A dim light gradually emerges, but the morning is still void of color.

The few heavily traveled miles to the end of The Colorado Trail take longer than I’d expected. Eventually there’s a gravel parking lot, and a sign marking the trailhead, like all the rest. I’d seen plenty of photos of thru-hikers at this sign, the official end point, but the place and moment itself doesn’t strike me as anything particularly memorable or dramatic this morning, and I skip the picture in the dim light.

From the trailhead it’s another few miles into Durango. Most hikers easily hitchhike from here, but at this early hour I’m left to walk the road. The first signs of people stirring to life on this Monday of Labor Day weekend are faintly detectable, though I sense that most are still asleep. Newspapers lie dormant outside every home.

Finally in downtown with the chill scent of exhaust fumes I stop in a gas station for a soda and candy. Then it’s over to Denny’s for a whopping breakfast of a Moons over My Hammy with hashbrowns, six pancakes, and bacon. By now the gift shops are open and I find myself a nice cotton T-shirt that says DURANGO in big letters.

Who do I see walking the sidewalk but Ole and Meadow Bruiser! We stand and talk for a while and make plans to meet later for dinner. We’ll all be staying at the hostel tonight.

A six pack of beer from the store, and I wait in the green sunny grass for my friend from Pagosa Springs to come pick me up. On the way out of town we stop at a ribs joint. The owner is apparently quite the Woody Nelson fan – I love the photo of Woody’s profile that says “A NATIONAL MONUMENT doesn’t have to be a place.”

I spend the afternoon hanging out near Pagosa, retreive my car, and drive back to Durango. The first thing I reach for in my car is a pair of sandals. I won’t wear shoes for almost three weeks – the entire duration of this road trip back to Pennsylvania – allowing my foot to finally heal.

Ole and Meadow and I enjoy dinner at a hip pizza place down the street – more beers and I consume a whole pizza.

The next morning I drive them to the airport, take care of errands like picking up my last maildrop, a haircut, an oil change on my car, and relax the rest of the day in Durango.

The next day I go back to my friend’s at Pagosa Springs and have a good time at an amazing brew pub there.

I take two days to drive from Pagaso to Boulder to visit an old friend that I’ve known since grade school, yet haven’t spent time with in over ten years.

On the way I leisurely drive through all the CT towns – Creede, Gunnison, Buena Vista, Leadville… most of the time spent with my friend in Boulder happens to be at yet another local brewpub.

When I leave Boulder I visit Rocky Mountain National Park, but don’t do any hiking. It all looks the same as the world that’s been my home for the last five weeks.

At last I say goodbye to Colorado, and visit Nebraska for the very first time.

I will have visited all of the 48 states in my lifetime when this road trip is over.

South Dakota is not-so-surprisingly very cool, with the Black Hills and Badlands.

Crazy Horse

The Badlands

Lake Superior, Upper Peninsula, Michigan

The Field of Dreams is my final and ultimate stop of this year’s adventure. After this I’ll spend a full week with one of my best friends in Illinois, a weekend with another in Ohio, and then finally home.

I roll into Iowa in the late afternoon, and the golden light already gives it a magical quality. I arrive at the field a few moments before sunset. The site is technically closed for the day, but there’s nobody around, except for a single other tourist. He says he’s spending the night in a nearby town, and invites me to come back to play ball tomorrow. For some reason it had never occurred to me that people would actually play baseball here! Hmmm.

“Well I’ll leave you alone with the field,” he says, and drives off.

I sit on the bleacher, dodge the sprinklers, run the bases, and walk in the corn.

Thanks for reading.

It’s cold and dark when I step out of my tent in the middle of the night. The wide open space of a treeless mountain ridge lies beyond the tarp and zipper. It’s a high inhospitable world at night, instinctfully frightening to the senses when awakened from a deep slumber. There’s no forgetting where I am… underneath a veiled cloudy sky, as the mountain’s crest leaves me feeling very small and inconsequential.

Back into shelter and a still-warm sleeping bag with a relieved bladder, and the secure comfort of a backpacker that’s lived in this tent of ever-changing horizons for five weeks.

I had hoped to awaken for the sunrise. The poignancy of beginning my final full day on the trail with a sunrise after last night’s sunset surely didn’t escape me, but this morning I simply want that extra bit of sleep. There’s been many sunrises, and there will be others.

There was a time when I would work a night shift until 11pm, go to the bar until 2am, hold a small after-party, and then try to convince friends to immediately night-hike a fifteen mile round trip with me to an overlook in Pennsylvania called The Pinnacle for sunrise.

And sometimes we’d actually do it. One humid cricket-filled night in June, the full moon fell on the eve of the summer solstice. We arrived at The Pinnacle in time to see the round moon set in the west as the sun simultaneously came over the eastern horizon. It’s odd what drives us to do such silly impractical things, and I wonder sometimes if I’m losing a little of that drive.

Six years down the road, today I wake to find that I’ve chosen the comfort of a few minutes’ sleep. Colorado used to be a far-off land of high intimidating mountains – the heart of the Rockies. Every American grows up with the impression that these are the kings of mountains, the biggest peaks in our land against which all others shall be measured. Now some of the mystery is gone as I’ve walked the breadth of them. That was the intent after all… but with the satisfaction of knowing a new place comes the mild disappointment of the unwrapped Christmas present… looking ahead to the next one, always forward with the constant consumption that’s in our instinct.

A dramatic sunrise in the outdoor summer mountain world, at the end of a weary taxing journey… this is the stuff that defines why we hike. It’s why I began hiking in the first place, the most tangible straightforward way to attack Thoreau’s marrow-sucking. And attack it through this last decade I believe I have.

Whether it’s taking off and driving across the country, or “backpacking Europe” or starving in a bus in Alaska, people pick up and do these seemingly crazy things for a reason. The romantics of the bunch muse that they’re “looking for something,” or “finding themselves,” but I suppose I’ve just wanted to see that I wasn’t missing anything. How can you settle down in one place and collect money and things without first examining what else is out there?

I’ve come to know that what’s out here is just the simple life and steady rhythms of rocks and water and trees and wildlife and clouds and wind and rain and sunshine and moonlight and stars – over and over again, with only a change in character and place – nothing more and nothing less. Most everyone knows this in a practical sense.

It comes and it goes, but to dive into this life and experience the world of a long hiking trail can have an attraction and allure like no other.

Long after “finding myself” and building my smug soul’s foundation of knowing the heart of the wild wide world, the simple pleasure of putting one foot in front of the other in new, natural places still dominates my life.

The morning’s walk stays high on the ridge for longer than I’d expected. There’s a sense of approaching gray wetness from the west, but it’s calm, soft, scenic, and wonderful.

I look down on Taylor Lake and follow the descent.

The floor of the basin is painted in San Juan’s highest alpine foliage.

I replenish my drinking water from this outlet of the lake. A light rain blows through, and there’s a chill wind. A family that was apparently camped at the lake for the weekend hurriedly packs up and hits the trail. They pass above me at the bottom of this small gully without ever noticing my presence.

I gradually overtake them, spread out one by one as we approach the Kennebec Trailhead. The wind in my ears drowns out all other sound, as the dimly colored ferns of Cumberland Basin sway in the breeze.

At this time on a hike of the Colorado Trail, the irony of the name Kennebec Pass won’t escape a former AT hiker.

I had heard of the Kennebec River in Maine before I ever set foot on the Appalachian Trail. From Georgia to Maine the local trail clubs have built an obscene number of elaborate foot bridges for hikers to cross rivers and streams, but these are few and far between in Maine. In Maine they like to make you get your feet wet.

The Kennebec is swift with a relatively deep current, fluctuating with unpredictable releases from an upstream dam. A few hikers have drowned through the decades trying to ford it. Rather than build a bridge, the trail club decided to employ a man with a canoe specifically to ferry hikers across the river.

Even before my very first backpacking trip, the idea that there’s a man with a canoe waiting in the wilderness of the Maine woods for dirty, trail weary walkers from Georgia struck me as the very definition of adventure.

I think briefly of that time in Maine, maybe the best few weeks of my life.

For the CT thru-hiker, this pass is a gateway to the real world beyond the mountains.

No more mountaintops.

…into the trees, and twenty miles from the end of the Colorado Trail.

…more day hikers and a steady stream of mountain bikers… in this way the last day of the hike is the same as the first.

A woman asks if I’ve hiked from Denver. “Congratulations!” she says.

That’s when it hits home – I’ve done The Colorado Trail. For at least three summers it was a serious consideration in my mind, and now it’s passed. I’ve known and experienced the Colorado mountains.

The atmosphere grows warm and green, as expected of a long descent. There’s flowing streams and green life.

At the bridge over Upper Junction Creek I take an unexpectedly long break – the empty-minded, boring, dawdling blank stare of the solo long distance hiker. The day almost seems to drag on, and the miles still-to-go place a small weight on my shoulders.

Mostly I just wish that I had more food. I savor my last Clif bar – if it can be called savoring – the only edible item remaining in my pack, with the exception of a single dinner.

The path is enclosed in the narrow hills of a sort of gorge, and then it climbs up along the side of it.

The excitement of an ending transforms into another afternoon of winding out the miles. The uninterrupted, easy grade encourages a serene, steady rhythm that goes peacefully smooth and unbroken.

…though from outsider’s eyes, I’d likely be seen as to be moving with a focused, dirty, aromatic haste. Despite the delightfully calm state of mind, I’m outwardly lean and hungry and set on a destination.

The bright afternoon matures to the cool of the evening.

Aspens line the stage for an encore, and escort me home.

The Ponderosa Pines have their turn. Mountain bikers pass with the ensuing dusk, fleeing the woods.

And here it is – the view and the bench at Gudy’s Overlook, four miles from the end of the Colorado Trail. This is at the moment of sunset, but the view is to the East.

This is the fitting time and place for epiphanies of the thru-hiker, emotion and satisfaction and contemplation. Durango is right there.

But I know the time for all that fluff is behind me. It’s hidden somewhere among the rocks and dirt of the winding path that stretches five hundred miles and thirty-six days back to Denver.

Instead I take a rather blasphemous action while sitting here at this moment… I turn on my cell phone. There’s a friend in Pagosa Springs, watching over my internal combustion wheels of opportunity. I hope to meet up with him tomorrow.

He answers the phone from within a loud bar. There’s music and the blur of many, many drunken, excited voices. It clearly sounds like a good time.

After arrangements are made I turn off the phone, and look again into the view before me.

I laugh out loud to myself, as only a man alone in the mountains will.

I then hoist my pack and descend in darkness to Junction Creek.

Rather than go on for the few remaining miles to civilization, I set up camp for one more night on the trail.

A cold morning in my nook of trees at 12,000 feet over the sea, below Blackhawk Pass. Straight Creek flows nearby, effortless. All is as I’d left it the night before, and serenely quiet.

Oblivious to the pervasive calm of the scene, I pull stakes from the dirt and stuff my tent in chill-fingered routine. I do not pause to take in the view of the surrounding ridges – the contours of the trees and grasses, and tumbled boulders placed by the tale of the ages.

I don’t pause to take it all in, no more than one examines their own bedroom on any given morning. This calm empty peace is simply the way it is.

But I do take in the sky, rubbing my eyes, stretching back and yawning into it. The sky is blue.

The initial miles descend near the creek, winding down out of shadow as the freshness of the day wears away.

Straight Creek is the final and only water source for the next twenty miles, and I duly top off my four-quart capacity without a hint of anxiety.

Forty miles and likely only two full days from Durango, yet the morning holds little excitement or anticipation. I momentarily look ahead at the far landscape, musing on in which direction the trail lies. The walking is empty and automatic.

The trail descends to a network of forest service roads. I pass a man breaking down a large tent, and one or two parked vehicles. The area is remote, yet I sense the hardy Colorado folk coming to the mountains for the Labor Day weekend, riding miles and miles of isolated dirt roads to lose themselves in these places.

Leaving the roads, the trail picks up the east side of a ridge and makes its deliberate contour to the south.

It’s especially clear and beautiful this morning. The walk conjures no new memories, and forges little in the way of significant new ones. A typical morning on the trail in perfect uneventfulness, fodder for the subconscious.

A long walk works on the subconscious more than anything. The non-hiker often imagines we’re out here contemplating the cosmos as Socrates, thinking deep thoughts on the existence of all life on earth, life’s ultimate goals, and weighty decisions of the future. This of course isn’t true. Sometimes dormant memories surface from the depths of my mind that hadn’t necessarily been forgotten – only buried in the hustle of typical day-to-day existence, but that’s all. Mostly I think about pizza and miles and the immediate bend of the path ahead.

To begin in a certain way, to go on a journey in solitude, and emerge a changed person… of course this may be an outcome, but it’s not through conscientious, goal oriented direction. The magic is that the only goal needs to be to walk from point A to point B, perhaps with an open mind to absorb as much experience as possible, and the rest takes care of itself. Subconsciously. A shift in values and outlook on life never takes place as a deliberate decision, but as result of experience… maybe experience on a trail. I like the results of experience on a trail.

The rhythms of the outdoor world have their way, and our bodies tune into it just as naturally as we tune into hunger or thirst. To be on a trail with backpack and yet feel the comfort of home is an empowering thing, a soothing belonging. Before I hiked I felt fear of the dark woods at night, as any person, and then found myself walking alone at night on the Appalachian Trail with no more insecurity than the halls of my own home in the middle of the night.

Take the sailor and the sea, the obsession and sense of belonging. The thought of all that water scares the daylights out of me, but I relate to the philosophy. A sailor rarely fights or forces things, but inherently and ingeniously flows with the cards that he’s dealt – the winds, the weather, the currents…

A long hike changes some people in dramatic ways, and then not at all for others. An individual changes over the course of time no matter what, whether he walks a trail or does anything else or nothing at all.

I feel as though Colorado will change me very little – that all of my personal changes as a result of long walks have been realized some time ago… though the course of such things when taking oneself so seriously isn’t understood fully without years of hindsight. In this case I’m speaking of the fundamental changes that come of a long hike. I don’t see much more possible development in that course, so much as a personal refreshment, a taking stock and inventory.

Life is short and that’s why I go hiking, not to miss anything, not to collect dust or let it pass me by, as Jim Croce so eloquently goes whistling down the sky.

Though it’s a curse because the more you do, the more you realize there is to do. It’s a big beautiful world and there’s too much for a lifetime. A life can be spent singularly dedicated to the San Juans alone, or Grand Canyon or the Sierra Nevada – a lonely focused obsessed existence, without even satisfying one of these relatively small corners of our world.

But that’s part of the beauty isn’t it, the infinite possibility that one cannot know it all.

I turn a corner in the woods and there lies a most unexpected sight.

There in the shade of the roots of a tree, there’s a cooler.

I quell my excitement to guard against potential and likely disappointment, and open the lid.

There’s cold beer.

Magical little cans of PBR.

A spiral notebook, and the telltale scribbles of countless forlorn, dirty, thirsty, bright-eyed hikers that say this beer is for me. A Durango resident manages this bin of kindness… a twenty mile waterless stretch.

A treasure chest in the wilderness, as though collecting an item in a video game. “You’ve discovered PBR! 500 experience points, Duct Tape has gained a level!”

I want to hold it over my head like Link, with a two-second electronic melody of discovery.

A sunny day and a beer in the woods on the homestretch of the Colorado Trail, and suddenly life is perfect… Morgan Freeman tarring a roof in the open air away from Shawshank.

I raise the aluminum to my lips and savor this, savor the uncanny timing as I close in on Durango.

The notebook tells me that Ole and Meadow Bruiser were here nearly 24 hours ago. So they’re gone, and the way ahead begins wrapping itself up with a sense of closure as loose ends are tied.

A hiker unexpectedly emerges from the trail, a hiker going in my direction. It’s the man that I passed early this morning, with the large tent that I assumed to be car camping. He’s a Colorado resident on his first backpacking trip, hiking the length of the Colorado Trail. He’s in his thirties and lean and hungry, emaciated as a heavily loaded backpacker that has not yet learned to keep himself relatively fat and happy.

I shake hands with Adolph, a rather unfortunate birthname to the extent that he says many people ask if it’s a trail name. We drink beer in the outdoors before noon as men that have earned it.

We talk of the trail behind, and share what has unfolded on our trips. He’s a pleasant guy, and if we’d met three hundred miles ago perhaps I’d linger and have a new walking companion… but soon my can is empty and I announce that I must go, pushing for the next water source at Taylor Lake.

I deliberately move ahead at a brisk pace. Now is not a time for new friends, and I’m selfish with my buzz. I want to enjoy each passing minute of the mountains and colors without the steady interruption of conversation, without the presence of anyone.

The trail follows a distinct ridge that leads directly north and south, and I get the impression that the mountains are winding down to an end. Though it still holds steady at over 10,500 feet, the area feels less impressive in a high-and-mighty way… though this ridge is the highest thing for quite a distance. The views now reach far and wide, as lower forestlands stretch away for miles.

Today is Saturday, and I meet three or four sporadic backpackers going north. The conversations are short and sweet, and one guy even asks to take my picture.

Welcome to colorful Colorado. I’ve enjoyed my stay, thank you.

The ridge extends for many more miles throughout the afternoon, in its linear way. I encounter no more hikers and there’s again an overwhelming quiet.

This is called the Indian Trail Ridge, and I’m walking the spine of the land. For a time the CT coincides with a significant, likely pre-exisiting trail called the Highline Trail that sometimes takes priority in signage.

There’s a place called The Cape of Good Hope, but despite the cool name it just happens to be another spur of the geography.

The singular, direct track through the land has a different atmosphere than the winding cirques, basins, and high mesas of the days behind me, as though the course of the trail itself reflects the attitude of the thru-hiker, for a straight shot at Durango.

My thoughts focus not so much on the anticipated satisfaction of completion as they dwell on the future days and weeks of September. I’ll be retrieving my car and taking three weeks to drive from here to Pennsylvania, seeing the sites and visiting friends along the way.

When I finally arrive in Pennsylvania at the end of the month, it will be my first visit home in nearly two years – the longest I’ve ever been away. Mom and Dad and best friends and home.

This ridge is on top of its world with expansive open beauty, yet the sense of closure only deepens as the sight of a far horizon symbolically opens a gate to the wide world beyond Colorado.

Late afternoon matures to early evening as the trail begins to climb. A chilly, high dramatic wind is ushered in – the unbroken breeze of the sky. I turn a corner within view of the La Plata range.

I effortlessly stomp up the numerous hilltops of false summits, each view better than the last… each a little higher, the wind a little stronger. There’s an urgency to fly over these summits and descend to Taylor Lake before sundown, and I’m gradually becoming filled with the poignancy of the moment’s scenery.

Twenty-five miles from Durango, and the guide shows that it’s all more or less downhill from here.

The last high point, and the last expansive, sweeping evening of a journey.

Suddenly I know that I should spend the night here… high, windy, cold, and wild. I have enough water for the night, and the lake is a mere jump off the ridge.

Rather than descend to the waterside, I want to stay high and commanding. Views to the east and west, separated by a light skip across the earth’s backbone – a clear sky and rewarding mountaintop glory. This is the place to be.

I find a relatively sheltered place, somewhat guarded from the wind by the bushes, the highest things that grow here.

So many times I’ve spent the night at clearly well-established campsites. I wonder how long ago the last hiker slept here.

I excitedly hurry to set up and cook dinner before sunset, facing west.

Well it’s Saturday night of Labor Day weekend, summer’s end 2010.

Twenty-nine years old, and tonight I’ve ended up here.

I sleep relatively late, and wake just in time to see off Ole and Meadow Bruiser as expected. Last night they said that they would probably get an early start today, but I had more realistic expectations of myself – after a late night, and maybe even a small caffeine hangover.

And so I’m left again to break camp in solitude, to ease into the day at my own leisurely pace. This is a good thing.

Funny how “solitude” and “loneliness” mean essentially the same thing, yet have very different connotations.

I begin the day’s walk with a steady descent, nearby the occasionally cascading White Creek. The sky is clear, and the world is bright and silent and peaceful. The day is uneventful as I simply move ahead on the scenic path.

Days on the the trail can just be smooth and empty like this, another facet of a long hike. There’s a lack of notable hardship, and maybe I’m somewhat numb to the natural beauty today. After a while I sometimes come to take the beauty for granted, as a given state of the world.

Fifty miles from Durango and I’m on cruise control.

This hike has been different than my other trips… as it should be. But I mean it has a different atmosphere than all the previous ones – as if I was an eager adventurous kid before, but now an adult simply taking a nice way to spend a month at the end of the summer.

Bicycling across the States, or even following the turning foliage of Vermont carried a world-conquering elation. This trip’s world-conquering moments have seemed equal on the surface, but strangely subdued underneath.

Maybe it’s because there’s been no new emotions. I’ve known the feeling of the self-contained euphoria of powering over the hills in a wide wonderful setting, when everything is perfect… the deepness of the woods, the frail unique wildflower among thousands, a beam of light shining through the clouds, being soaked in pure natural rains without a care, looking upon the little towns below – with their everyday stresses – encounters and kinship with random large mammals and effortless wildlife, the undiscriminating power of a thunderburst – laughing alone in the midst of it – simple kindnesses, the fate of unlikely coincidence, the natural rhythms of living under the sun and sky, the bliss of a private motel room with a hot shower and pizza and beer – where I do not have to put on my shoes to use the bathroom in the middle of the night – meeting the most unique, interesting, inspiring people in the world, and sharing with them these experiences that only compare to the joys of childhood…

All of this I had experienced before, and like a snob fully expected of thru-hike.

I knew when I began that I would finish – or should I say that I rather smugly expected to finish. There’s been my injured foot – so overcoming that is something, a worthwhile development of this hike. To make it not so easy after all… the notion of accomplishing something is never quite the same without hardship… but going into this hike, it was never about the challenge or accomplishment.

I have nothing to prove through walking – I’m not disabled, and don’t carry a debilitating disease… it’s just walking.

But I suppose that changed along the way, proving to myself that I could finish after all. Up until now, no trip had been as difficult to complete as the first, the Appalachian Trail.

More than the other factors, now I think I’ve carried a shade of responsibility. In less than a month I’ll be thirty. Again, on all the other trips I was more of an eager adventurous kid… in his twenties. I guess that’s something. In my early twenties once I told a girlfriend that I’d be rich by the time I’m thirty. I do consider myself rich in a symbolic way, with life and experience, but I was purely talking about money at the time.

Moreso than during our twenties, I think we have all kinds of prior expectations of ourselves upon reaching the age of thirty, if only vague. Many we meet and exceed, some we don’t. There comes a day for every man when he’s in front the tv watching a game, and he realizes that not only all of the college, but now the greater portion of major league baseball players are younger than him.

Twelve years out of high school… degrees, certifications, internships, retirement accounts, PTA meetings, Beverly Hills Mansions, private jet airplanes… none of these have come true for me.

But I’ve had a damn good time, and life is time, so time should be good. Life is good.

Take those times when you’re young and drunk with no cares, at a party or riding shotgun in a car, doing this or that or going here or there or nowhere and nothing in particular except the notion that strikes you at the time. The right song comes on and the world is swaying and pulsating and every little action is fun and everyone is fun and the colors radiate and and somehow all your senses are sharp and you step outside and the air is crisp.

When I’m consistently stepping in and out of residential life to go on this trail or that, I achieve that sort of perpetual fun even when sober. To always be setting a day or vaguely immediate time to leave someplace makes things always tangibly finite, focused and less taken for granted.

So I like to hike and travel and experience my minutes in this way. But maybe the dulling of these notions on this trip is telling me something, that I’ve had enough… but I don’t think so. Friends are raising families or pursuing elaborate meaningful careers, but I still don’t see myself racing off in that direction any time soon. Maybe these feelings are just a result of my being less financially prepared for this trip than the others, at a time when my peers are more financially secure than any other time in my past.

It’s silly in a way to be so dedicated to essentially seeking out vacation photos and solitary anecdotes of no consequence – I’m not oblivious to that. Especially sharing some of it with often undue drama on the web for anyone to judge, especially those I’ve just met or share everyday mundane necessities with. I imagine it would be easy to look at all this and quickly form an opinion, inferior to that of anyone more normal that wouldn’t make such considerations, let alone post them on the internet. But everyone should feel dramatic about their own lives at times. When I hike alone I’m naturally going to have a whole lot of self-involved melodramatic moments, and I try to share some of it.

My decade of interspersed perceptive pilgrimages, avoidance of meaningful relationships and vocations seemingly should signify something – the compulsive distance hiker’s “What’s that guy running away from,” or joking accusation of being on a proverbial search for something.

I’ve just enjoyed the lifestyle, the exploration and discovery. It brings my days meaning to have an ultimate concrete physical destination, and to look forward to the next trip ahead.

There’s another breezy empty meadow, and another insignificant dirt track with a forgettable name like Bolam Pass Road.

A man unpacks gear from the back of a silent motionless pickup, setting up for a Labor Day of camping. I say hello and nod and don’t even break stride.

The mountains are pretty, and fresh air is nice.

Thoughts are mundane and trivial… and the very best, truest, in-the-moment things I can express would only stain and detract right now.

This place is called Blackhawk Pass.

I find a campsite about a half mile below the pass.

There’s a singing current of water called Straight Creek, and an inviting stand of trees that whisper home.

A hot steaming meal in ample yet fading daylight, seated among roots and underneath boughs.

Relaxed, long-underweared strides to the clear cold water that I do not treat or “purify.”

Rubbing of the stainless steel silver pot with my thumb.

Staring mindlessly into trees and ridges as I brush my teeth.

The cold chill of a clear night.

I’m up and on the trail early, with no breakfast and only two miles to the road to Silverton.

It’s a nice walk with a creek and meadows, but my thoughts dwell on town. My foot is hurting again this morning, and the path is a constant tease. I’m not used to hiking uphill to a town stop. It’s hereby an offense of the natural code of thru-hiking. The trail only gains about 500 feet to Highway 550, but it’s enough to be an annoyance. The path creeps up on the highway, but parallels it for a time until I finally top out at the trailhead.

Thumbing a ride feels as though it takes an eternity as well, but in reality it’s probably only a little over half an hour before somebody stops. It’s a middle-aged couple en-route to a day in the mountains themselves. They’re hikers and familiar with the Colorado Trail, and ask the usual questions of when I started and how the weather has been and such. They’re nice and normal and polite and the ride is more than pleasant, but there’s still something strained to me about the conversations while hitchhiking – it’s like the need to go on the clock and be a professional in customer service – answering questions, asking the right questions, polite and cordial, smiling… when deep down all I really want is a ride, and I know it and they know it. They call it small talk for a reason. Scotty beam me to Silverton. Scotty beam me to the best place to get breakfast in Silverton.

There are the exceptions, usually when I’m with a friend or small group. Maybe my friends just tend to be more talkative, outgoing, and sociable than me.

In 2002 I was hitchhiking off the Appalachian Trail to resupply in a town in New Hampshire, with my friends Hollywood and Sofar. We were picked up by this cool, hip, live-free-or-die chick that was talkative and clearly excited to help some AT hikers. The town we wanted to go to was downhill from the trail, along a scenic road in the White Mountains. She was headed down toward town, and naturally the ride started on that course.

Upon discovering that we’d never seen The Old Man in The Mountain, she insisted on taking us back uphill, way out of her way to see it. And we did. It was cool. Then she drove us to town.

About a year or two later, the way of time and erosion had their ultimate say, and the old man’s face crumbled from the mountain.

In Silverton I immediately dive into the first breakfast place in sight, the Brown Bear Cafe. Blueberry pancakes, eggs, ham, homefries, toast… ten gallons of coffee. Complete satiation and the happiest man in the world.

The restaurant is housed in an old building, an old saloon from the heyday mining times. I like Silverton. It’s off the main highway, touristy and historic… quaint touristy and not nauseating touristy. All these towns in the San Juans are perfectly as they should be – Ouray, Pagaso Springs, and even the swelling Durango, and I suppose Telluride has its place… this is a downright nice corner of the country.

The post office is small and friendly, and I significantly lighten the load by sending some unneeded things ahead for the final push to Durango – camera batteries, maps, and assorted junk.

The grocery market for my resupply is exceedingly expensive. But oh well, whatever. The store has a wooden deck as a front porch, and it’s a great place to sit for the routine repackaging of my purchases into ziploc bags, and into the backpack. I think I’ve mentioned the joy I find in this process – the mark of a distance hike, and anticipation of trail to come… spreading out my belongings in an unconventional place outdoors, while enjoying separate snacks purchased only moments ago.

Again the snacks are Cokes and Reese’s Big Cups. I’m a creature of habit. Another treat is a pack of eight hot dogs and buns that I intend to have for dinner somewhere up the trail tonight. I spread out on the deck in the sun as the locals come and go, and this is really distance hiking at its best.

Of course the best moments more often come in the wild over a spectacular sunset, or with a refreshing bath in a pure cascading stream… but the town resupply has the factor of contentment and satiation.

Much of backpacking is about the deprivation of simple luxuries, and the gained appreciation of simple things like potable water from a spigot, refrigeration, heat and air conditioning, etc. etc., and almost immediately in the short time that the hiker is off the trail, the appreciation vanishes. But not in an afternoon’s town stop.

I empty cartons of macaroni and cheese into plastic baggies under the sun and appreciate the full belly, the sugar/caffeine rush, the wide variety of fresh food and products available in the door behind me… yet I’m still the free man with miles to go and the trail ahead, content in the moment yet not exhausted of joys to come, at a destination within the journey, blah blah blah.

Loaded with food to get me to Durango, and fresh spigot water and hot dogs – did I mention hot dogs – I bounce along the road out of Silverton to get to the main drag and back to the trail. There’s a state cop idling in his vehicle, seemingly writing up a report, so I do some idling of my own before whoring out my thumb to the whims of traffic.

It’s a tricky intersection with road construction and the side route to Silverton, but I find a ride with a guy in his thirties, a local of Silverton making a regular run to Durango for some errands and shopping. He relocated here eight years ago “for a girl.” She’s since gone and he’s still here. Commenting on what it’s like to live in the area, he says “I mean just look around man.”

The little Saab winds up the Colorado mountain road, and I sit with my backpack in my lap, with all my self-contained belongings and freedom to sleep anywhere in this country, freedom to walk anywhere from here to Durango without aid.

The scenery rolls by as I customarily apologize for my hiker scent to a random laid-back person I’ve just met. Hell of a place to be on a sunny September afternoon. Life is good.

The reality sets in at the trailhead that this is the homestretch. Only a few more days, and the Colorado Trail comes to an end.

A picturesque lake and I’m hiking.

A perfect day, sunny but cool. Thursday before Labor Day.

I dawdle and photograph.

As I relish the scene on this perfect day, a pair of hikers easily overtake me. It’s Ole and Meadow Bruiser, right on queue.

Again the joyous reunion, and swapping of recent events. They spent the night in town, and rode up on a prearranged shuttle. The day after we last saw each other was the day of sideways wind and hail at 12,000+ feet. They stayed huddled in their tent that day.

But this time our meeting is different. It’s impossible not to be happy with this bright blue sky, like the emotion of hearing George sing “Here comes the sun.”

This time there’s nothing but trail between us and Durango. Only minutes after setting foot on the trail after the last town stop, we’ve turned up again like bad pennies. It’s an instant bond as we close in on the goal, suddenly longest-lasting friends of this unique period of mountain life, sharing the same forlorn paths on the same days. They’ve overcome injury and hardship to reach this sunny place, more than at any time on the entire length of the Pacific Crest Trail. As have I.

Maybe unconsciously, we now know that when I think of the Colorado Trail, I’ll think of Ole and Meadow Bruiser, and that they’ll likewise think of Duct Tape.

But most importantly… most importantly… they’ve brought s’mores! And I have the hot dogs, how do you like that, no prearrangement whatsoever.

In the days before people starting placing coolers of soda pop on the side of the road, this is what they called trail magic. If I were more of a creative hippie hiker with a short pointed beard and a little guitar, I’d pen a song called “If you bring the hot dogs I’ll bring the s’mores,” or something to that effect. It would surely be a horrible song, yet brilliant when around a campfire, imbibing brain cell vanquishing substances.

And the landscape is beautiful. Ole comments that these colorful ferns are the changing of the season, autumn in the high country. I’d been so busy gawking that I hadn’t put the two-and-two of such a reality together. Meadow Bruiser is feeling great and forges ahead, and Ole and I walk and talk. My constant pausing for pictures lends the conversation toward photography. Ole laments the he carried no camera at all for a long stretch of the Pacific Crest Trail.

We move through the terrain as a group that belongs here. After hundreds of miles of rain and grey cold, the cool crisp brightness appears as a window of opportunity, a reward that has us perfectly poised for its reception. We’re feeling great, and the miles tick by with ease as we joyously devour all the daylight that remains.

It’s a pleasant, fitting surprise, the way this red rock suddenly appears on the far side of the highway at Silverton. It’s an immediate reminder that we’ve reached The Southwest, after all. A piece of knowledge from my previous escapades in this corner of the country, I proudly share that the red rock is called Navajo Sandstone. Of course I fail to mention that it’s just a guess.

The battered and worn Data Books appear from our pockets at this water source, once again gauging our potential distance to go before sunset. A familiar, effortless calculation of miles, water, and time. “This stream looks like a half cup. It would make sense then that the full cup would be the one we crossed 1.7 miles ago. That feels about right.”

Ole actually falls behind for a time. They’re ultralight and such fast hikers that I’ve never known this to happen.

“Oh, he’s back there taking pictures,” Meadow Bruiser says, “I think he’s getting nostalgic.” Beautiful.

Little hiker. Big world.

Late afternoon wears into evening, and we fall into our natural silent rhythms of thought.

We prearrange a landmark up the trail at which to rendezvous, should I fall behind.

Little hikers, big world.

For these days on the trail, this is what we do.

I gain elevation and approach a pass at sunset.

The realm of the marmot… and the Colorado Trail hiker.

I stride alone over the pass under the twilight, and join the pair of humans encamped on the far side in darkness. They’ve already lit a modest fire, the first and last campfire of the journey for us all. I gather some supplemental wood, which is easy to find among these few dead trees.

We sit out on the wild grass in the night and have our feast. It’s a familiar scene of my memory to roast these items over a fire, but it’s been a long time. The three of us, all within a year or two of the age of thirty, are an unlikely but veteran trio for such a great simple pleasure. Under ordinary circumstances it would probably require the presence of children for the three of us adults to skewer hot dogs with dirty sticks, and savor sugary marshmallow.

We exchange contact information, and talk over much in the way of places… coming from and going to.

But right now we’re huddled in a tight, cross-legged circle around a lone flame in the midst of a vast wilderness, twelve thousand and five hundred feet over the sea, on a September night in Colorado. Despite places and mountains and trails, there’s the immediate crispy blackened shell of a hot dog, and the messiest s’more ever.

Headlamps are switched off when the food is gone, allowing for an uninhibited dancing flicker.

Eventually it’s the pulling of zippers, and the rustle of warm sleeping bags… as always in this life.

I get up to do the only thing that brings hikers out of their warm sleeping bags in the middle of the night.

The starry sky is deep and wide and brilliant, with a panoramic horizon of rolling Colorado mountains in the cold darkness.

I’m up and on the move before dawn, eager to stomp out another day on the trail. This morning I’m motivated… maybe it’s the clear skies, maybe the beautiful terrain, maybe the prospect of the town of Silverton within 25 miles, maybe a low food supply… the combination of all this has me walking at an early hour. My pack is light, and I’m the hungry hiker closing in on town.

The early morning is cold, quiet, and pristine as I walk the grassy hills.

I set up this picture because I’m having so much fun – walking among the surrounding landscape as sunrise creeps down the ridges.

I’m wearing all the clothes in my pack, perfectly comfortable and fine. What I notice later is the way I’m favoring my left leg, keeping the weight off my ailing right foot. I assume this stance an awful lot during my time on the Colorado Trail.

Just as yesterday, the path winds all about the tundra headwaters of the many gullies that descend below… to the far-off, mild-weathered, comely places unbeknown to this high-country hiker.

I’m mildly surprised to encounter a solo hiker so early in the morning. He’s carrying a backpacker guitar and going the opposite direction.

His gait, smile, and general demeanor tell me that he’s enjoying the morning as much as I am. The perception must be mutual, because our conversation is light-hearted and brief, allowing our individual rhythms to go on unbroken.

I join a jeep road for a short time near Stony Pass, round a bend, and soon all the world is in the light.

With this view, I feel as though it’s the perfect time to stretch out and take a break in the sun. I shed a few layers, and take the time for a proper breakfast to reinforce the quick Clif bar that I had before daybreak. A proper breakfast is Genoa salami, sliced like pepperoni, with flatbread.

I’m sitting near the floor of another sort of narrow basin, and watching as a solo hiker crests the ridge in the distance that I’ve just come over. He’s making his way down the switchbacks toward me. For some unconscious reason that I can’t explain, I decide that I don’t want him to catch up with me.

While climbing out of the far side of this basin, I meet some more backpackers. This time it’s a group of three men taking a break. They’re out for a few days – friendly, experienced, talkative – but my jaded thru-hiker persona takes over this morning, and I take my leave as soon as possible without being impolite. I’m afraid that the person behind me will catch up while I’m still talking with these guys. Then suddenly we would have three separate parties all converging in the same place, in all this wilderness. I don’t know why I see this situation as being so undesirable, but that’s just my mood this morning.

Nobody catches me, and the mood fades as the young day grows. The trail again follows a wide, level sort of unnamed mesa that straddles the Continental Divide itself. Small lakes and ponds glisten in the sun.

Soon the divide mesa approaches a deep, abrupt swath cut out of the solid rock, a first view of which is seen above.

Flanked by the towering Grenadier Range, this sheer, mighty canyon – to the best of my knowledge – holds no name other than the simple Elk Creek. My path ahead lies down its depths, to the lowland realm of Silverton and civilization.

I reach a trail junction before the descent, high along the crest of the Divide. The Continental Divide Trail does not go down Elk Creek, but continues south, leaving The Colorado Trail for the final time.

I stand and read the sign, and for a brief instant gaze off in that direction. There’s a fleeting image of Gil striding alone out there somewhere, and a thought of the wonders that must lie down that road… to the land of Pagosa Springs, and the mountains and deserts of New Mexico for the CDT hiker.

Continuing on The Colorado Trail, the path turns over the spine of a high grassy hill before descending into Elk Creek canyon. The next eight miles will go down almost 4,000 feet.

A shelf of the canyon is home to a pair of unassuming lakes.

I spy two backpackers way down below, following the winding switchbacks like the tunnels of an ant farm.

The tight switchbacks clearly mark the way ahead.

At this old mining cabin I meet the pair of hikers that I’d seen from above, packing up after a lunch break. They’re a spry older couple that should classify as senior citizens, and I’ve heard much of their story secondhand, through Carol and Richard and Ole and Meadow Bruiser.

They met on a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail many years ago, and have been together ever since, backpacking here and there and everywhere. One interesting long trail they’ve done is the relatively unknown Pacific Northwest Trail. Now they hike large sections of the CT each and every summer.

It’s a shame to meet them here on this day, because they’re supposed to be full of great stories and make great company over a campfire.

Instead it’s the short conversation that’s typical of meeting backpackers. After a few comments of how there used to be a lot of neat old stuff in this cabin, I’m ushered on ahead.

“You should go on ahead, you’re probably faster than us.”

I’d like to move on closer to Silverton, after all.

The path hugs a wall that shows evidence of mining and dynamite.

Elk Creek goes into the trees, and a high cascading waterfall pours from the worlds above. I can’t help but think of this as a big slice cut from the Sierras, morphed as Colorado-style.

Relaxing on a rock along the rushing stream I meet Potter and Poy, Potter that I met in Salida. We lounge in the sun and go over everthying that’s transpired since then – shared weather and places and experiences and comings and goings of other hikers.

Eventually I pack up and continue down the trail, with the notion that that was our last meeting.

After a few miles along the creek and through the woods, the trail touches this photogenic pond, with its views of Arrow and Vestal Peak.

The valley grows green, warm, and humming with birds and life. The transition from high cold to low Spring is beautiful, and a favorite nuance of hiking. Always I’ll remember my first experience of this, ten years ago on the Appalachian Trail, descending from the cold brown hills of Georgia and North Carolina, down to the first signs of green and Spring to the Nahantahala River. I imagined elves and Rivendell.

I see more backpackers as I get lower, including two large groups with young teens. All are fresh on the first day of their trips, trudging up into the mountains. All have the same question for me – how far have you come from this place or that, how long will it take us to get there.

I have a question. I wonder how much walking it takes to realize that it’s not about “getting there” at all. Everywhere people ask how far is it to the top of the hill, how long.

You get there when you get there, and then there is somewhere else.

How about here? I like here.

Well… sometimes “here” is where it’s raining and cold and I’m hungry and my foot hurts, and “there” is where it’s warm with a roof and food and beer… but even then I don’t ask everyone how far it is to to the top of the silly hill.

At the bottom of the descent lies the Animas River and the famous Durango to Silverton railroad. The low gorge at 9,000 feet is vacant and peaceful, with a few inviting campsites with fire rings along the water.

I take a well deserved rest after the knee-busting way down, choosing a convenient “sitting rock” at a campsite. I savor a final rationed snack, now with only a dinner to get me the five miles to Silverton. Not too bad, but I’ve starved myself all day long.

It’s only mid-afternoon, but I’ve put in almost twenty miles and consider staying at this site. Potter and Poy will probably stop here, and maybe the veteran couple with their wonderful stories.

But the gorge is already in the shadow at this hour, empty and chilly. I’d like to avoid spending the night in Silverton – I’ve spent a night in virtually every possible trail town so far, even though funds shouldn’t allow it. I’d like to pass through Silverton in a day, and that means spending the night as close to town as possible. I leave the campsite and go on.

The approach to town does a cruel thing here. A general rule in distance backpacking is that it’s always a nice steady descent to town. Not here.

From the Animas River, I must go up almost two thousand feet over the course of five miles to get to the road that goes to Silverton. Cruel.

The climb from the river isn’t so bad after all, and I feel good. The trail tops out in an open meadow, and I find a great place to camp at the end of it. It overlooks this meadow along the clear-running Molas Creek, and turns up just in time before drawing in too close to Highway 550, and the public campground near the pass.

There’s plenty of daylight to set up camp, cook dinner, and relax in the fading sun.

It’s a serene evening of solo camping, with the deliberate rhythm and sense of home that sets in after a time on the trail.

Yesterday’s high altitude march through the wind and hail has me feeling drained this morning. It’s a clear, bright morning in camp, and I linger for much of it, thawing my bones.

I see the figures of two hikers on the trail high above. They’re too far for any distinguishable features, but the pace and mannerisms tell me that it must be Ole and Meadow Bruiser. They may not even see me, way down at the bottom of this valley.

This is the sight that greets me once I finally pack and trudge up the steep slope to the trail. The path follows this valley for three miles up and over an unnamed pass.

It’s a beautiful day.

The far side of the pass takes on a mild, gradual descent toward Cataract Lake.

It occurs to me that this would be a nice place to spend a night, but no regrets.

Beyond this small lake there’s a low point and a creek before beginning the next ascent. Here I take a rest for a snack and meet two backpackers going in the opposite direction, two young men.

“How far are we from Cataract Lake?”

“Oh, it’s right around the corner, no more than a half mile.”

“What’s it like that way, is the trail tough?” This is always a tricky one to answer.

“Well it stays high, but it’s still up and down. How about coming from that way?”

“Same thing, up and down.”

The mountain air is crisp and cool for perfect hiking weather. The day is blissfully peaceful… I follow the winding path this way and that, through the earth’s curvature in a sort of trance.

The trail reaches a high point, rounds a bend with a new view, and I’m again struck by the area’s raw beauty. Around each corner there’s just more of the same, these tundra basins flanked by gently curving ridges, morphing into scree slopes crowned with rocky outcroppings.

These mountains don’t vertically challenge the heavens so much as they’re just big and full of mass, agreeable with my first impression of the Colorado Rockies. What I didn’t expect is the sweeping unbroken leagues of distance among these highlands themselves, on a deceptively large scale.

It’s like I say about The Grand Canyon. Just looking at it, you can’t perceive the great big world down there. The same holds true where I walk now, there’s a great big world up here.

After contouring along a ridge for some time, here the trail takes off across another basin. It follows this pattern today with a sort of soothing rythm.

The opposite ridge looks relatively close at hand, but this is an illusion.

Cairns of this size may seem unnecessary to some, but I think they’re fitting for the large landscape. More importantly, they can save lives in the fog, snow, and darkness.

I see a bright orange tent away in the distance, standing out in this colorful valley, lit up in the evening light. My first impression is “Wow, what an amazing campsite.”

It’s relatively early, and I have time and energy to put in a few more miles.

There’s two people mingling in the vicinity of the tent, presumably going about their nightly camp chores. I keep stride on the trail to continue on past their site, and Carol and I recognize each other at the same instant.

“Is that Duct Tape?”

It’s Carol and Richard, who I first met in Leadville, and then at Twin Lakes, and then in Salida, never actually seeing each other on the trail itself… until now. I’m invited to camp with them, and I mull it over for about 30 seconds before accepting.

a snippet of our view at dinner

We sit in the grass and cook our dinners together, catching up on all the news of the trail, all that’s passed since Salida. They skipped Creede and went into Lake City. All our mutual friends are doing well, and it seems most everybody but me holed up and stayed put through yesterday’s foul weather. The scenery was great, but the elevation, exposure, and primarily the wind took their toll, as evidenced by my late start today and short mileage.

Closing in on the end of our trips, we’re beginning to count the days. We exchange contact information with an air that this is the last we’ll see of each other until the end. Instead of following the Continental Divide Trail to Pagosa Springs as originally planned, they’re reorganizing logistics and heading for Durango.

For once it’s going to be a clear, relatively mild night… bringing with it a sense of ease and relaxation.

It’s not long after sunset when the cold sends us diving for our sleeping bags with goodnights, goodbyes, and a flurry of zippers.

My tent gets pummeled by rain and hail throughout the morning, as I drift in and out of sleep. The weather is as good of an excuse as ever, but it’s easy to forget how lazy I can be on a long distance hike. I’m afraid to calculate how many hours I sleep every night, because it’s probably about ten. To me it’s all part of the allure of a solo trip like this – the freedom to do most anything – and that includes sleeping as late as I please.

One of those seemingly insignificant memories that sticks with me happened when I was nineteen years old, and an aspiring Appalachian Trail thru-hiker. It was on a practice hike (Actually my second backpacking trip ever, and my first solo trip). I met two southbound thru-hikers that were only a few years older than myself at the time, so naturally they were something akin to rock stars to me. The thing I never forget is that they set their alarms at 5am every morning to begin their day of hiking – that was their life.

The storms come in waves throughout the night and into the morning. When the next line of precipitation doesn’t show up with its periodic regularity, it draws me out of the tent and soon I’m breaking camp.

Jarosa Mesa in the late morning

I climb up to the mesa and join the Colorado Trail. Clouds and threatening weather are still all about, but if there’s a time to begin the day’s hike, it’s now.

Peaks to the west come into view as I cross beyond Antenna Summit.

Yes, that’s fresh that was not there yesterday.

Yes, this is August.

It’s again very windy in the highlands, and the weather will do strange things today.

When I say “strange things…” what that really means is that once every hour or two, a dark cloud will roll over the hillside and blow horizontal hail in my face for about fifteen minutes. All the pictures seen here are taken during the relatively mild interludes.

The trail looks like this for much of the way to Coney Summit – rounded grasslands that drop off abruptly into talus slopes. These are not dramatic peaks so much as it feels like a highland wonderland – the “balds” of the southern Appalachians on steroids.

I mention Coney Summit because it’s the most significant feature through this segment of the trail, the official highest point on the Colorado Trail at 13,271 feet. It’s a moot point after doing a few fourteeners. What strikes me as more significant, especially in this weather, is that the trail will not dip below 12,000 feet for over 30 continuous miles, not even once.

The trail appears mildly graded through here, but transforms into steep, tight, rocky switchbacks over the high points, like above and to the left. It’s in these places with altitude and strong winds that the term “sucking wind” takes on a new significance.

It’s after a brief wall of rain and hail that I meet a pair of mountain bikers descending a high steep set of switchbacks, as though pursued by the devil himself. It’s been only me and the marmots in this strange land, and I’m mildly shocked to see people with wheels in this high world. They come just after the appearance of a momentary rainbow, and our short conversation not so specifically touches upon the joy of the wildness in the experience of this particular place and time.

This trip has nourished a greater respect for mountain bikers out of me. The official stance on riding a bike through this section as stated in the Data Book is “Segment involves terrain challenging to bicyclists and a detour is recommended, but not required.” Walking over the terrain firsthand, it seems as though this translates into “It’s legal, but hey, good luck pal.”

I find that the best way to deal with sideways hail blowing in your face is to scream at it.

The images above and below are immediately prior to one of those onslaughts of hail. Of all the weather of the day, this wave has me concerned the most because it lasts the longest, with no sign of slowing down as I close in on the Coney Summit high point. It blows cold directly in my face, slowing me down. Part of the concern stems from the need to wear almost all my layers, and the inherent concern of getting all the clothes I’m carrying wet. August.

The nasty cloud doesn’t last as long as I’d feared. This photo looks back at it, some time later.

I’m singing like a madman over Coney Summit. I power into the wind and all creation, hiking faster and unnecessarily toward my physical limits, as though to challenge the world and all existence. Or maybe just myself, as no one is around to hear or see anything anyway, whoooooo! It’s one of the moments after enough time on the trails where all escapes me but myself and the great big wild surroundings. Hello endorphins.

Beams of evening light illuminate even more passing torrents of precipitation, and strangely nothing could be more pleasing to the eye. Bring it, more of it!

It comes at the time of a 1,000 ft descent to the Carson Saddle.

Crossing this saddle, I leave the grassy ridge of Coney Summit, pass the jeep roads and mining ruins of an obvious travel corridor, and enter the proverbial gate of a steadily ascending gulch.

“Gulch” is too harsh a word for a place as beautiful at this. I’d prefer the term “river valley,” but a river valley requires a river and I suppose this is only a stream.

Daylight is rapidly expiring, and I take a course of action that leads to me stomping off the trail, and below it to the bottom of this valley in search of a campsite. I find a suitable place among the bushes and brambles to call home for the night, once again cooking dinner in the cold and dark. I finish the last bites just in time before more raindrops fall.

My alarm wakes me in the motel room, about an hour before the shuttle driver is scheduled to pick me up for a ride up the mountain to the CT. I’ve forgotten her name, so Mary will have to do.

I packed my bag last night, so I simply put on my hiking clothes and walk across the street to a cafe that serves breakfast and lunch. I’m in the door less than ten minutes after it was unlocked at seven, and I’m the third guest of the day. It appears to be a family operation – my server is a young teen, and the lone cook is a woman that I assume only to be his mother. He gets a big tip.

Classic rock tunes play on the radio that put a smile on my face. I get the typical two full plates of breakfast with loads of coffee – the best way to start a day of hiking.

Outside the front door of my motel room, I sit and wait for Mary in the crisp early morning mountain air. I make small talk with two guys packing up their motorcycles – so many people on motorcycle tours in Colorado in the summertime.

For some reason I expect the shuttle driver to be a yuppified, grizzled Colorado woman that hikes the trails, skis the slopes, and kayaks the rivers like a character out of a tv advertisement, driving a Jeep or Forerunner or Landrover. Who I meet is a middle aged single mom having a tough time with medical problems that does not hike, in something akin to a two wheel drive minivan. She’s exceedingly nice and normal, and just making some part time cash giving hikers a ride up the mountain.

Creede is great because it’s not “Colorado.” Creede is real. It’s a trail town, plain and simple, like the corners of the hollows of the Appalachians.

I’m so grateful for the ride. The walk to town was tedious enough the first time, downhill. Taking over half a day to do it again in the uphill direction would be something like unbearable.

It’s a rough, tricky ride for any vehicle, but Mary gets her car all the way up to the end of the road at the trailhead. She tells me about other hikers that she’s met, and the local details of Creede. She tells me that the Forest Service doesn’t improve this road, in an effort to intentionally make the trail less accessible. Makes sense to me.

I set foot on the trail amid an unsavory, biting wind with light passing rains. Swift clouds crown San Luis Pass, just as beautiful as I’d left it.

San Luis Peak rises into view as I climb from the pass. The world is nothing but a roaring wind in my ears, sailing clouds, and a beautiful landscape.

So this is The Colorado Trail.

I step over a ridge, and once again look west to a horizon that I’ve never seen before. Hiking.

This sheer wall is hundreds of feet high, and ten times more dramatic in person.

In this area there’s a single unattended backpack, leaning against a tree trunk. It could easily be someone gone on a day hike, or for a simple nature’s call, but something about the scene strikes me as a bit off. My backpacker’s sixth sense says something’s amiss, but the only thing to do is continue about my glorious business.

Such glorious business at this moment consists of a Snickers-with-peanut-butter-break at a rock pile near Mineral Creek. The chirps of the pica keep me company. No need to call them and say “Let’s do lunch on Sunday,” they know where and when to meet.

I turn a corner through some trees and instantly recognize the tarptent of Ole and Meadow Bruiser… Ole and Meadow Bruiser who I met some 25 days and 350 miles ago. It’s a great reunion since we last saw each other outside Salida. They’re huddled in their sleeping bags, reading a book. The weather truly must appear nasty from within a shelter, with the howling wind and passing rains. They ask what it’s like, and I say that it’s not so bad and appears to be clearing with the fast-moving clouds.

I sit in the grass facing them, and it’s one of those conversations without pause, where it seems as though each person has so many things to say that they’re just waiting for their chance to talk, forced to let items slide as the topics move ahead. I hardly notice when they begin breaking camp, and don’t realize they’re packing until their packs are virtually on their backs.

Ole keeps the conversation going as we walk, despite the wind and uphill grade. We reach the crest of a ridge where the gusts are especially forceful, invigorating, and fun… full of life. The views are inspiring, and naturally we pause at this place to take it all in.

After a moment, Meadow Bruiser announces “I can’t take this anymore! [the wind]” and launches an assault on the trail ahead.

Ole stays behind for a few minutes, playing with his camera with me. It’s nearly impossible to hold a steady camera.

Ole soon chases after her, and I choose to linger for a few moments longer.

It’s because I linger that I won’t catch them for the rest of the day, though they’ll be visible ahead over the open terrain for the next few hours. They’re fast hikers.

The trail winds its way toward a wide flat landmass that can only be The Snow Mesa – a mammoth, far-reaching plain that sits soundly at an unassuming 12,000 feet above the sea.

The air really whips through this notch in the ridge.

“It’s windy!”

I see Ole and Meadow Bruiser in the distance, and watch as a solo figure on horseback approaches them. Their silhouettes appear to have a five minute conversation, before parting ways like ants before me. Can you spot them in the image below?

Hearing a strange far-off noise, I soon come within view of a huge herd of sheep!

The figure on horseback now approaches me, with a leashed dog at his side.

“That’s a lot of sheep!” I call out in greeting.

“Bout fifteen hundred head!” is the reply.

And there in front of me is the most genuine cowboy that I’ve ever seen.

I’ve forgotten his name, so let’s call him Blondie.

Blondie lives up here, in a canvas tent alone in the mountains through the summer. His season doesn’t end until late September, with the simple duty of watching over all these sheep.

I get the impression that speaking with passing hikers is a highlight of Blondie’s existence. He’s also a little worse for wear, inquiring of all travelers if they happen to be in possession of a precious substance… nicotine withdrawal. You see, Blondie’s boss keeps forgetting to bring up any chewing tobacco with the regular supplies. How dare he deprive a cowboy of his quintessential muddy spits. Blondie seems young, maybe 20-24 years old.

I learn of all the area’s coming and goings, and all that qualifies as news on The Snow Mesa. The unattended backpack from this morning belongs to a lone old man that had to be rescued, presumably for altitude sickness. A rescuer led him out of the mountains, and he left his pack behind. Carol and Richard and Potter are still not far ahead, as well as some others I don’t recognize by description.

And then there was a lone young man this morning, hiking along at a fast clip. “He was really moving.”

This could be none other then Gil, the Israeli I met in Salida, off on his way to finish the Continental Divide Trail… not to be met again.

“I’ve been a cowboy all my life.”

The Snow Mesa stretches into the late afternoon.

Here it comes to an end, commencing the descent to Spring Creek Pass.

The pass is cut with a paved state highway, CO 149. At the roadside there’s an informative plaque about the CT and CDT.

I don’t see or hear a single vehicle on the highway.

Ascending along jeep roads through the woods, I catch Ole and Meadow Bruiser as they’re setting up camp. We have a brief conversation about the cowboy and the day and the water and weather.

“It was a fun day,” I remark. Wind can be fun, like when it’s in your face on a roller-coaster or a motorcycle.

It would be nice to stay with the company of Ole and Meadow Bruiser, but I choose to press on into the evening to find a campsite with water, maybe another half mile or so.

“See you in the morning.”

The trail just keeps pulling me forward, and I keep going and going for almost five more miles. It brings me over Jarosa Mesa in a gathering bitter cold, unsettling darkness. Foul weather appears imminent, with a southern wind and flashes of lightning from that direction.

Deep night has fallen when I dive off the Colorado Trail north down a drainage, in search of treeline, water, and a campsite. I find all three, and cook dinner by headlamp, watching the southern stars vanish behind a growing shadow. Heavy rain, hail, and striking crashes of lightning are upon me throughout the night.

It’s a beautiful morning at San Luis Pass.

I pack up camp, and descend to the trailhead at the dirt road that leads to Creede.

There’s absolutely zero traffic on the road this early in the morning, and the only sound that permeates my existence for about a full hour is the faint hiss of an active mining operation. It sounds like a distant jet plane in the sky.

Road-walking is always different than being on a trail. Not only does this distance not “count” toward the official CT and my final destination of Durango, but on the road the path is laid out before you, eliminating the small discoveries of what’s around the bends of a trail.

Even with today’s immediately sweet goal of town, The road still seems to wind down steeply forever, taking a toll on my body with the constant descent.

Eventually there’s a handful of sporadic vehicles, but they’re all going in the opposite direction. Finally a car passes that’s going my way, but by then I’m already so close to town that I don’t bother trying to bum a ride.

Things become more interesting as I get closer to Creede. There’s a major silver mining history in the area, and quite a few of the old head frames and structures have been preserved. The road follows a rushing stream through a narrow canyon that’s apparently been blasted out with dynamite.

On the outskirts of town I pass a mining museum that’s actually located underground, in what I assume to be an old mine. There’s also a firehouse blasted out of the solid rock. These places pique my curiosity, but I don’t stop to investigate them – the enchanting luxuries of civilization beckon. All said and done, it takes me three hours to walk the ten miles from San Luis Pass to Creede. I set foot in town at about 10am.

The downtown area looks quaint and interesting, but I march through it in order to get to Bruce’s Snowshoe Lodge on the outskirts, to secure lodging before doing anything else. Well, that’s not entirely true… I can’t walk past the outfitter store before buying a quick fuel canister, but I manage to walk by an outdoor hamburger stand without stopping, even as the cook sees me and calls out “Come on over and eat!” like a guy at a town fair.

I’m lucky to secure the last available room at the lodge, considering that it’s not even noon yet. The room has a kitchenette. Score.

Brilliant pictures of moose and other wildlife adorn the walls, backing up my sighting of a few of them in the mountains yesterday.

The next few hours consist of the typical errands, like laundry and a shower. I contact a local woman to arrange a shuttle back up to San Luis Pass tomorrow.

The main excursion of the afternoon is the walk to the local market for my resupply. I somehow manage to spend over sixty dollars on four days worth of food, plus food for the remainder of the day. Food for the remainder of the day equals two boxes of Hot Pockets, a carton of orange juice, a pound of spaghetti, a large jar of Ragu, and a package of fresh chicken breast.

Creede is interesting, but the kitchenette in my room is paramount. The most notable thing about Creede seems to be a live theater with real honest to goodness acting, with shows every night throughout the summer. I don’t know how they can support such a thing here in the middle of nowhere.

I poke my nose in a neat ice cream shop housed in a converted old firehouse, and walk the sidewalk past an outdoor cafe. They have a girl with a guitar on the street corner, singing a Sheryl Crow song.

But as I said, the relaxation of a room trumps all – this is healing time. I don’t even eat “out” for a single meal today. I cook and eat my purchased food, call home, and get sucked into a marathon of Doctor House on the USA Network. It’s great.

Today it occurs to me to take a picture of my swollen foot. This is what I’ve been walking on for hundreds of miles.

Thank goodness for Ibuprofen.