Hiking With Gadget Girl
It's All About The Adventure!
Well, I hate admit it but today was probably the most boring day so far on the Colorado Trail (until the end of the day). We hiked mostly with dead trees on both sides of the trail; well, if you can call it a trail. It was mostly a Jeep and dirtbike trail with big rocks that we had to navigate around uphill and downhill. At 4.5 miles we stopped and collected extra water for the long dry 15 mile section to Razor Creek. We decided to push for 20 miles today just to get out of this dreary segment.
At one ridge I discovered that I had full cell service and downloaded all the usual stuff. We stopped about 4:30pm to make dinner, and then continued hiking until we arrived at Razor Creek at 7pm. The water was barely flowing and a previous hiker had put a green leaf in the creek to create a tiny waterfall so other hikers could collect water. Its's the little things that makes one appreciate a trail, hikers looking after other hikers.
Our navigation app said there was a couple of campsites 2/10s of a mile down the trail so off we went. The closer we came to the sites, the slower I walked. There were BIG BLACK cows all over the place staring right back at me. I encouraged them to move, even "barked" at them. No dice. Then Linda, with her childhood experience of dealing/moving cows, started yelling at them, and to my surprise they hurried right out of the way. We looked down at the campsites with fresh cow patties scattered throughout, and decided to keep moving on the trail and look for a better site for the night. It was starting to get pretty dark and out came the headlamps. We saw little areas that might have worked but remember all those dead trees? A lot of them were leaning over the potential sites, the wind was blowing, and we didn't want to chance it with a dead tree falling on us during the night. We continued for another 2.2 miles until we topped a hill at 8:30pm and found two places we could put tents in. Yes, it was still windy, and yes there were a few dead trees around, but we positioned the tents in such a way hoping the wind would die down and we would still be alive in the morning. It was a 21.6 mile day, the longest day so far on the trail.