Monday, August 3rd, 2020
When we woke up, all of our gear was wet. We made the mistake of pitching our tarps out in the open. Unfortunately, there was little other option for us under the trees. The area was rocky and flat spots were limited. It was pretty cold out too, so packing up was miserable. On the bright side, amazing views followed after we crested the hill. The trail was very groomed and the terrain was wonderful, so we were cruising along! We only had 6 miles to Kenosha Pass where we would end segment 5, and catch a hitch into the town of Jefferson.
We caught a hitch with a man in a pickup truck who was helping his daughter move to her college dorm. Jefferson was super small. There was a church, post office, a market, a community center, and an old railroad depot that was converted into a small restaurant. There was little else there. The restaurant was closed, but we were able to get some hot, delicious, but overpriced, food at the market. I guess you can get away with steeper price tags when you’re located in the middle of nowhere. I couldn’t blame them.
We dried our gear out front of the depot while we waited for the post office to open. We were waiting to pick up one of our food drops. It didn’t open until noon! After a long wait, we shoved our resupply into our packs and caught a hitch back with a couple from Wisconsin who had recently moved to Denver.
We got many more nice views of wildflowers as we made our way up to Georgia Pass. We also saw a grouse and two people on horseback. A small thunderstorm rolled through. We were quickly learning that Colorado has many micro storms that are often short lived. This inspired me to create the Colorado Trail song to the tune of “The Hokey Pokey.” It goes like this:
“You put your rain coat on, you take your rain coat off, you put your raincoat on, and you shake the water out.”
I know. I’m a dork. I’m aware! And I swear I’m not going insane. Your brain goes to weird places out here.
We stopped at a couple water sources and chatted with a few other hikers before we made the final climb. One hiker who was setting up camp warned me about a dark cloud approaching. You never want to be on top of a mountain or an exposed area at high elevation during a lightning storm. We got lucky.
My altitude sickness has been gone all day until we hit about 10,000 feet elevation. It was so hard to breath and the thin air tends to make easy terrain very difficult. My head was pounding and I felt like I was walking with cinder blocks attached to my legs. It was all worth it though. The views on top of Georgia Pass were magnificent! Magnificent isn’t a word I’d normally use, but it was exactly that. So there. We got back into the trees before setting up camp at mile 85.7.
20.1 miles (32.3 km)
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Stubbs Rambles On 