Success and Failure on the Colorado Trail

Great story. Excellent pictures. Thanks.

Thanks for the trip report, Luke. Great pictures, too – looks like I need to add another trail to my list.

Luke, nice report and pictures, great job!

Thanks, Luke, for your trip report and great photos. I'll add my reassurance: taking care of a bad, painful ankle is success, whether during long thru-hikes or professional sports. Life is the longer thru-hike, and a happy ankle for the rest of it means a lot. Anything else is ego-pride–way more fleeting than true wisdom. Cheers! -Dambara

Luke, great report. I thought I'd read a bit, hit the shower (just got home from the gym) and come back and finish it. Nope. Read it straight through. Engrossing to say the least. Journey's tend to test, and build, faith. Glad you feel stronger. Being in Gods creation can't help but put you a little closer. Now that is what I call success.

I hope to do this trip as well someday. Nicely done!

I'm curious though why you like your poles so long as it didn't like look you were going downhill in most of those pics? All the advice I've ever read says your arms should be parallel to the ground.

Well thanks a lot for all the kind words ya'll.

First to give credit where its due I had a lot of good ideas from other BPL articles before I went into this. I got some good ideas for organizing the article from Ryan Linn's articles about the PCT and Eric ("Balls") and Sunshine's articles about their PCT thru hike. Reading their articles gave me an idea of what made a good trip report and how to focus in on the "big ideas" or the things that really dominated the thinking and emotions on a hike rather than focusing too much on little details.

To answer a few questions…

Michael – I probably do have those poles adjusted a bit long. I don't think I changed the lenght very often at all on the trip.

Rick – Foods are a personal thing. I think the main thing is to make sure you have enough. To start off I had about 2000+ calories a day or 1.4 pounds of food. This was definately not enough. I was feeling hungry on the third day. Also think about the melting factor if you'll be out in warm summer weather.
Gear wise things worked out. I started with a small 5x9ft. tarp. It worked but it was a pain in the neck when it rained all the time. A bigger tarp was very nice for the extra coverage. I am glad I carried an internal frame pack on the trip instead of my usual frameless pack. With food and water my total pack weight was over 20 pounds quiet often so the extra pound for a sturdy frame was worth it.
Starting late meant no real snow. It should have meant fewer thunderstorms but they didn't really slack up until towards the very end.
A couple things would have helped make the trip a bit easier.
1. I should have used gaiters to keep dust out of my shoes
2. I should have done first aid on blisters more proactively (don't skimp on blister care by the way)
3. I should have put new socks in my resupply boxes.
4. Camera batteries go quickly in cold weather. I had five batteries but it would have made more sense to take 2 or 3 and bounce a charger to resupplies.
If you think about doing this I highly recommend you read Andrew Skurka's book first.

Luke,

Thank you for the report.

I'm curious. Looking back on it, would you have rather hiked only the most scenic parts of the trail (on different trips) rather than the whole trail?

Or to ask the same question another way, was the enjoyment of completing the whole trail worth the "boring" parts?

"I'm curious. Looking back on it, would you have rather hiked only the most scenic parts of the trail (on different trips) rather than the whole trail?

Or to ask the same question another way, was the enjoyment of completing the whole trail worth the "boring" parts?"

Tim thats a very good question. I think it depends on what your goals are. In this case my goal was to stay on a trail more or less continiously. I wanted to know how a longer backpacking trip felt and how to plan for one. For those goals the boring parts were worth it becasue they were part of the "long trip" experience. I could have done the most scenic areas in about a week by driving to them and doing seperate mini trips but it would not have been nearly as powerful of an experience.

RS, I started something like August 20 of last summer and finished about September 12 if I recall correctly. Basically I went than because it was when I had the time but it worked out pretty well. It never got really cold and the thunderstorms slowed down a bit toward the end. The colder days seemed to produce less of them. The downside was the creeks were drier and there wasn't much snow to look at on the mountains.

Great photos, Luke, and I enjoyed the article even more.
Wondering if that was Lake City you visited for a day after Snow Mesa. Looked unsuccessfully for another Twin Lakes near Spring Creek Pass, and couldn't find one.
Have wanted to do Cochetopa and La Garita for a long time, but so far haven't got to it. Your account and photos are much more interesting and gave a better sense of what the trail is really like than any guidebook I've run across.
Hope your ankle is restored and you can get back to Weminuche sometime. If you have a chance, visit Virginia's at the north end of Vallecito Lake. Really enjoyed the times I spent there.