Hiking With Gadget Girl

After yesterday's successful test hike at 12,000 feet, we packed up four days and three nights of food and headed for the trail. We stopped in the town of Lake City and ate a hearty late lunch at the Climb Elevated Eatery restaurant. Food was delicious. Unfortunately we didn't know about the awesome bakery in town so we missed taking yummy treats with us on the trail. We arrived at Spring Creek Pass on Hwy 149, and discovered that Dave could drive up a little ways up the Jeep road. Saved us 6/10ths of a mile of uphill! We waved goodbye and continued up the Jeep road. A few miles later we could see the incoming rain squall and quickly put on our raingear.

The wind picked up and when the rain squall hit us sideways, it was obvious we needed to find some sort of shelter and wait out the storm.

We hunkered down under some bushes while the squall raged on around us. It finally let up (thank goodness as my derriere had fallen asleep) and the surrounding area was bright and sunny, but cold. A Razor suddenly appeared and we quickly took pictures of it as it was carrying a moose with full antlers on it! Wow, how cool was that...

We continued our way uphill as dust was settling and another rain squall moved through.

By this time we had reached the top and had started the downhill to where a Yurt was supposed to be (we were going to try to stay in it for $20 a person), we discovered that the Yurt had been removed but the platform was still standing and there was a lovely outhouse sitting next to it.

Unfortunately it was blowing too hard to set up on the platform, plus my tent was not freestanding. It was also raining pretty hard. We crossed over to the woods and lo and behold, there was Jim and Kathy (trailnames Backtrack and Birdie) and their two dogs who we had met about a week ago. We set up camp next to their tent in the freezing cold. It was great to catch up with them about their experiences. In the time that I was recovering from that respiratory issue, they were dealing with multiple hail storms and a big boulder that departed a hillside and landed on the trail in front of them. Wowzie. Another hiker said he had been hiking in three days of rain, so it looks like our time off the trail was actually good timing.

It's supposed to be really nice tomorrow, followed by 30% thunderstorms the next two days. we have entered the San Juan Mountains and they are supposed to be spectacular. Looking forward to it!