Day 82 (July 16, 2021)

1287.4 (Berthoud Pass) to a point abeam 1298.4 (on road to Loch Lomand)(11.0 miles)

We have found getting breakfast in a Colorado tourist town is not easy. The only places open nearby before about 9:00 was McDonalds and a local coffee shop. (Apparently the tourist crowd sleeps in late.) I opted for the coffee shop.

We used the free bus system to get to the grocery store for resupply. Though it is only 65 trail miles to Grand lake, we have heard that the middle part of this next segment goes slower, so we are planning on 4.5 days of food.

After a final calorie input for lunch at McDonald’s we went to the post office; Just Jim was expecting a package that hadn’t arrived yet. Unfortunately it was not there. But he struck up a conversation with a lady also there who offered us a ride back up to Berthoud Pass. She and her family are very active in the outdoors. Yeah for a thumbless hitch and thank you!

Just Jim and I got hiking about 1:30; Feral had hitched out on his own several hour’s earlier. We encountered lots of day hikers hiking various trails available from Berthoud Pass. Rain threatened (have you caught on that is the normal Colorado mountains weather pattern? Afternoon thunderstorms somewhere) but only served to give us shade and a cooling breeze. We have gotten more used to this big climb thing so it went better than expected. We had set a goal of a potential campsite about 10 miles in.

After the initial climb and getting beyond the range of day hikers, the trail stayed up high for a while and we moved quickly. The most annoying thing about today’s trail was the first of two descents. This one was mostly down a very rocky slope. Trail made of rocks like this slow you down because of the various sizes of the rocks, the instability of some rocks, and it is sometimes hard to distinguish the trail from ‘just rocks’. We had got used to doing short sections of trail like this. But this section went on for a long time with a lot of switchbacks. It seemed like it would never end. (Note: this is not to disparage whoever built the trail here. A lot of work went into moving rocks and selecting relatively flat ones to create an almost mosaic tile path.)

After the rain threat diminished, a calmness settled in that was very relaxing. The second big descent towards our planned destination felt good. And the switchbacks down this descent were well done, with lots of rock work for erosion control. Nicely done, trail crews.

We met Feral at our selected destination. He had been reading comments in Guthook about another potential campsite further up the trail and Just Jim had received a text from hikers ahead of us recommending the same spot. We decided to push ahead (about two miles).

This required a bit of a climb, which I was not enthusiastic about. The new spot was an area near an alpine lake with a dirt road leading to it. When we reached the dirt road we realized we had lost track of time (again) and that it was Friday. Several 4-wheel drive vehicles passed us on their way to the same area. Oh no. We worried either we wouldn’t find a spot or it would be a big party. Neither proved true. Though there were a lot of car/truck campers, the area was spread out and we found decent spots. We set up a little later than normal but had a productive 11 miles, not bad for a late start.