By the end of my stay in Colorado, I was physically and mentally devastated. Just as it happens when you walk thousands of miles, something in you returns to nature, feeling apart, not separated, from your surroundings. I became another being that lives outside, where I should be. The land he was walking on, near Grand Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, Winter Park and Steamboat Springs, is traditionally home to the Cheyenne, Ute, Eastern Shoshone, Arapaho, and perhaps more (this is based on my preliminary research on overlapping CDT maps and indigenous lands).
I started to feel like everything around me. Of moss, of roots, of earth, of rocks. .
About the wild
There was something, perhaps weeks in elevation, about the stretch from Grand Lake to the Wyoming border that made me feel extremely hungry and exhausted, but also completely in sync with my surroundings. After enough storms, I was no longer bothered by the daily prospect of lightning. I accepted that it was inevitable. Storms above the tree line always worried me, but I came to a point of acceptance with them. And that the storms occurred at inconsistent times of day in June and July.
I climbed the climbs (although I cursed at times) and did my longest day on the Colorado CDT (I did longer days on the lower San Juan alternative, but I’m talking about the real CDT). The day I did James Peak, I left my camp and hiked to just before Grand Lake, covering 34 miles and over 9,000 feet of elevation gain. Which was a lot for me in Colorado.
This state of feeling complete outside was liberating. I didn’t care how dirty I got, that my orange hoodie was turning brown. I simply existed, I was. I swam in the Colorado River and some local boaters thought I was crazy. Just after Grand Lake is also when the storms became constant.
The days of enlightenment and cows
I took a mini alternative near Park View Pass, hiding in a violent storm on a dirt road (curved into a ball). The dirt road was only a couple of miles, but it gave me the tree cover I needed to wait and hide. It took me right to the end of Park View and up the pass over the old CDT. Now unmarked and unmaintained, that route goes directly to the top of the mountain, not gradually, in about 0.6 miles with 1,200 feet of elevation gain. I was lucky to have a break between storms and managed to get back to the new CDT after a steep (but fun?) rock climb.
My night hike plans were thwarted in the saddle after Parkview when lightning began to strike around me. I found a stand of trees, set up my tarp for the night, walked down the mountain a few hundred feet to find water in a stream, and called it a night. Trees and a tarp won’t protect you from the lightning, but it was better than continuing to climb a ridge for several kilometers.
The next day was all ridgeline and walking over the actual continental divide. It was beautiful. I felt like I was dancing all day, running freely, if you will, on the divide that gave the CDT its name. The path does not always follow the division, but this day it does. The storms didn’t arrive until early afternoon, which led me to my story of cows and flying tarps.
the storm
The lightning started once I reached the dirt road that eventually leads to a paved road before Steamboat Springs. I was grateful to be out of the divide and into the trees, descending into the valley with every step I took. But this storm was different based on my assessment of Colorado storms. The thunder and lightning were strong as usual, but this time the storm was moving slowly and was not small. And, unfortunately, it rained. Spill. For about 12 hours. You could say I’m not a fan of rain while hiking, but rather I’m afraid of getting cold and wet.
Descending the dirt road in the rain eventually led to me running from tree to tree, as lightning was nearby and thunder was forming a smoke monster from the noise of Lost in the sky. I decided, for some reason, that I was going to use my tarp as a complement to my raincoat and wrapped the tarp around myself and my backpack. .
While I had walked my 30 miles for the day, I still had several miles to go to reconnect with public lands. In the pouring rain, a blue tarp wrapped around me and blew in the wind (making me look like a running blue starfish), and sliding across inches of mud, I entered private land. I saw a large, dark animal and immediately became concerned because I was looking at a bull. But no, looking back at me (a blue starfish-soaked hiker) was a female moose. She ran away from me fortunately. Then I turned the corner and came upon a herd of a couple hundred cows.
The cows, the rain and the coyotes
If it’s not clear from what I write here, I don’t like cows. At least, not during walks in the countryside. In the Uintas, a bull chased me up a tree and across a meadow. On the CDT, I had challenges with deceptive cow loads in Colorado and later Wyoming. My dislike was still for these more aggressive “wild” cows. Turning the corner in the pouring rain and lightning, and seeing a herd of cows with their heads turned toward me brought me no joy.
I greeted the cows. Let me in, thank you kindly, cows, I said. Still looking like a soaked blue starfish, I walked past the cows. Most of the cows ran, but some, oh yes, some, very curious cows, ran towards me at full speed. Some were young, one was a mother and some were young adult cows (?). I trotted and they kept running. The tarp was flying behind me and my fingers (previously in Ziplock bags) were starting to get cold. The cows ran alongside me on the road as I ran from them. Some did fun dances (I was clearly the most exciting part of the day). The mother huffed and continued thrusting. The largest herd was behind them, lowing and the bulls screaming. An absolutely comical and ridiculous way to spend the end of Colorado.
Once the cows stopped chasing me and I got up to about 33-34 miles a day, I once again crossed over to public lands. I pulled up my tarp immediately, knowing I was getting too cold. Unfortunately, of course, I fell in the mud in a field with cow dung. While I couldn’t tell where the mud ended and the cow poop began, I was grateful to be able to change into dry clothes and sit in my bivy. I ate my cold ramen and listened to the coyotes as I fell asleep.
That night I felt more alive than I had all year and I was proud of myself. Laughing at myself (at myself) at how ridiculous the whole scene would have seemed if I hadn’t been alone. Sideways rain, cows chasing me, a moose and a blue tarp flying behind me. That night, the coyotes came up to my tarp and sat with me in the poop field singing to their friends across the valley.
The next morning I was cold and I went… it was the 4th of July and I was going to shower in Steamboat. I danced on the 12-mile road walk, still looking crazy, I’m sure. On my walk I was accompanied by swallows and the feeling, once again, that I belonged to nature again. That feeling of separation disappeared.
The border and complete Colorado
The Colorado finale was beautiful. I went on a little night hike (which I love) and saw elk and herds of elk in quiet times in the countryside. The hike to the Wyoming border is on a rocky, hilly, hot and dry ATV road. Reaching the Wyoming border seemed impossible before in the state; the imaginary border between the two states seemed worthy of a celebration. I enjoyed a snack sitting on a log and kept moving.
About burns, flowers and beetles
Colorado was, like much of the Division, a state of extremes. Snow and heat, new burned areas (for example, in Rocky Mountain National Park) and fresh growth. There were purple columbines blooming in the mountains (I didn’t know columbines could be purple!) and golden sunflowers lined up on freshly melted snow.
Lodgepole and ponderosa pines were severely affected by the pine beetle. From the New Mexico border to Wyoming, some of Colorado’s forests were diseased. Beetle problems are made worse by warmer weather and warmer winters that do not kill the beetle.
It is obvious if you listen and feel closely enough when a forest is unhealthy. Yes, the visual cues are obvious. But the air also changes, the energy decreases. Life does not hum the same and trees fall silent when they get sick or die. In that sense, and as an avid tree lover, Colorado was a little sad. . In burned areas I always stop to pay my respects to the trees. It may seem crazy, but it always feels necessary.
At the Colorado border, sitting on a log, I laughed at myself for saying I would never cross the state on foot again. Of course, the moment I set foot in Wyoming I determined I was ready to do the Colorado Trail, maybe even the CDT again in Colorado, including the rest of San Juan. But, for another day.
