes we received really fueled us that first day. I had zero apprehensions on day one, which if you know me seems a little odd, but it was true, I was feeling amazing! We trekked 11 miles that day, cutting ourselves off a few miles short of our goal just because this campsite we found was so beautiful, perched right on a high rock outcropping looking down onto the South Platte burn area. We camped there knowing we’d push early the next morning to the South Platte where the next segment would begin, a long grueling day, 12 or so miles across the burn area. This was our first mistake, we should have pushed down to the end of the first segment that night when we were still feeling good. By the time we got water, had breakfast, and packed our bags that morning even after hiking down to the water early, we didn’t get on the trail until almost 9am, this was mistake number 2 heading into the burn section. Hours and hours later I found myself severely dehydrated, throwing up, heat rash covering my entire body and nowhere close to our end goal for the day. By that night I couldn’t keep food down or the water I was trying to drink, and though we did continue hiking as far as we could  that day, due to my condition we didn’t make it anywhere close to our goal and had to camp out in the burn area that night. Luckily in preparation for this section Mike carried in a zip-lock and our cooking pale with an extra gallon of water to help get us through. If he hadn’t done that I’m not sure what we would have done?! The dogs did really well that day, we were really worried about them going into the day and stopped every 20 minutes for a doggie water and snack breaks, looking back we were so worried about them, I may have over looked my own self-care and ultimately found myself in the position I did. Joey led us faithfully this day with such perseverance and loyalty, he seemed only to have us and our well-being in mind. He was our champion for the day, and I don’t think it would have turned out so well if it weren’t for he and Lil B. They both comforted me that night at camp and laid with me in the tent like my very own mountain rescue pack. Our family is the strongest wolf pack you will ever meet.

My illness brought on some really bad anxiety, I spent most of day three inside my own head asking myself, “Why in the hell did you want to do this Erika? You are probably going to kill yourself out here.” On the morning of day three we hiked early and got to the emergency water stash mentioned in our guide book, it is placed just off the trail under a tree near a local fire station (life savers) and then pushed to the previous days end goal, Little Scraggy Trail Head. Here we ate breakfast and decided to try pushing a half day in and then setting up camp early to let me have a good amount of recovery time at camp with plenty of food and water. The next morning we slept in and woke up refreshed, I wasn’t puking anymore and I was keeping my water down, all seemed well. As we began getting ready to pack up camp Little Britches came up from the creek with a club foot. My poor little tripod wouldn’t put any weight on her back left foot and it was the size of a ping-pong ball. Worried we gave her a doggie anti-inflammatory and an anti-histamine and Mike wrapped it. At that point we were only a few miles from a road that would take us to Bailey via hitching or we had an almost 30 mile stretch if we decided to move forward. We opted not take our chances, with me having been sick, and us not knowing exactly what was wrong with Little Britches we decided to try for Bailey. These are the moments you can acknowledge your personal growth and flexibility while on the trail. Initially I felt like I’d be cheating if we bypassed a section of the trail. But Mike reminded me that we were “travelin’ people” and that this experience was about the journey itself. I agreed and quickly embraced hitch-hiking. I am reminded of quote shared with me before I left on this adventure: “The thing to remember when travelling is that the trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast and you will miss all you are traveling for” Louis ‘Amour. We hiked out to a road where we eventually caught a ride from a couple local guys. You could tell they had a small buzz on, but they were cool and ended up showing us all sorts of cool aspects of Bailey and brought us all into town in one piece. At one point in the drive we were all heading there down the highway no problem, and to his friend the passenger say, “take a right here!” EERRRRRRR, the driver makes a hard turn across two lanes down a dirt road, Mike and I both look at each other silent but eyes super wide like, “where are they taking us?” We reached the bottom of the road in less than a minute and a beautiful historical structure was at the bottom of the road. He was so proud of his town he just wanted to show us the old train station that was “in the history books”, Mike and I have yet to discover what history book this station (now house) is in, but it was kind of funny and really sweet of him. You just gotta trust in the kindness of strangers sometimes, and this trip is really showing us that.
Once in Bailey, Little Britches was of course fine and I was feeling 100% as well. We decided she had gotten stung by a Bee and we didn’t need to take her to a vet. We went to the Conoco off HWY 285 and waited about ten minutes with our thumbs out until two young hippies from Salida picked us up and squeezed us, our dogs, and the 2 huge packs into their tiny Honda Civic which was full of their stuff and fishing gear, I feel compelled to mention this because not a minute earlier did the “Bro Bra Hummer”  with a GoPro attached to the side mirror tell us they were too full for us (eyes rolling). Oh the irony! The couple was on their way home from seeing Pretty Lights at Red Rocks the night before and were just nice people who make a rule to “pick people up if they don’t look too dirty and look like they are doing something, not just like homeless ya know.” We chatted with them the whole way to the top of Kenosha Pass where they dropped us off so we could continue from there.

Due to our unexpected stop over we got to Kenosha a day early and now could really relax and enjoy the push to Breckenridge. We camped at Kenosha and early the next morning made our push to the base of Georgia Pass. This section from Kenosha to Georgia Pass was stunning and so far my favorite scenery of the trip. We hiked down into and across the South Park Valley, which on 285 is my favorite view when driving, so to be able to see it so up close and personal was really a dream come true for me. I just wished I had a horse so we could gallop across the valley full speed with the wind in my hair!  But hiking at very slow speeds with dripping sweat through my hair was just as amazing and something I hope never to forget.

We slept the night of August 9th at our first high alpine campsite, dispersed but absolutely perfect, out in just the last few groupings of trees before we hit tree line. Huge 12 and 13 thousand foot mountains all around us and so many wild flowers the landscape looked almost quilted with colored and textured fabrics. What an amazing place to wake up on the morning of my 29th birthday. On the 10th we pushed to the top of Georgia Pass and descended down down down, hiking past Keystone Outback and the Dillon Valley. We got our first rain of the trip that day as well. Mike set up a quick tarp and let us sit under it as the storm passed. We hiked a long day and found a beautiful campsite near a forest road, so there were many other people there, which at times is really nice and comforting to me, even if we don’t interact, just knowing they’re there. Mike hiked in for my birthday a small box of wine, candies, a card and some nail polish for me. What a treat! The next day we were back at it hiking over Swan Mountain to the Breckenridge side. This put us in Breckenridge a day early so we camped in the rain just a few miles outside of town and hiked in the next morning.
It was weird getting back to civilization, Breckenridge was a little overwhelming since it is like Disney Land for adults from Oklahoma and I felt a bit culture shocked and a little bit anxious for the first few hours settling back in to “town”. Leah and Christian our very dear friends, put us up at their place in Dillon for a couple days and it was a wonderful time catching up and sharing with them our travels so far. We also got a much needed respite for both us and our dogs.

8 days in the back country is a lot to take on; the food for that period of time is really heavy and mileage in the first days is so crucial in order to stay on track and get to each destination on time. However, while those things are important and us being prepared has everything to do with our eventual success, it isn’t the most important thing once you are out there. Time spent in nature in the places that so many will never work that hard to see, mountains as far as the eyes can see, clouds below you as walk the high alpine passes, bathing in Mountain streams, watching weather systems build all day and then watching and feeling them let go upon you, star gazing, smelling the forest floor and the Ponderosa Pines and seeing fresh mountain dew upon everything on the early morning hikes, watching the dogs have the best day of there life every single day, spending time with my spouse having no negative distractions or dramas around us, these are the important things, and out there I’ve never felt  more content with myself and the path I'm choosing to walk in life. Before I left, my grandma asked me why I was doing this? She asked very simply if it was just for me to see things? I responded with something very self-important like, “Grandma, it’s for my soul”, but the more I walk the more simple everything is becoming in my life and now the answer is simply “yes, I want to see things!” But even more I want to see the things that you have to work to get to. Nothing good in life is free, and I think she’d appreciate that sentiment more than most.
We are learning and growing each day. We are living our dreams!

Big Thanks to each of you for all the love and support over the course of this journey and as always, Thanks for reading!