The art of great relaxation
“I loaf and invite my soul, I bow and loaf quietly observing a blade of summer grass.”
—Walt Whitman, song of myself (1855)
YesIlverthorne almost had a hostel called The Pad. In 2019, a dream couple wanted to recreate international lodge culture in Colorado, but it seems they went into the plan with too many good intentions and too much bad luck. They started construction on the place just before Covid ruined international travel and the economy and they found themselves in debt. The lodge dream finally died in 2024 and in 2025 Crestline Hotels and Resorts swallowed the place and renamed it The Block. The place had been built out of repurposed shipping containers and some guy with an MBA probably thought the name was creative.
But Mr. MBA seemed to learn something about business, because the place was bustling with activity when we arrived. Toolman met us at the luxurious cafeteria and we all went together to The Block. From the outside it didn’t look like a hiker or international hostel at all, and this became evident when we entered. The place was elegant, clean, and had the professional decor and waxed floors of a hotel. Didgeridoo was on one of the tables. He had already been there for two nights, simply waiting for us; It had taken us much longer to get there than we had planned, but here we were, everyone but Frito now gathered together.
We checked in: the bunk beds still existed, but they were in wings protected by key-card locked doors. The whole place was kind of a fusion between the hostel and the Hilton and all things considered, it was still affordable relative to the location. We did hiking chores, hung out at the bar, visited the big hot tub, which was packed the rest of the way with a wedding party already on their way to a drunken day. After dark, the party began in earnest. Loud music, mobile dry sauna and cold bath, games and an artificial grass playground. We made dinner in the communal kitchen and talked to a fat guy who looked and sounded like a Yankee baseball announcer while he grilled steaks. A high school gym teacher joined the conversation and he and Dij hit it off about the benefits of physical education.
The party continued until we all went to bed. Weary hikers can only have so much fun, and stomachs full of dinner dragged us to our bunks like anchors. Morning came, we made breakfast and ate at the large communal tables with a new hiker named Mr. Minotaur. I had just yo-yoed with the CDT or something. A real beast, no doubt, but once finished, it was back to Scotland. He gave me his lighter and, after some careful research, a few words about the state of the European economy and geopolitics. Long story short, things weren’t going very well at home for him and he already had plans and backup plans on how to get back to the US or Canada.
We wish Mr. Minotaur happy trails and good roads and we all went out together in the good sun of the American Colorado. Toolman left for more road trips and we made plans to meet up in Leadville, hopefully this time with Frito, who had decided to take a different route to capture Gray’s Peak. For now, it was Ice Cream, Dij and me. We left Silverthorne on a kind of rail trail-like bike path that wound through a series of increasingly smaller and busier tourist towns, where we stopped to eat pizza and pet a puppy or two.
Finally we reach the Copper Mountain complex, where the CT passes before climbing back into the heights. Dij caught me up on the latest books he had been reading and about his invention of a practice he called Pain Tracing, a yoga-adjacent practice that focuses on the controlled exploration of physical discomfort during movement instead of traditional asanas to heal and strengthen the body. It was exactly the kind of thing he liked. Dij is a physical guy, carpenter, builder, runner, mountaineer. He had come out on these trails to see us, but if he had been there alone, he probably would have taken the most difficult routes available without eating anything but rocks. But now he was with Zen and Ice Cream, and he was not practicing Pain Tracking, but the Art of Great Relaxation.
That night we camped somewhere in the hills above Copper Mountain Resort, our tent glowing with some string lights I’d brought and a small travel flashlight Dij had brought.
***
Toolman met us at Tennessee Pass. He had brought wraps, we ate well and drank sodas from his cooler. Dusk came and he set up with us in the tents just beyond the parking lot as the rain turned to mud and snow. We settled in for another night and the morning took us to Leadville, where we had all planned a B&B. Somehow, Toolman had managed to locate other hikers. Some I had just met while driving, others I knew from the AZT. We gathered food and supplies, got settled in, and then, in a final dual-purpose trip, Toolman drove me back to Silverthorne, where I needed to pick up a dose of medicine and he needed to pick up another friend from AZT. Somewhere in there we would find Frito, but we couldn’t pinpoint exactly where he was. Finally the call came, this time from Frito. «Tool,» he said. «I’ll give you any amount of money you want if you can pick me up. The weather is bad here.»
«Where are you?»
Frito tried to explain to us and we tried to follow him on a map. Also pinged the Garmin which helped. We finally found it after Toolman took his truck as far as he dared down a rocky mountain road and I got out and ran down the road to see if Frito was there. It was, so we headed back to the B&B we went to.
Leadville was another part. A calm and responsible one held by a group of adults with pain in their feet and legs, but a party nonetheless, and a mix of all types. Fast, strong hikers, quiet hikers, hikers, a random Russian guy who was friends with someone who talked to me at length about a book he wanted to write that was artistically about nothing at all. It sounded great and I can’t reproduce the reasons.
Of course we went to Melanzana. Ice Cream and I had already gotten our Mellies through smuggling and subterfuge years before, so I bought a hat and a sticker and nothing more. But it was great to see the place. Sewing machines hummed and pleasant business chat ensued as people with their reserves bought fishnet fleeces that had more to do with style and status than anything else. But we heard that Melanzana was a good place to work and bookings were at least as practical as a marketing strategy. The small shop sells as many items in a day as it makes, something like two hundred fleeces, and does not want to become a soulless machine. Good for them. One more business in the world with a soul means more than it seems at first glance.
***
Then Leadville ended. In the morning, the group took a group photo and scattered like seeds in the wind. Many of us would probably never see each other again.
“Here we are,” Toolman had arrived at a parking lot at the beginning of a trail. We all got out of the truck, Dij and I from the bed, Ice Cream and Frito from the cabin, and lingered for a while while we procrastinated. Frito, Dij and I took turns simulating lightsaber battles with our trekking poles and finally it was time to leave. We made the usual plans with Toolman to meet again somewhere down the road and hit the road. Dij had done the western fork on the CT/CDT section, so we opted to go east this time. It was supposedly easier, so everyone won. Newer and more relaxed.
The pattern repeated itself. Walk, talk, sleep. Dij and I spent most days together, I had saved my physical and social energy specifically for this moment, knowing that even if he slowed down for me, I would have to speed up for him, and we would talk about everything philosophical under the sun. Frito stayed behind with Helado and they chatted. Along with Toolman, Ice Cream and Frito had been the original tram on the AT, while Dij and I had hiked most of Northern Virginia, MD, WV and most of PA together.
And here we were. I’m not exactly a tram guy, but this was nice. Friends, mountains, golden aspens and sun. We arrived at the small town of Twin Lakes and visited the general store and food truck before walking around the lake as it got dark. I wanted to try to cross what looked like a small isthmus in the lake, but when we got there it had a strip of deep water about fifty feet wide running through the center.
«Sorry guys. Looks like I wasted my time coming this way.» They didn’t listen to him and forgave me. “We can camp here by the water,” I suggested.
Dij was already up the hill, his face a little tense. I kicked the sandy beach. “I said, are you the type who opposes sand?”
“Yes,” he said from the safety of the brush. «I can’t stand it. It gets everywhere.»
«Anakin Skywalker,» Frito said.
«That?» Ice Cream said.
«He hates sand,» I explained. «Anyway, let’s move forward a bit. I’m sure there will be a good place nearby.»
We found one and settled our suitcases along the beach. Darkness arrived and with it the cold. In the morning our suitcases were covered in frost. We packed up and continued around the lake. Today would be a magical day. A day of mushrooms.
