Trail magic and cops
Once we finally got our butts into gear, we pushed onwards. An exciting day as we were going over Greys peak at 14,200 feet, and the tallest point on the CDT. Although, we honestly were getting a bit of a late start. With some added miles on the road from where we were able to get to after a short hitch from the Summit Shuttle, we had quite a day ahead of us.
We climbed and climbed and eventually made our way to Mt. Edward’s, just below 14k feet, and right before Greys. Just as we rounded the top of Edward’s it started to hail. Then rain. Then large thunder clouds were off in the distance making their way over. Lightning is dangerous in general. But when you’re standing on over 14k feet on a bare mountain, you’re the tallest thing around, and lightning strikes are common.
As the rain began again, we scrambled a bit across the spine and then saw a crazy scramble up a knifes edge. No trail, just straight up climbing. We sat there for a moment to wait for the rain to pass, and as we looked over our shoulder, a peak only a couple miles away got zapped by lightning. Not willing to risk the lighting, now wet rocks up the spine, and just overall a sketchy trail, I decided we would turn back. As we turned back, a helicopter flew just over the pass. Aviation excites me, so I instantly threw my metal hiking poles in the air to wave. Very quickly I felt a little staticy feeing and that ‘zzzt’ noice of electricity. Very quickly threw my hands down... not sure if that was really potential lighting, buuuut I didn’t really want to find out.
I despise back tracking. When I’m in the city, if I have to go back from where I came for whatever reason, I go a different route. It’s very much true on the trail as well. So we found another side route that would bring us down to the main highway where we could meet back up with the trail.
To our surprise, the road leading to the 13,000+ foot Argentine Pass was quite busy. As we descended down the road, a fella named Randy was kind enough to give us a ride in his brand spanking new Chevy Colorado ZR2 (major off road capabilities). It was a very comfortable ride, even on the crazy terrain. Especially when it started raining a bit again.
Our plan was to get back to the trail, but even the drive down took us until 6pm to complete. As we finished the dirt road, Randy had a last min change of plans, and the road ended in a town, so we decided to thank him with a beer and some pizza. Now quite late, we hopped in a hotel to spend the night in town once again. Oops!
With another slow start to the morning, we went off to grab some breakfast. Starting chatting with a nice fella from Kenya who was spending the summer working at parks and Rec in Colorado. When it came time to pay for breakfast, he had already taken care of it! Sadly, he left a little before us, so while we said bye on his way out, we weren’t able to properly thank him.
After that bit of trail magic, we mozied on to the edge of town where we were going to hitch to the trail. But in a worst case, was also across the street from a free bus that would get us part of the way. We stood there for a while, then a cop showed up. Someone had called them to complain! Silliness. We weren’t in front of anything or anyone’s house. Just some cranky person probably. But it was alright, as the bus was scheduled to be there in 15 mins anyway.
Then we got another hitch up to the pass in the back of another pickup. It was a great smooth, beautiful ride. Colorado is gorgeous, especially sitting in the back of a pickup truck.
We ended up doing about 9 miles with our late start, and found a nice campsite next to a raging river. We’ve got three more days of hiking and then Nathan will head to Denver to make his way home.
