Wednesday, August 5th, 2020
After spending the night in Frisco, we took the bus back to the trail. We had a huge climb ahead of us! A ParaPlane hovered over us as we walked through a burn zone. We passed several day hikers and streams as we approached the climb. I felt beat up, but there was stunning scenery to enjoy as I caught my breath. We were surrounded by wildflowers and snow capped mountains. They don’t have views like this back at home!
I’d occasionally catch the movement of Pikas out of the corner of my eye. We’ve heard several claims that the scenery would only get more and more spectacular from here. I was getting pumped!
From the top, we could see pathways scattered across the mountains by a ski resort. That was where we were headed and it looked like we had a long way to go! The grade of the trail was annoying on the way down. It was one of those weird angles that your legs never adjust to.
I found a water bottle attached to a carabiner laying on the trail. I hooked it to my bag to pack it out. We passed several hikers on the way down, all who claimed to have seen the bottle, but none of them were the owner. I was a little disappointed no one else thought to pack it out of the woods. I understand that most of us are experiencing the fears of COVID, but town was only a few miles away.
We had officially entered “the bubble”! We found ourselves passing tons of thru hikers and section hikers. We practically were running by them to get to Copper Mountain Resort. Frisbee told me that the store at the resort closed at 4. We had to get there before then in order to get resupply. We arrived with an hour to spare only to find out we rushed for no reason. The store actually closed at 7.
We ate ice cream and watched as “the bubble” filed in one by one. We had a lot of daylight to kill, so we decided to relax for a while. This place was good for people watching! We rolled out of the resort around 6 and decided to hike for another 1-2 hours before finding a place to call home for the night. We decided to stop by a water source at mile 124.9. Searle Pass was only 2 miles ahead, but we decided to tackle that first thing in the morning.
20.8 miles (33.5 km)
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Stubbs Rambles On 