Colorado Trail 2017: Cottonwood Pass to Monarch Pass (Collegiate West) July 28 to August 1, 2017

Buena Vista sunset

Mountain goats

Soggy campsite

Wet pants, a daily occurance

Ancient bristlecone pine

Pre-historic hunting walls used by Native Americans as early as 3,000 BC to AD 1800.

Monarch Pass

One hiker Moosie and I met in Silverton, CO compared the trail to an ex-lover: "When you get home, eventually all the pain and suffering disappears and all you remember is the good times," she said.
As I sit here on the couch drinking coffee, warm, dry and sheltered, the pain and suffering already is a distant memory.

When Moosie and I were getting ready to leave Buena Vista on July 28th, we had just ordered our breakfast at a local carry out place and were sitting on picnic benches next to an older couple. We struck up a quick conversation. The older gentleman commented, "I envy you guys, but I don't envy you." He didn't elaborate on the meaning behind that comment, but it rung through my ears the rest of the hike. I think that comment sums up thru hiking for me. Although we get to witness some extraordinary scenery around America, there is a price to be paid. The highs are high, and the lows are low.

Moosie and I hitched a ride up to Cottonwood Pass from Buena Vista and were picked up by a family who obviously were struggling to make ends meet. They refused to drop us off anywhere but the top of the mountain, and drove us the whole 20 miles to the pass. The trail always puts on full display the kindness and generosity of strangers from all walks of life. Once Moosie and I reached the top, another woman approached us and had recently purchased a two night stay at the hostel in Salida, which happened to be our next destination in four days. She could not use her reservation, so she gave it to us instead. Trail magic.

Soon, storms descended on Cottonwood Pass and the handful of tourists that were gathered there, jumped into their cars and drove down the mountain. Moosie and I had to hike up into the mountains, and soon had to make decisions again to avoid lightning. This once again was the theme for the rest of the day as the trail remained above tree line. That night, it really rained hard. I woke up in the middle of the night and it seemed as though my tent had holes in it. Drops of water began splashing all over my exposed face and all over my sleeping bag and gear. This seemed like a worse case scenario. Cold, wet, and dark, and there was nothing I could do to stop the water from splashing in the tent. At one point, I actually opened my umbrella inside my tent to try and keep my upper body and upper portion of my sleeping bag dry. Since I was using a new tent, I did not know its limitations or its quirks and this event shattered my confidence in it, and really stressed me out for a time. (This event occurred a couple more times during the hike. Eventually, I was able to figure out that it wasn't rain splashing through my tent. It was actually the condensation from inside my tent that was splashing down on me once the rain fell hard enough on the outside. I had a pack towel I used to wipe down the inside of my tent on rainy nights, which seemed to relieve the problem, and my confidence in the tent was restored.)

Part of the stress was the unknown. Moosie and I did not know how long it was going to rain and the weather in the mountains seemed to do its own thing. We had a limited amount of food and a fixed amount of miles to hike to the next town. All of our gear was wet, and the rain continued falling hard until mid morning. There was stress to pack up in the rain and risk getting all of our gear even more saturated, or wait until it stopped. Despite the stress, I believe Moosie and I made pretty good decisions throughout the hike, with luck too. I was amazed how many times we grabbed a short window of decent weather to either pack up, dry gear out, hike over a pass, or set up camp, and have it work out to our benefit.

That being said, this was a tough section for us. One night, we had our latest hiking day of the trip. We could not find camping to save our lives and ended up setting up camp on a sloping knob around 10:30pm. Sometimes you end up having to night hike, even when you don't want to.

Highlights of this section were the wildlife sightings and the beautiful mountain vistas, particularly before Monarch Pass. We saw a herd of mountain goats on a misty mountainside, lots of picas, marmots, a weasel, and high alpine bird. The morning we reached Monarch Pass, we woke up to a blue bird morning and had a glorious morning hike. We passed an ancient stone wall used by Native Americans to hunt elk. Those people were truly bad ass mountain men and women. We reached Monarch Pass on August 1, a place of memories. This spot included some poignant times on the CDT when I was hiking with Manparty, Lush, and Captain back in 2013. It was also the spot where the hose in my car popped off when I was driving back home from California in 2015 and leaked anti freeze all over the parking lot, thinking I was going to have to get towed off the mountain. Now Moosie and I were hitching down to Salida to regroup and resupply for a couple days at the hostel, thanks to the generosity of the stranger we met on Cottonwood Pass four days earlier.

Moosie and I were also contemplating making a drastic change to our hiking plans. We had a couple days to figure it out...