A little bit of everything: beauty and challenge in the San Juans (Lake City to Chama)

Hello from New Mexico, our last state in the CDT! Wohooo, Beanie Baby and I made it this far, and we just passed through an incredibly scary and amazing section of mountains called the San Juans in southern Colorado. It seems like time on the road has passed so quickly and we can’t believe we’re already in New Mexico, but on the other hand, Beanie Baby and I still have about 800 miles to walk before we reach the Mexican border.

It’s a bit of a relief to be out of Colorado, which turned out to be a tougher state than we had anticipated in many ways, including some nasty weather and altitude issues, frigid mornings and nights, and a lot of difficult terrain to hike. Throughout this testing state, Beanie Baby and I felt our legs and minds grow stronger and observed our growing sense of comfort and knowledge in dealing with some challenging mountainous terrain and conditions. We’re really behind on the blog right now, but we’re working to catch up!

Leaving Lake City, Beanie Baby and I were thrilled to venture into the San Juan Mountain Range, supposedly one of the most beautiful sections of the CDT! Our first morning in San Juan certainly turned out to be memorable with numerous wildlife encounters, including a few herds of elk, deer, and even a mountain lion, prowling above us on a grassy hillside at dawn.

That day we also reached the highest point of the Colorado Trail, which we celebrated with a delightful mix of trails. Our first two days in San Juan were completely above tree line and fortunately the weather calmed down for at least a few days allowing us to truly enjoy the views in this section.

Unfortunately, Beanie Baby broke her hip belt after carrying too much weight the first day, because we had 20 miles of water and 6 days of food on our backs leaving Lake City. However, his shoulders certainly got a workout through the San Juans!

Beanie Baby entered the Weminuche Wilderness, the largest wilderness area in Colorado, on this section of the trail! We were stunned by the vastness and beauty of the landscape, with colorful, rugged mountains surrounding us in all directions.

As soon as we left the Colorado Trail, the CDT became less defined and more rugged, something we definitely expected, but we weren’t prepared to experience such an abrupt change in trail conditions. It was especially bittersweet for me to say goodbye to the CT, which was my first hike of 2021.

The next day, we saw Pedi and Frizz, as well as Chew Toy, on the trail. Chew Toy told us that a big storm was forecast the next morning, with some potential snow but nothing major. We had seen rain in the forecast, so we weren’t too surprised or worried, but how wrong we were.

That night, as Beanie Baby and I climbed our last pass of the day, we watched sheets of rain fall on the nearby mountains. The storm had arrived early. Thunder rumbled ominously in the distance, and not even ten minutes after I had reached the top of the pass and begun walking down the other side, a massive bolt of lightning struck the nearby ridge. Beanie Baby and I began running down the trail, feeling sheets of rain and hail soaking our raincoat almost instantly. It was a terrifying experience, running down the muddy trail in the dark, with the rain lashing down on us and lightning striking a mile, even less than a mile, from where we were. Finally, we found a pretty decent spot to set up our tent for the night, under some (mostly) live trees. We immediately dived into our warm tent and stripped off our wet layers and into dry clothes in an attempt to warm up. We fell asleep listening to the rain and hail falling against our rain fly.

The next morning, Beanie Baby and I woke up to a dusting of snow covering the mountains above us, and some good morning thunder. We thought the weather was going to get better, but that morning it only got worse. The wind began to howl as we huddled in the tent, listening to the lightning nearby. We were in a very complicated situation: on the one hand, the tent was a safe place to be during a storm with cold rain that could quickly lead to hypothermia, but on the other hand, the wind quickly became stronger and began to blow down dead trees. We were camped under some dead trees, which seemed like a dangerous position. Beanie Baby and I decided that the safest option we could take at that time was to leave San Juan.

We hiked 7 miles on a side trail until we reached a large reservoir and the campground. Beanie Baby and I then joined Creede to form a new battle plan.

We had a delicious lunch at a restaurant in Creede, then headed out to Main Street where we saw two other hikers, Panty Pirate and Steamy. We talked to them for a while and finally decided to stay at the same hotel as them and take the second half of the Creede Cutoff the next day.

For Creede Cutoff, Beanie Baby and I began walking along gravel roads, which soon turned into a trail. We climbed and climbed and finally entered the Weminuche Wilderness again on the other side. That night we camped in a beautiful valley near a large hunting camp and arrived after dark under some beautiful constellations.

The next morning, Beanie Baby and I found our way back to the red line! We walked for a while along a beautiful, windy ridge, encountering patches of snow from the storm that forced us into Creede. It felt great to be on top of a ridge again and we took in the scenery, knowing it would be our last view of the high mountains in the CDT.

We began descending after the red line ridge hike, quickly approaching Wolf Creek Pass. A few miles before the pass, Beanie Baby and I caught a glimpse of our final section of Colorado in the distance – some beautiful snow-capped peaks illuminated by the full moon that night!

We hitchhiked from Wolf Creek Pass to Pagosa Springs and were taken into town just before dark. Once we got to Pagosa Springs, Beanie Baby and I ate some Mexican food and then camped on a local lot that is open to CDT hikers. We set up our tent in the light of the full moon!

In the morning, when we got up from our tent, we could make out the steam rising from the city’s hot springs. We headed downtown, had a delicious breakfast before jumping into the hot springs to soak for a while. The San Juan River, which runs through the center of Pagosa Springs, has several hot springs, some of them free and open to the public. Beanie Baby and I sat in some wonderfully warm hot springs before leaving to go to the post office, where we met Pop and Rally. We also learned that a large group of other hikers were in town, including many of the Sprouts. Tripod was also there and kindly took us to Walmart across town. While shopping, Beanie Baby and I decided we needed a little more whimsy on our hiking trip, so we found the perfect companions to take with us: a Cookie Monster stuffed animal and an avocado (unfortunately we didn’t see any Beanie Babies)! We put Cookie Junior and Avocado on the outside of our backpacks so they could enjoy the beautiful scenery!

We headed out of town with Pop and Pigpen, knowing that a handful of other hikers were right ahead of us (about a dozen more!). The four of us started late, which left us walking a bit in the dark in an attempt to catch up with the rest of the group. Unfortunately we didn’t make it all the way that night, but we met up with them early the next morning. However, it was a short-lived meeting because many of the other hikers opted to take a lower route because they were nervous about the coming weather and were ready to be done with Colorado. The group spent hours deliberating due to uncertainty about the weather and contaminated water, and finally five of us decided to split from the group and take the red line to Chama as we had originally planned.

Beanie Baby and I joined Whimsy, MacGyver, and Knotty on this section of the trail, which turned out to be an awesome area to hike. We spent a lot of time above the tree line on the first day admiring the still snow-capped peaks and several alpine lakes along the way. We hadn’t hiked much with these other three before, but they were an amazing team! We enjoyed that the trail was a little less rugged than the one north of San Juan.

Our last morning on the trail the predicted storm began, but with less intensity than we feared. When we woke up, there was a dense fog that made it almost impossible to follow the faint trail in the early hours of the morning. At one point we veered off the path and had to turn back. Finally, the fog eased a bit and Beanie Baby and I hurried toward Cumbres Pass, located just three miles from the New Mexico border. As we entered the trees, it started to rain and we were glad we got off the trail that day.

As we approached the pass, we saw and heard a train noisily passing by. Just before the end of the section, Beanie Baby and I attempted to hitchhike on this same train, but unfortunately it wasn’t in the cards for us that day. We ended up having an easy hook up with a local rancher and getting into his truck with Knotty, Whimsy, and MacGyver. Beanie Baby and I entered New Mexico for the first time, just as the clouds parted and unleashed bursts of rain on the town of Chama.