What a great hike!  My brother-in-law Tim and I finished another section of the Colorado Trail yesterday, some of the most beautiful scenery we have seen in Colorado so far (and we’ve seen a lot of Colorado).  After that hike, we’ve now completed 380 miles (of 485) on the “CT.”

We stayed in the small, quaint, and beautiful mining town of Creede—very out-of-the-way, rustic, at the end of a box canyon and filled with mining ruins.  We had hoped to come out earlier in the summer, but a Hollywood movie production team had descended upon the town for the filming of THE LONE RANGER (with Johnny Depp as Tonto)—and the 700-member crew had overwhelmed every possible room within an hour’s drive.  The crew is gone, now, and we were able to get a room so we could stage our two cars at opposite ends of the trail segment, one at a picnic area on 11,000-ft Spring Creek Pass on the highway (that was the easy one), and the other up a 10-mile 4WD mining road, which itself ends a mile-and-a-half before the actual Colorado Trail.

Downtown Creede

Next morning, we got up, grabbed a quick breakfast at the lodge, then drove (50 minutes for 10 miles) up to the rough road’s end, parked the car, and headed up the connector trail to San Luis Pass (11,944 ft) and the Colorado Trail, the start of our segment, which took us up and over several other mountain passes, descending into creek drainages, then up to another ridge—in all, we gained a cumulative 2500 ft of elevation, and lost a cumulative 3500 ft.  Yes, the legs are well-exercised.

On San Luis Pass, after a mile and a half climb—and that was just the start of the hike!

Toward the end, we crossed a spectacular expanse of Snow Mesa, three miles across the top—it seemed the size of Nebraska!  Then at the edge of the mesa, dropping down steeply on a rocky trail, winding our way back into the forest. I was ahead of Tim, an I entered a clearing to encounter a very large herd of grazing elk, about 70 head.  The bull trumpeted an alarm, and the whole herd rumbled off.

We finally reached Tim’s car, parked on Spring Creek Pass, then drove the 33 miles back to Creede. We were tired, hungry, very much in need of a shower…but first we had to retrieve my car, parked up the mining road…so that was another 50-minute drive up and 50 minute drive back down.  On the way we encountered a young woman and her dog, frantically waving us down. She was a through-hiker, who was making the 20-mile side-trip into Creede to get supplies.  We gave her a ride.

This morning, my muscles are stiff and sore, and I’m ready to head off to Gunnison, where I’ll be teaching at the Western State College for their Writing the Rockies program. But I’m already trying to figure out when we can do another trail segment.