Colorado Trail 2018 by a couple of beginner thru-hikers

[Mina Loomis]

Trip report next post.

[Mina Loomis]

In a previous thread I promised this trip report.

My husband Robert and I drove our small car from Austin, Texas to Colorado. My sister drove from her home near Houston, and we all met up at Frisco, left her car there, took our car over to Denver to meet up with another Austin friend at her friend’s house, did all our final rummaging there, slept over, and on the morning of July 8 we all 4 piled into our car to drive to the Colorado Trail eastern terminus at Waterton Canyon. We parked our car there (you have to notify the Denver Water Dept. for long parking), took pictures, and embarked on our longest hike ever. My sister and our friend were on for the first week, then they were to depart and leave us two to thru-hike the trail on our own.

Our first few days: Lower elevation, heat wave, tons of hikers and mountain bikers, friendly people, queasiness (yah lower elevation but we are from Texas), a nice splash in the South Platte, murdered my phone which had all our mapping software. Fortunately we also always carry paper. And we had the guidebook and databook.

Nah, all y’all don’t want to read a blow-by-blow of 6 1/2 weeks. What would you like to read in a trip report about a long and varied trip?

Overall impressions and random memories:

The Colorado mountains are beautiful.

The Colorado mountains are huge.
The valleys between and below the mountains are deep and huge.
Geology show everywhere!
Parts of the Colorado Trail have a lot of mountain bikes.
A few parts have motorbikes! Ack!
The first 100 miles or so, a lot of other hikers and backpackers.
Later, not so many, much later, very few.
Mina helped 7 other backpackers adjust their packs during the first week. (She slings gear part-time at the Downtown Austin REI.)
Walking up and over and down thousands of vertical feet is a lot of work.
We chose Collegiate East because it looked hard enough thank you very much.
This trail stretched our physical abilities.
It took persistence.
We had one potentially serious embarrassing misadventure involving carelessness that I am not ready to ‘fess up to yet, but will probably post about some time later. We got away with it.
A few times we felt more in danger than might have been wise, but we forged on.
Dangers included exposure, unstable trail surfaces, lightning, and cold wet windstorms.
The weather and the sky provided a constant thrilling show.
Umbrellas for rain work pretty well when it isn’t too windy or cold. Frogg Toggs work when it is.

The alpine flower shows were fading but the multicolored fall dry grasses and seedheads beautiful.
Raspberry season! Plus a few strawberries and blueberries.
So many of the forests are dead or dying from beetles; new life will emerge but we don’t know what it will be.
We saw a lot of cows in some areas. And huge hollering flocks of sheep.
Other animals: Pikas!< Marmots. Chipmunks. Squirrels. Elk. Bighorns. A moose! Beaver dams. Coyote.  Snakes. Ground squirrels. Hawks. Jays. Hummingbirds. Robins. Ptarmigan. Magpies. Lots of other birds we didn’t know. Spiders. Ants. More ants. Beetles. Files. Bees. Butterflies and moths.
We ran out of water on one stretch because a listed water source was dry.
It was a dry year and we had several long heavy water carries.
Robert’s feet got all blistered and his trail runners lost all their tread which made walking hard.
Mina’s trail runners failed early and she was able to acquire replacement light hikers before we left the last REI (Dillon) behind, so her feet did fine.

The rest of our equipment worked, our sleeping bags were warm enough, our shelter’s zippers began failing but it got us through.
Even after being in the mountains for weeks, altitude made us queasy and gave us headaches when we camped 2 nights in a row above 12,000 ft.
We met a lot of friendly fun other thru-hikers but most of them passed us and then later a different batch would catch up with us and we would get to know them.
We enjoyed meeting a number of section hikers too.
We found we needed full-zeros, i.e. 2 nights, at our 5 resupply stops.
We did one on-trail zero to help Robert’s feet heal.
Robert brought and enjoyed his Outdoor Ukulele since his default behavior is plinking at strings and the fiddle and mandolin had to stay home.

Colorado has a lot of kind and generous people who help backpackers.
Our car was intact and worked perfectly when we got back to it 6 1/2 weeks later! Woohoo!
We are right proud of ourselves.

Anything I left out that you are interested in hearing about, reply and let me know and I can fill you in.

Thanks BPL community for your encouragement!

[Kevin B]

Awesome trip!!!

Give us the glory and the gory details!!! More the better til you reach your frustration limit with the BPL software.

Thanks for sharing!

[Mina Loomis]

Kevin, I can put in more detail but it seems overwhelming since my edited journal typed runs to 44 pages not counting photos and I doubt BPL Forum readers would stick around for all that.  Massaging it into a shorter coherent story can be done but will take a lot more time and might not happen soon.  I was thinking about one of those weblog type things but it would be my first foray into that territory.  What do other folks like to do for this, for longer trips that generate TLDR prone reports?

[David Noll]

Nice trip report.

[Matthew / BPL]

I’d like to read more!

[Alex H]

I love the brevity, abstract version of this trip report but I am also a sucker for a good long one too!

[Mina Loomis]

OK y’all.  After several months of intermittently fiddling with how to create a weblog site that doesn’t look stupid, wading through wordpress gobbledegook, and still not getting what I want, I am putting aside that project for now, and have simply posted the journal to googledocs with a link.  Here it is.  It is 34 pages.  I was trying to do daily description of the places and our perceptions and experiences, not just we went here and then there.  If anyone actually plows through it all, let me know!  : )

[Tom K]

Well done folks.  That was one heck of a first thru hike.

[Randy Martin]

What would be the top 3-5 things you did that worked really well and top 3-5 things not so well?  Either from a Gear, techniques, preparation, etc…

[Mina Loomis]

@Tom:  Thanks! (I was kind of bracing myself for someone to respond with “You let *what* happen? are you idiots?”  Because of the embarrassing misadventure buried in there. But the full story is the full story.)

@Randy:  Good essay question!

Gear that worked well: Most of our kits.
Our shelter is a Haven 2 in silnylon with the net inner. Not as light as a DCF Duplex but roomy. We mostly left the 2 parts hooked together for easy setup. I usually use polycryo groundsheets and just the tarp but with all the wet weather we got used to having the floor in there on this trip. I think it kept our stuff cleaner.
Ridgerests. Yes I know old folks are supposed to need more cushioning but it’s hard to beat the durability and ease of use of a Ridgerest, they are light, and somehow we sleep just fine when we are this tired.
Bearikade Weekenders. Heavier than Ursacks but big enough for the 8 days before our first resupply. Total peace of mind. No need to find a tying place out on the tundra.
Outdoor Ukulele. Luxury? Not for an obligate musician! Light, durable, came through unscathed. Robert carried it on the outside of his pack in a drysack.
Shoes. Vasque Monolith Mid with green Superfeet, much more shoe than usual for me but after a little getting used to I was cruising. Surprisingly nimble compared to my previous leather boots abandoned eons ago in favor of minimal trail runners.
Most of the rest of our kits worked out fine. My list for this trip is at https://lighterpack.com/r/369q1. It looks heavy when I add it all up but a couple of factors affect it (1) I carry the shelter, cook kit, water treatment, and first aid for both of us and (2) unlike many backpackers I get cold easily and need extra insulation.
Gear that didn’t work so well:
Trailshot is kind of tedious; better after I figured out how to get it primed.
Shoes. Robert’s Brooks Cascadias weren’t new enough and broke down completely and lost most of their tread. Hazardous! My Merrell Bare Access Flex, the right one was forcing my foot inward on each step, causing a sore tendon in my arch, and I ditched them for the Vasque mids.
Umbrellas were great for rain and sun but the Lady on a Rock rig doesn’t work for the Montbell umbrellas.
Pot. The BPL 1300 is just barely big enough to cook for 2 and a couple of the grocery store soup mixes wanted to foam over no matter what I did. A bigger pot?
Bandaids. Be sure to bring brand new ones. A lot of ours from home had been in the drawer for a long time and didn’t stick.
Tarp zippers. 3 of the 6 zipper pulls on the Haven 2 failed. After we got back home SMD repaired them for an extremely reasonable price for a 6 year old tarp.  Excellent customer service!

Techniques that worked well:
Home cooked and dehydrated meals taste better. Some of the grocery store meals were good. Remote grocery store granola is marginal.
Pacing. I walk more slowly especially uphill but I also don’t get so winded so I can keep going longer without getting cranky. When Robert matched my pace we did better.
Packing. We learned that insulation layers need to be in a dry sack above the bear canister in the pack, not down in the pack liner. Sudden storm/temp drop = get out those layers now, don’t want to get rain on sleeping bag in the process, and don’t want to excavate bear canister.
Keeping everything always in same place in pack, and always putting it back right away when done with it.
Focus on here and now, little things at close range, not on how long the climb will be.
Patience.
Techniques that didn’t work so well:
Cooking boils-overs. How to prevent? Bigger pot?
Carelessness. Not a good technique to use. Breaking phone, losing gloves, almost losing all gear at once.
Rushing. Makes you tired and anxious. You are on vacation!
Foot taping. Hard to get moleskin/bandaids/duck tape to stick for long. Old bandaids and old leukotape don’t work either. Tincture of benzoin not for sale anywhere on the CT. Should have brought some. Doesn’t help to put new bandages over old, just increases the pressure and makes the damage worse.
Packing up time. We struggled with efficiency in the mornings. Maybe with 2 people it just gets more complicated.

Preparation that worked well:
Food from home was really good, and worth the time that went into making it. Especially the dry-cure beef jerky.
Guidebook, thoroughly read and re-read.
Scheduling, thinking through all the days and resupplies and even potential campsites. Even though it changed when out on the trail, having worked through it a couple of times helped with reworking.
Moderate exercise at home is better than nothing.
House sitter. Definitely good for peace of mind.
Preparation that didn’t work so well:
Car. We just parked it at the Waterton Canyon parking lot and notified the Water Department of make and plate and dates. This worked out fine but was a source of unnecessary worry during the last week on the trail. It would have been better to find a secure vehicle storage establishment with which to leave it.
More strenuous exercise at home might have led to feeling up to taking Collegiate West which is supposed to be spectacular.
Shoes. Should have been given more thought. Assuming what usually works will be fine was short-sighted.
Flora. I wished I had spent more time before the trip reading through field guides for common flowers and trees so I would have been able to identify more of them.
Cyber life. How will you check on banking etc. or for messages from home if you break your phone in the S. Platte and everything is set up for 2-factor authentication and you don’t have another device to get the code from? And your spouse’s phone doesn’t receive your codes? No checking emails or bank accounts from the library! Be sure you can get into these cyber spaces from a public computer without having to receive codes!

Probably there is more but that’s it for this morning.

We are hoping to hike about half of the Pacific Northwest Trail this coming summer. One thing the Colorado Trail taught us is that we just don’t move fast enough for the longer through hikes. I could say maybe with more practice we might get faster but at ages 68 (me) and 63 (Robert) our athletic abilities are unlikely to increase by much in the future.

[Robin M]

Well, I just finished “plowing” through your trip report and I almost feel I’ve had a grand adventure myself. :)

Thanks so much for taking the time to write out your journal –  sounds like you’re a busy person but somehow you found the time. I had to look up a few creatures (pikas!) and plants that you were able to cite but I hadn’t heard of them in Australia.

At 57 and nine tenths I’m just starting solo section hiking on a much easier track – I love to hear of others tackling these challenges. Hope Robert’s foot has healed well. Thanks again, Robin.

o

[Mina Loomis]

Robin, I am glad you found the journal interesting!  It took an effort to make myself write daily or almost daily on the trail but it was worth it.  Good luck with your solo hike.  It’s so rewarding to go out for a long time.  Robert’s foot healed up just fine after our trip.  He is looking forward to this summer with better shoes!

[Jenny A]

Mina, came across this post today and enjoyed the summary.  Good job!  I’ve lived in Colorado all my life and done portions of what is now the CT over the years.  My daughter and I started a through-hike a few years ago, but I ended up with blood blisters on the soles of my feet and could not continue past Kenosha Pass.  My then-19-yr old daughter completed the rest of the hike solo, an incredible experience for her.

Your comments on what worked well and what didn’t were helpful.  It’s refreshing to read a post by an “average” hiker instead of record-setter or FKT seeker.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

[Mina Loomis]

Jenny, Thanks for your comments.  I’m so sorry you weren’t able to finish your hike.  Often blistering can be minimized by better fitting shoes, but that takes some experimentation.  I hope you get a chance to try the Colorado Trail again.

Robert and I made a start on the Pacific Northwest Trail this summer.  We planned on going our own pace and getting as far as that would take us by the end of August.  But we have had to leave the trail after only the first 100 miles because Robert’s carpel tunnel, both hands, flared up from trekking pole use and pack lifting.  Doc says surgery when we get home in September and no backpacking until next year.  So we will use this summer for touring instead.

My full Colorado Trail journal is now posted at http://www.lithodendron.com .  It’s kind of long though.

[Author]

Posts