Day 87 (July 21, 2021)

1378.4 to 1386.4 (Willow Creek Pass/Colorado Hwy 125) to Rand, CO (17.0 miles)

A big change in plans today.

We got up and were hiking as normal by 6:30 this morning. The big item for today was planned to be our last climb over 12,000 feet on the CDT, so a mileage goal of about 17 miles. The weather forecast called for an increased chance of afternoon thunderstorms.

The morning trail was in good shape; easy to follow, very few blow downs, and not much vertical. It followed down a narrow valley for a good distance and re-entered a burn area from the Troublesome Fire from last fall. Our initial goal was a stream that would be the last water source before the long climb and descent for the day. (Which meant loading up on water to haul up the climb. Yuck. Water is heavy.) We met another CDT hiker at the stream we hadn’t seen before. He had got off trail for a couple of weeks for a friend’s wedding and just got back on at Grand Lake.

As we were filtering water, Just Jim got a message from Feral, who had started after us from Grand Lake and had to hike the short section of trail we had completed several days ago. He had been looking at the maps and come up with an idea that would both get us around the fire closure north of Steamboat Springs and cut some distance off; we know we are behind where we need to be. His idea was to hike north on Colorado Highway 125 from Willow Creek Pass. That would turn into Wyoming 230 at the border and lead us to Encampment, Wyoming. From there we would hike up to Battle Pass and rejoin the CDT. This would also save us about 3 days total and get us around the fire.

This was a lot to consider but we had to make the decision shortly; we would be at Willow Creek Pass in less than two miles. Pockets, Just Jim, and I decided to hike a little further to a high point about a mile before the pass to hopefully have some phone coverage to evaluate the plan.

We had coverage at the high point (barely) and gathered to discuss. Pros: Shorter. It is viable/would work. The route others are taking around the fire involves road walking north out of Steamboat Springs anyway. There are some small towns along the road, so resupply would not be a problem. Cons: lots of road walking, all on paved roads. This makes the hiking more painful over the long term, especially on the lower legs. It also means hiking on a narrow road shoulder with high speed traffic. Overall, paved road walking is not fun, and this will be a lot of it. Also, we have no information on water sources since the new route is not on Guthook. Lastly, I had already made plans to meet my wife in Steamboat Springs and this new route doesn’t go there.

We mulled it over. The biggest pro for all of us was that it was shorter while avoiding the fire closure. And we would have to do some road walking anyway due to the fire closure (though less than on our proposed new route.) Regarding water, Pockets and I have another navigation app that shows stream crossings that looks like we would be OK, though not great. And I called my wife. She agreed to come pick us up at the Wyoming border on our new route and haul us back to the already reserved condo in Steamboat Springs. (This is not a short drive! She is a wonderful person and partner!) The final pro was that, as we were discussing this, storm clouds were gathering that threatened the peak we would climb if we stayed on the redline CDT. We voted to take the new route and messaged Feral the news.

Apparently we made the CDT mad with our decision. The next 3/4 mile of trail down to the pass was covered in blowdowns. I am not kidding. Oddly, the blowdowns were from both sides of the trail onto the trail which was mostly on top of a rocky spine. At one point we had to get off trail lower on the slope and traverse a burned steep area to get around a particularly bad area. Sorry CDT.

We reached the pass and turned north on the road. The shoulder was unfortunately very narrow. The good news was there wasn’t very much traffic. We found out later that the Highway was closed south of us due to a landslide from a burned area.

Since we were going downhill and there wasn’t much traffic, the hiking went well. We were in a forested area at first but the valley opened wide quickly to more open, ranch country. We saw some dirt bikes on roads off to the side occasionally, and crossed several streams. We decided to try to camp in the vicinity of a small town called Rand on the maps. We couldn’t find much about it online, so hopes were lowered to find town food.

We saw our largest moose to date several miles outside town in some wet ranch land. Cool.

Rand is a very small town. Just a couple of houses, a very small post office, and a gift store. The gift store is actually quite nice, but for food it only had a little area of snacks. We all got a cherry cream soda, so chips and some cookies. We got briefly excited when the store owner mentioned a restaurant, but it is only open on Fridays and Saturdays (and maybe Thursdays) so...

But, the restaurant owner also allows camping for a fee in his yard. However, he was apparently gone on business/resupply/fishing/ etc so no camping there. (We had time to hike further but decided to stay here both to keep a schedule to reach the Wyoming border for my wife and to allow Feral to catch us tomorrow.) Where to camp? Feral and Pockets went to scope out possible sites while I guarded our packs outside the now closed gift shop. After a long while they came back with grins on their faces. We put on our packs and I followed them. See if you can guess where we slept from the pictures....

(Also see the pictures for the storm that ended up on the peak we had originally planned to climb that day.)