The Continental Divide Trail: What happens when you abandon a hike and can’t walk away?

The Human Game™

«Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.»

—Mark Twain, Following the equator

bOpinions on how to read faces will often suggest that you surprise someone with your presence and then carefully observe their face in the first few milliseconds when they realize you are there. Maybe there will be a millisecond of disgust or happiness. It’s one of those little windows where you can see how they really feel about you before they put their face back in place and start playing The Human Game™.

Ice Cream and I rounded the bend into the parking lot and approached Toolman. Recognition came long before we were close enough to see any of his microexpressions. “Tool man!” Ice Cream called. «Oh my god, what are you doing here?»

He sat on the bench as we approached. Ice Cream took a seat on the other side, and I plopped down on the brown concrete work of art of the nearby parking lot. “Waiting for Frito,” he said in his Mississippi accent. fried was freedom, with the ‘o’ at the end stretched out a little more than usual. «I didn’t expect to see you all here.»

«Same,» I said. «My brain didn’t even register that it was you when we saw you from up there,» I pointed toward the mountain, «even though you’re in your hiking uniform.»

Ice Cream added: «We talked to Frito a day or two ago. Is he supposed to be here soon?»

Toolman nodded. «Yeah, at some point, anyway. I’m not sure when. I figured I’d just camp out in this building here and wait for him if he doesn’t come tonight.»

Ice Cream approached the elephant in the room. “So…Frito said you got off track?”

«Yeah, I guess so. Montana-ho burned me too much. It was like walking in the Whites every day.» Montana-ho was the section that Toolman and Frito had gone to do while Ice Cream and I went to Big Sky. «You know, you haven’t really walked the trail unless you’ve done it.»

«I don’t give a damn about all that Toolman,» I said.

«I know.»

Ice Cream returned it, «But how are you? You’re here! That’s great, but what are you doing here?»

Toolman leaned with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped. «I was done, so I went home, but after I got there, I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I got in the truck and drove back. I thought about driving around Colorado like my friend did when he was on the AZT. Making magic on the trails and stuff.»

“Do you think you’ll follow the trail again?” Ice Cream asked.

«Maybe. I doubt it. This isn’t much fun here. There are too many mountains and I got tired. My knees were killing me.»

“Tell me about it,” I said. «Give me a good mountain once a week and let me relax.» I wondered if Toolman would have quit if he had taken Big Sky with us. Big Sky isn’t easy, but it’s hundreds of miles shy of the red line. Lots of room to rest, zero, go slowly and enjoy.

«Would you like something to drink?»

Ice Cream and I share a look. “What did-chu get?” she asked.

He took us to his truck and opened a cooler. Coca-Colas, Gatorades, cold water and even some fruit. We took what we wanted while he opened some camp chairs; Ice Cream took one, he took the other, and I jumped up to sit on the tailgate. The service was bad but we tried calling Frito anyway. To our surprise, the call went through. He answered. «Hello?» He sounded breathless.

«Fried!» Ice Cream said, «We found Toolman!»

«Nice.»

«Where are you? What are you doing?»

“Climbing a damn mountain!” panting. I could have said more, but the service was bad again. We laugh at their suffering. After all, we had just been there.

«I’ll be here at Berthoud Pass,» Toolman told him, «but we’re going to run into town for a while.»

Something difficult to hear, and then, «…probably won’t be there until tomorrow morning.»

Then we missed the call, but we got enough information.

Toolman agreed to take us into town and we all ate somewhere Colorado quality, meaning really good, but never good enough for the price. We chatted, caught up, the tension that had flared slightly between Toolman and me over Montana-ho dissolved and we were just friends having lunch. I paid for his meal despite Colorado prices, partly to pay for his trip, but mostly because I was glad he had returned, even if, or especially if, he had returned on wheels.

Toolman took us to a minor resupply and then returned to the pass where we made plans to meet again at Silverthorne (yes, the same one Ice Cream and I had concentrated on with Bjornrad, but this time we were hiking the Silverthorne Alternate). Dijeridoo, triple crowner and friend of the AT, would also welcome us there. He would be walking part of the trail with us. If all went well, Frito would make it too.

Dusk descended on the Berthoud Pass. «See you soon, then!» Ice Cream said, then hugged Toolman. I squeezed his shoulder briefly and said the same thing.

“See you soon,” Toolman said as Ice Cream and I crossed the road and headed back up the rocky slopes into the night. As we ascended, the thin red line on the distant horizon turned gray, then blue, and finally black. The moon did not rise, only twinkling stars that multiplied like Abraham’s children.

***

And then they were mountains in the dark. The creak of the path underfoot, the desolate whisper of the wind in an otherwise silent world in the sky. There were no sausages, no frogs, no crickets, not even the distant hum of a road. Just a strange silence. The calm of the wild night was broken for a moment by some sort of brightly lit installation. From where we were standing it looked like the kind of place James Bond would need to enter, a mountain base where «The Data» was kept. We never found out what it really was, but it probably wasn’t anything exciting enough for Mr. Bond. Maybe if he had gotten in, he could have hacked into a computer and figured out why Colorado has such expensive restaurants.

We slept, cowboy camping under the pines. We woke up repeating during the day what we had done during the night. The mountains were wild, red with lichen and slowly losing their hospitality in preparation for winter. We passed a flock of ptarmigans, their plumage a rocky camouflage that turned white with nature’s relentless patience. The birds were no more afraid of us than the free-range chickens, and we watched them peck at the ground, eating insects or seeds invisible to us while chirping softly at each other.

At the top of a desolate hill we stopped to rest, and as we sat on our beds we saw a black bear running away from us as if the devil himself were chasing us. I guess in the bear’s mind we were the devil. No doubt their ancestors had been dying from the thunderous sounds and invisible killing power of gunshots for generations. The bear ran until it was like a speck, then turned around and, as it continued to see us, ran away again until finally we could no longer see each other.

***

The Silverthorne alternative continued past Coon Hill, Hagar Mountain and The Citadel, perhaps not in that order. The Citadel was aptly named: an imposing rock fortress, magnificent and impossible to capture on camera.

Another night fell accompanied by a little rain, and with our ponchos and headlamps we faltered again and again as the trail disappeared into nothingness. Ice Cream and I split up along the side of a grassy mountain to try to better find the trail. Silverthorne shone for miles, tempting us to head straight for it, just off the cliffs to our left. Finally a rickety trail sign appeared and we found a decent trail again. He took us to a viewpoint where we cowboys camped above the city.

Dawn arrived, yellow and more yellow because of the poplar leaves, which trembled in the wind with their strange psychedelic shape. As we walked into town, hikers appeared coming from a parking lot miles down the road. Then mountain bikers, dog walkers and even one or two hunters dressed in camouflage and carrying long scoped rifles slung over their shoulders in slings. They asked us what animals we had seen and we didn’t mention the bear.

And then a parking lot, a paved road. City. We found a fancy cafe, ordered some food and drinks, sat outside and listened to people talk about their international vacations, their wallets, and the extremely high cost of their Labradoodles. A group of girls in clothes more mature than their bodies spoke about the drama on social media. I realized that we had walked here from the Canadian border, that we were as strange and unnatural in this habitat as we had been up high with the ptarmigan.

“Hiking is weird,” I told Ice Cream.

«Very much,» he agreed. «Do you want to try some of my smoothie?»

«Always.»

Overlooking Silverthorne, CO