Hiking With Gadget Girl
It's All About The Adventure!
Because it's been so cold in the mornings, we decided to sleep in until 6am. The morning part of today's hike was easy and entertaining. We wrapped around the north part of the hill which kept the temperatures pretty cold.
Crossed a highway and railroad track and continued on a flat trail untl we reached an old logging road. Again, we walked around a mountain with a slight incline and came across old abandoned coke ovens.
Don't know what coke ovens are? I didn't either until good ol' Guthooks (our trail gps app) described what they where. Here is the writeup: "Evidence of an old coke oven stands nearby. This oven used to produce coke from coal. The coal is baked at extreme temperatures in an airless kiln. The end result is the formation of coke, a grey hard and porous fuel with a high carbon content and few impurities in it." (This was at mile 142.5, elevation 10,377 feet.)
Right after the coke ovens we ran into a few locals doing a day hike. This area is very popular with ski areas and winter backcountry skiing. There are tons of backcountry skiing trails, very organized, complete with numerous huts to ski to. I would LOVE to ski this area sometime, although I'd have to get used to the altitude all over again.
We arrived at Tennessee Pass which is at 10,424 feet.
There is a 10th Mountain Division Memorial across the Highway that we visited and had our morning snack.
Continuing on the trail, we ran across a beautiful wood swing.
The trail continued being easy. We could hear thunder in the distance and we hoped that we could out-hike it. We came across the 10th Mt. Hut sign and I really wanted to visit it but it was off trail quite a bit so we bagged it.
Thunder was getting closer and the air temp was getting cooler, and of course a litte rain shower started. We quickly put on our pack covers and raingear, complete with umbrella. The trail became rocky (ugh, we detest rocky trails now) and minutes later the rain shower stopped. Off came the rain gear...
The afternoon hiking was one of the most difficult hiking/climbs so far this trip. We entered the Holy Cross Wilderness in the San Isabel National Forest. It was so beautiful and so hard. The trail was more that 45 degrees. We did a "rah, rah, rah, go team!" halfway up to bolster our energy. It took all our focus to keep one foot in front of the other. In hard climbs like this, especially in the late afternoon when I'm geting tired, I put on hard rock music. AC/DC, Great White, Guns N' Roses, Scorpions, etc. The hardest part of this climb was the elevation so we were sucking air big time. Climb 50 feet, take a rest. Repeat.
Finally reached the crossover point and of course it was beautiful. There was a gorgeous lake up there but with the weather blowing in, we didn't want to get stuck in bad conditions.
Down we went through a beautiful rocky field and finally arrived at our destination of a much smaller lake. The wind was blowing hard making our tents difficult to set up. Heating water for dinner was just as difficult. Finally, the wind died down at dusk. Just as we drifted off to sleep, a runner zips by singing some off the wall song and shining his light at our tents. He yelled out, "sorry!" and continued on his way. A very full 17.1 mile day...
NOTE: If you are interested in seeing more pictures of this day, click here.