These three days took us really high. We were above 13,000′ many times and summited one of Colorado’s 14ers, Grays Peak.
Day 65 – Mile 1239.2 – Back to reality
Heavy rain woke us up at around 3am. We looked around the tent and everything was dry, so we went back to bed. Waking up and getting moving was challenging, as it always is for us after rain. Putting away a wet tent and getting into wet shoes is not super fun. Tim looked at the elevation profile and said wow, looks like a lot of climbing today. I guess we should have looked closer at the map and got started earlier because we had no idea what we were getting into. We climbed slowly on a nice trail with the Colorado Trail (CT) all morning. We crossed paths with over 50 southbound CT hikers! At lunch we dried out the tent, my sleeping bag, and some of our clothing. We knew we would be departing the CT soon after lunch. We got to a pass (Georgia Pass) and saw that the trail went downhill. The CDT wasn’t supposed to be going downhill yet, so we checked the map and realized we missed the turnoff where the two trails split. We turned around and went back to the junction. There was nothing marking the turnoff for the CDT! The CDT turned onto a gravel road. Then there was a fence without a gate. Then we had cross country travel straight up a mountain and started following the spine of the mountains from peak to peak without any markers or cairns. Wow, welcome back to the CDT! We got frustrated at first because we realized we weren’t going to get our desired miles in. But then we looked around and realized we had amazing 360° views. We were essentially on top of the world. It was hard but beautiful! Then the clouds started rolling in. We had been out of water for a few hours and were very exposed on top of the mountains. We finally got to a stream of snowmelt just as the thunder started in the distance. We filtered fast and started hiking quickly. At 6:30 pm we found a safe spot to set up camp. It was an hour or two before desired, but we were not about to walk up into a Thunderstorm. At camp we spotted a herd of bighorn sheep or mountain goats in the distance. They came over the ridge to our side — maybe running from the rain also? -R
Day 66 – Mile 1261.2 – CDT High Point
The major destination of the day was Grays Peak, one of Colorado’s “14ers” and the highest point on the CDT. We got up on time and hit the trail just after 6. We quickly learned that it would be a slow day. We spent much of the morning above 13,000 feet going cross-country from peak to peak. We saw a few friendly mountain goats when we were up that high. We had to descend to lower elevation before the big climb to Grays, and during that descent the trail disappeared! We practically rock climbed down a cliff. We made it, but it was slow going. Then we got down to a pleasant valley and had lunch near a stream. As we got back to walking, a trail angel named Cashmere Cat offered us some cantaloupe and muffins. Yum! Finally, it was time for the big climb. The trail was pretty well graded until we got to Mt. Edwards at 13,856 feet. At that point the trail pretty much disappeared again, and it was up and down ridge walking to the summit of Grays at 14,278 feet. We had a steep drop off on both sides of us, and moving forward required our hands and feet… We didn’t realize the CDT would require rock climbing skills! Once again though, we survived, and at the summit we celebrated with an evening coffee! Then it was an easy descent to camp, but we didn’t arrive until 9:00. In total, we did 7,000 feet of climbing today. It was a long, but fun, day of hiking! -T
Day 67 – Mile 1286.4 – Comradery
Last night we camped off of a gravel road near the Grays Peak trailhead. Starting at 1 or 2 am cars started driving to the trailhead and they continued all morning. I guess people wanted to get an early start up the 14er. We left camp at a record 5:30 am to meet our friend and fellow TikToker Becca at a trailhead off of interstate 70. She brought us beers and then hiked with us for a few miles, which was a lot of fun. We spent a lot of the day up above treeline, which was beautiful but windy. Becca also stopped at another trailhead and cached more beers and chips for us and other hikers. That was great motivation to get our miles in today to get to the goodies. Food is probably the best way to motivate thruhikers. We met three other CDT thruhikers today. We hadn’t seen any in a few days. We even camped near them tonight and had dinner together, which was really nice and quite rare! -R
