Part 2 Salida to Durango.
Salida
Salida hostel is very different from
Leadville hostel. The facilities are more basic. The dormitory was
closely packed with bunks and mixed gender. Hikers used their
sleeping bags in the bunks. It was however every bit as friendly and
helpful but I had one idea only burnt into my brain at this point and
that was PIZZA.
I got checked in, got my laundry on and
headed out with RJ and three other hikers to a pizzeria. It was a
great pizza and I even had some left over to take back for lunch the
next day.
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| The Arkansas river |
I had my first zero day in Salida. A
few of my days had been short but this was the first that I did no
miles on the trail.
Salida is a small town (pop. 5000) on
the Arkansas river and about 7000' above sea level, lower than I had
been for 3 weeks. It is overlooked by Tenderfoot Hill (a mere pimple)
which has a radio mast on top and a large letter S should anyone
forget where they are. Salida has many historically significant
buildings. The river is popular with white water rafters. It has a
Safeway and a petrol station so I could buy the essentials. It also
has a decent outdoor shop, where I got more chlorine tabs, and two
pizzerias.
Next morning we went for breakfast to a
restaurant by the river with a young man who was staying in the
hostel and working at the restaurant. He told us an amazing story
about how his home had been destroyed by forest fire and how the
local community had generously helped him and his family. He was
lucky to be alive. On previous walks particularly in Spain, I had
become hyper conscious of how fast a fire can devour dry woodland. I
could easily relate to how frightening an experience he had.
A Christian youth group were staying at
the hostel. They were combining good works with enjoyable activities
and went white water rafting on the river. I managed to get a sing
song going with my whistle. If that wasn't enough music, in the
evening a band was playing on a bandstand by the river. I went to see
them and get some photographs. However shortly after the playing
started so did the rain and heavily. The band invited the audience
onto the bandstand for shelter and the session turned into a much
more sociable event than it would have been with people spread out on
the grass.
Also in Salida I went to see an
exhibition of photographs by a Belfast photojournalist, Sean Mc
Kernan showing at the community centre.
An interesting thing happened a few
days previously. I met a guy coming the other way who told me he was
photographing hikers on the trail and asked if he could take my
picture. I agreed and later saw the picture on the CTF Facebook page.
The photographer was Dean Krakel who is a Pulitzer prize winning
photographer whose most famous picture is in the Marlboro Country
cigarette advertisement series.
Day 22
I had been told I could get a lift from
the hostel to the trail but it didn't happen. By about 10-00am I got
fed up waiting and walked out of town to hitch a lift. My pack was
now heavier than at any time previously on the trail as I was
carrying about 6 days food to get me to Lake City 100 miles further
along the trail. At least my pack would get lighter each day as I ate
my way through but right now it must have been close to 50 pounds.
Other hikers were travelling a bit more lightly. When one hiker
commented on the weight I was carrying I joked that my insurance
insisted I carry a defibrillator. He believed me.
 |
| East meets West |
It took two lifts to get back to
Monarch Crest. The first was from a woman who told me of her
experience volunteering on the trail gangs that maintain the trail.
She dropped me on the highway at a point where hitching should be
easy. Lots of RVs were using the road and many of these had smaller
vehicles in tow. But I was picked up by a couple who had friends
staying at the hostel and heard about my whistle playing. They were
planning a day walk at Monarch.
When we got to Monarch Crest at 11,100'
we were in the clouds and the day was looking cold wet and miserable.
My helpers decided to turn around and find a lower level walk. I had
all I needed so didn't visit the store which many hikers use for
resupply and even as a maildrop. I was very pleased to be back
walking and nearing the end of the Collegiate West section. I was now
more than half way to Durango, and although I might have thought 'I
have finished the hard bit' there was a lot of wonderful mountain
country, and interesting people, in front of me.
Despite a slow start and a heavy pack
and lousy weather I walked 15 miles that day. I met a solo woman
hiker at the junction with the the Collegiate East route. I stopped
there to mark finishing Collegiate West.
Further on I met three of the hikers
I'd had a pizza with in Salida. They had left Salida the night before
but hadn't made much progress. I passed them here but they soon
overtook me and I didn't see them again.
The skies had cleared by this time so I
wasn't expecting the hail storm when it hit. The track turned into a
river in minutes but I was near Marshall Pass trailhead where there
was some shelter.
There was camping at the trailhead but
the rain cleared and I wanted to carry on. The path was rising but
not steeply though it eventually led to a deeply rutted on forest
track. There I met Bill and Robert, two Coloradoans out for a
weekend hike. Robert was about my age and Bill maybe 10 years older.
I was getting to a point where I
planned to camp just off the track near some water. Bill and Robert
were carrying on. I would have also except my trusty data book was
telling me there was another 7 miles to the next reliable water
supply.
I found the water source near Silver
Creek. I was glad I didn't have to drop right down to the creek
itself and set up camp among a small group of pines. It was nice to
be alone but if a bear had come along I would have invited it into
the tent to keep me warm. Brrrrrr!
 |
| Bill |
Day 23
A wonderful bright sunny morning. Bill
and Robert hadn't actually gone much further the night before and I
must have passed their camp because they caught me up when I stopped
for a break. I walked the rest of the day with them. They were
fascinating company and I learned a lot from them.
Robert was a lawyer who had taken over
a family firm from his late father. He explained to me the system of
'legal aid' (as we call it in Britain) in Colorado. Lawyers have a
lot of other peoples' money sitting in their bank accounts that is
deposited with them for different reasons, maybe house purchase,
maybe security against a lawsuit settlement. The interest on these
deposits is used to fund the defence in criminal cases where the
accused has no means of paying for a defence lawyer. I think they
call it the public defender system.
Bill is a forestry economist and knows
an awful lot about trees. He also knows an awful lot about China. He
is the author of 'China's Forests: Global Lessons from Market
Reforms' and many other texts on forestry. I could have listened to
him for days but that wasn't going to happen.
We stopped at Tank Seven Creek for a
long lunch as tutorial on Chinese politics and then up over the
Sargents Mesa.
We found a campspot near the forest
track. There was no water in the vicinity but we knew we didn't have
far to go the next day to fill up at Baldy Lake.
Day 24
Bill was tired and I needed to move a
bit more quickly. We were all planning to get to Hwy 114 by the end
of the day where Bill and Robert had left a car. I was hoping to get
a bit further. On the map this doesn't look like a difficult section
but it was a long ridge walk with frequent sharp little inclines on a
fairly rough track.
 |
| Robert |
We got to Baldy Lake and walked down
the side trail to the lake to fill up. It was a gorgeous place in a
wide open vista of scree slopes, though Bill started counting leeches
in the water so any thought of a paddle evaporated. Bill was using a Steripen to sterilise water. I had read about them but not seen one
used before and was impressed. He was the only person I met who was
using one. Maybe his scientific training gave him the confidence
needed to believe in them.
When we got back up to the trail I said
my farewells and pushed on. If I had realised what a difficult path
lay ahead I might have stayed with Bill and Robert as I started to
worry they wouldn't be able to get to their car by nightfall. I have
no way of knowing whether they did or not.
The weather was generally fine though a
nasty afternoon thunderstorm caught me on the ridge. Once again I had
the unnerving experience of lightning strikes occurring
simultaneously with the thunder-crack telling me it was to damn close
for comfort.
I made it to the highway and crossed
into segment 18. The path followed the edge of the wood but soon
turned to follow a streambed uphill. I stopped to camp here for the
night having completed 20 miles and more if you count the decent to
Baldy Lake and back. It was a pleasant place to camp, near Lujan
creek, though a bit exposed should the weather turn nasty.
 |
| Camp near Lujan Creek |
DAY 25
In the morning I found myself in the
shade of the rising sun and dragged my tent and sleeping bag to a
better place to dry out. I planned to walk 20 miles to Cochetopa Creek. Much of the route was dry though there were no big uphill
climbs. Through the woods life was fairly abundant and I saw jays and
woodpeckers. I sat for a while and a moth settled on my nose. I let
it sit.
Walking further on I could smell smoke
and became a little anxious. I traced it to an abandoned camp-fire.
This must have been a big fire which was still going at 11-00am. I
doused it as best I could and, nervously, judged it safe to leave.
A few miles further on I came upon two
hikers I had met before. I'd noticed their fondness for large
camp-fires. They were having lunch and I stopped to chat for a while
but soon left them.
As I was approaching high flat ground I
could see a vehicle parked beside 'something'. I was greeted by a man
offering refreshments. This was Apple, the trail angel of trail
angels. He staffs a geodesic dome on the trail offering coffee and
biscuits to all hikers passing through. He keeps a register of names
and dates which I signed but also was able to look at to see who had
passed through recently.
I sat for an hour, talking politics and
other stuff. As I was leaving the two hikers I had met at lunchtime
were arriving. They were a bit uncertain about stopping until I used
the magic words, 'free chocolate'
Apple's dome is supposed to be
lightning proof, being well earthed. He has the dome and a horsebox
which can be used as sleeping accommodation also for passing hikers.
I headed on. During the afternoon I
could see massive storm clouds building to the west. These eventually
turned into storms which I could see and hear in the distance but
which never threatened me. For most of the afternoon I was dry.
I was coming into cattle country. Up to
now I had seen very little live stock. As opposed to hiking in
Britain I rarely saw fences or walked through gates and never saw any
styles. This was open country.
 |
| The bull |
But close to where I planned to camp
heavy rain started to fall. I was at Cochetopa Creek but decided to
shelter until the rain stopped before putting up my tent. It rained
hard for two hours. Eventually I decided to just get my tent up and
as I was doing it the rain cleared. The creek at this point is a fast
flowing stream which I wouldn't be able to cross though I knew I was
going to have to cross it at a point where a bridge had been washed
away.
A lone bull was grazing about 100 yards
from where I camped. I wanted it to maintain that sort of distance.
It rained again during the night. I got up in the dark to pee and
heard flapping in the creek which I feared was the bull slipping in
off the steep muddy bank. I worried that my getting up had spooked it
at a bad moment but I realised later that it was probably beavers I
heard. The bull was still there in the morning.
On the steep slopes on the other side
of the creek I could see paths that I assumed were the regular trails
used my animals to come down to drink.
Day 26
Everything was wet. The cloud was low
and little hope of sunshine to start drying things out. The bull was
now being a bit more attentive and I managed to get a decent portrait
shot. I realised when I took my tent down that I had erected it on
his trail. When the tent was down he immediately headed through the
spot and into another pasture. I was trespassing on his patch, not he
on mine.
 |
| Cochetopa Creek |
The walk up along the creek was
pleasant. The trees became scarce and the vista opened. I met a woman
hiker coming the other way. She had just crossed the creek where once
a bridge had been and reassured me it wouldn't be to difficult. She
was also full of praise for Lake City and told me if I got to the
trailhead at Spring Creek Pass by 12-00am I could catch a free
shuttle into Lake City. That was still a couple of days away.
I crossed the creek in bare feet. One
of my golden rules is don't cross rivers barefoot. The risks to your
feet are to great. It is harder to repair a broken tow or ankle than
dry out a pair of boots. I can't have been thinking straight as I had
a pair of crocs tied onto my rucsac for use around camp. Anyway I got
away with it.
This was beaver country. The next
stretch of the creek is a case study on how beavers sculpt a
landscape. The river meanders in great loops to find its way around
dam after dam. What might be a narrow fast flowing stream spreads
out, splits around islands and becomes a wetland dense with willow
scrub.
I rise into more cattle country. And
the trail starts to be damaged by cattle tracks and cowdung become a
minor hazard. This is more like home so I'm not bothered but I found
other hikers to be upset by it telling me cattle should not be
grazing in wilderness areas.
I reached Eddiesville trailhead and
stopped for lunch. And the rain poured down.
As I was dining Geoff, another hiker,
turned up. We chatted and set off together but he strode ahead. Next
to catch me was David who asked 'have you seen Geoff?' We were all
going to the same spot above the treeline where the creek crosses the
path again below San Luis Peak.
The trail was wet and overgrown in
places and there always seemed to be just a little further to go but
eventually Geoff, David and I had our tents up and watched a glorious
sunset spoiled only by the knowledge that all those trees we could
see along the valley were dead.
Day 26,
This was to be another 20 miler with
the added charm of a couple of brutal climbs. Getting away early was
easy as it was the only way to get warm. Everything was frozen. David
was away first though I would catch him. Geoff was taking another
route to climb San Luis peak and bag a 14er.
 |
| At San Luis Pass |
It was going to be a very interesting
day with more than 5000' of climbing which would end at a pizzeria a
short distance from Lake City hostel.
The first thousand feet took me over
San Luis Pass where I met David again. The next four miles undulated
towards the turn off for Creede but instead we were faced with what I
think is the shortest sharpest 1000' climb on the CT.
David was going ahead here and I could
see him talking to a group coming down the other way. When I reached
them, a group of teenagers on an organised hike, they were in a state
of excitement. David had told them I was an Irishman who played the
flute and would play them a tune. I was having difficulty breathing
at nearly 13000'. Anyway it was one of the girl's birthday and she
had been to Ireland and was very keen to meet me.
 |
| David |
So I played a few tunes and passed my
hat around for chocolate. I got a couple of snickers bars. They all
took photographs and promised to email me some. Did they heck?
After a long decent we were climbing
again with David going ahead. He was a mischievous chap. I stopped to
soak my feet at a stream and was surprised by a woman hiker coming
the other way who addressed me by my name. David had told her I would
play her a tune. This turned out to be the Princess of Darkness, a
well known hiking blogger and triple crowner (someone who has
completed the three great American long distance hikes, The
Continental Divide, The Pacific Crest and the Appalachian). She
recorded me playing a tune and said she would put it up on her blog.
Did she heck? Though she is now a Facebook friend.
Next was a long 1500' ascent which
would lead eventually to the snow mesa. I could see David again ahead
of me. He was talking to a group of young people. I guessed what was
coming. When I reached them I got a sense of what celebrity feels
like. They to were in a state of excited anticipation at meeting an
Irishman with a flute and offered me chocolate to play a couple of
tunes.
They were with the same organisation as
the earlier group. They had come out from Lake City and told me the
best place to get a pizza, a place called Poker Alice, they weren't
wrong. The group coincidentally had come from Texas and lived not far
from David who was also Texan. You could almost think it had been
planned. They promised to email me photographs. Did they heck?
I still had nearly 10 miles to go most
of them up on the wide open mesa above 12000'. Not a place to catch a
storm.
But at last I am down on the highway
looking for a lift and so is David. And the road is quiet. One way
led into Lake City where I was set on going. The other way went to
Creede. We took a side each. After about 45mins a 4 wheel drive comes
along going to Lake City and offers us a lift.
The two young Texan men in the
vehicle were working with a youth organisation that was taking
young people into the hills. We told them we had met their groups.
Nicholas, the driver, agreed to introduce us to Poker Alice.
At the hostel I met RJ again who
joined us for pizza.
LAKE CITY
The Raven's Rest hostel in Lake City is
a very pleasant place to stay with a relaxed and informal atmosphere.
There was no briefing on the rules or guided tour. I found my way
around talking to other hikers. Neither does it have a laundry but
there is one very close, less than 100 yards. The coffee shop next
door is an easily recognisable landmark making it easy to find the
hostel. It is also a damn good coffee shop.
I stayed three nights in Lake City. I
needed to rest my legs and get everything washed and dried out. But
it was no hardship resting in such a lovely town, there were new bars
and beers to try out. Tom, a geologist from New Zealand staying there
was great company not least because he let me use his laptop. Also
there was a group from Hawaii who were very anxiously watching news
of a major storm that was threatening their homes.
Had a great evening at 'The Depot'
playing pool with RJ and drinking Fat Tire. It felt like a real
western bar and not some mock up for the tourists.
Tom wanted to know why his pictures
weren't sharp so I showed him how I keep my camera steady. He came
back that evening with 6 lovely sharp pictures of a bear. When he
showed them to locals in the bar we were swamped with stories of
bears and mountain lions and lucky escapes.
 |
| Tom |
In the UK ATM machines usually free to
use and easy to find. I was shocked to have to pay at least $3 to use
an ATM and aghast that the only ATM in Lake City charge $5. It was
also interesting that in shops (sorry 'stores') I almost never needed
to use a pin number. When I was asked for it in Lake City I was
caught off guard and couldn't remember it.
One my second day there Macbeth turned
up. I hadn't heard from him for weeks and assumed he had finished the
walk by now but he had stopped at Twin Lakes for a week. By the time
he arrived I had sufficient local knowledge to show him around.
The hostel is near the library and
although the hostel has wifi it is sometimes easier to pick up the
signal from the library. Groceries in town were expensive but the
selection excellent. This is a town that thrives on tourism.
The Tic Toc diner is a great place to
have breakfast. I wasn't familiar with the custom of going to a
restaurant for breakfast or restaurants that seem to only open in the
morning but for a meal that break a mules back for not much more that
the cost of using an ATM machine the Tic Toc is hard to beat.
 |
| Macbeth at Tic Toc diner |
I dislike the American custom of tipping.
Waiters never leave you in peace to enjoy your meal, they see it as
part of their role to keep you entertained and join in your
conversations, working the tip. I can't overstate how much I dislike
this. I always tipped because I recognise that employers refuse to
pay decent wages. It puts me in the position of wanting to tell
waiters to piss off.
So, for fear of getting anyone into
trouble with Officer Dibble, I am unable to comment on how I got back
to the trail.
What I can say is that I set off with
Ted, a cartographer. Ted hadn't been staying at the hostel but had
come into check the hiker box looking for Heet. Hiker boxes are a
great custom. This is where hikers drop off surplus stuff that they
don't want to carry. They might have food, maps or other useful
stuff. I thought Ted a bit cheeky, as I considered the hiker box was
for the benefit of hostel users.
As we were leaving town about mid day a
theatre group were preparing for a shoot out on main st.
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