After returning him from Glitchcon in Arkansas and When Words Collide in Calgary, I had about a week free before I was due to head out to Toronto for the launch of CLOCKWORK ANGELS: The Novel and FanExpo (followed by DragonCon a week after).  I needed to get away from the crowds and recharge my creative batteries—and finish up my last few chapters in MENTATS OF DUNE.

Time to get away, head out into the mountains, and hike out in the wilderness—a big one, another 18 miles on the Colorado Trail, Segment 22. My brother-in-law Tim and I reserved a quaint hotel room in the mountain town of Lake City, and prepared to hike one of the most rugged and most spectacular portions of the trail.  Lake City is a real old-west town, with saloons, mining ruins, historical markers. I got there a few hours before Tim and walked around the town, to a beautiful little trail around a lake. (And, in a town park, I saw a picnic table under a big oak tree; the tree had a sign identifying “Wi-Fi HotSpot Here.”

We staged Tim’s car at Spring Creek Pass the night before, and  next morning, Tim and I got up at 5:30 and headed out in my Ford Expedition up a very rugged and rough 4WD road (the guidebook calls it “not a road for the squeamish”…and it wasn’t).  This was a tough road, taking more than an hour to go a few miles up to a high saddle and a parking area.  It was steep, rocky, and we were ready to stretch our legs and let the tension ease as we headed out on the trail.

The mountain terrain was spectacular, one of the best segments of the Colorado Trail so far.  We trudged off under cloudy skies, which eventually turned to sprinkles, and later in the day to an all-out downpour. But it was still beautiful, and on the hike I dictated four new chapters in MENTATS OF DUNE. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

We were soaked in the continuing downpour when we finally descended to Spring Creek Pass where Tim’s car was parked. Those were a long 18 miles, but by this time of the hiking season, our legs were in good shape, and we looked forward to getting back to a warm shower, nice dinner (and our strategically placed growler of microbrew beer).  We had planned to drive up to the high saddle where I’d left my car, but that road (not for the squeamish) was bad enough when dry, and we didn’t dare try it in the rain and mud, so we had to leave my car up there at 12,500 ft overnight and hope the road was dry by next morning. We needed to get home, Tim for a job, and me because I was due to fly out to Toronto for FanExpo the following day.

We got up and decided the road would be dry enough, so we set out in Tim’s car to head up the road. Now it was bright and sunny, and as we toiled up to the high saddle, around old mining ruins, we found my car sitting all by itself in a high, spectacular saddle. We started our engines and caravanned down. Tim headed straight home, but I stopped for an extra cup of coffee.

Lake City is an isolated small town, and about sixty miles farther on there’s the small city of Gunnison (where I had taught at Writing the Rockies only a month earlier). I stopped to fill up with gas, headed out to the wide open landscape of Colorado.  20 miles away, not quite in the middle of nowhere, my engine warning lights went on, power dropped dramatically, and my alarms told me to service the engine immediately.  There was no city for more than a hundred miles ahead of me, so I turned around and limped back toward Gunnison, hoping I could get to a service station.

I made it 13 miles before the engine gave up for good, and I pulled to the side of the road, where I got a faint cell-phone signal. I called AAA and they dispatched a tow truck. While I was waiting there at the side of the road, my phone rang…and it was the publicist from ECW saying that a reporter from Canada’s largest newspaper, The Globe & Mail, wanted to interview me…so I did part of the interview there in a broken-down car on the side of the road, and finished the rest of it from the office of the car-repair shop after the tow truck had delivered my car.  (It’s my job!)

Unfortunately, the car repair shop couldn’t even look at the car until the next morning; we called every single other repair shop in town and nobody could get to it sooner. But I couldn’t stay there and wait, because I had to fly to Toronto.  So, I had no choice but to rent a car and drive home ($230 for one day!) But I did make it to FanExpo, as promised.

(Turns out that I had nicked a coolant line on that not-for-the-squeamish road and all the coolant had leaked out by the time I got past Gunnison. The repair wasn’t terribly expensive, but I had to arrange for Tim to go back to fetch the car, a 4-hr drive each way.)

But that was all part of the adventure, and we had a marvelous trip. We have only five segments left to complete the entire trail, and I can’t wait to do the next one.