Hiking sections 19 through 17 of the Colorado Trail, from the crossing of Cochetopa Creek to Lujan Creek, was so far one of the hardest walks I’ve had out here.
Coming out of the San Juan Mountains and hitting the high prairie was a shock. Once abundant, water is a challenge. True, this is Continental Divide country, but it’s not the great, lofty parting of the waters. Rain doesn’t appear to flow either to the Atlantic or the Pacific here. It just makes muddy puddles and evaporates. The springs are so small that water has to be dipped out one partial cup at a time.
Here the mountains recede, replaced by hot sagebrush- and grass-filled flatlands that stretch for miles in every direction. Trails degenerate into a mish-mash of rutted dirt roads. The high prairie’s spaciousness had a special beauty, but mentally, I wasn’t in a place that allowed me to accept and enjoy it.
I’d suffered a dog bite in my right hand — a friendly hiker dog, just an accident — and although I’d doctored the hand as best I could, it had swollen. My knuckles disappeared, and it was painful to grip my hiking pole. I couldn’t remember when I’d had my last tetanus shot. So it was a huge relief for me to reach Colorado 114, the end of section 17 on my northbound journey, and hitch a ride off the trail to a clinic in Gunnison.
Frankly, I had no intention of returning to finish the sections from the Cochetopa Hills overSargents Mesa to Marshall Pass. I’d had enough of the lowlands, of heat and road walks and sharing the trail with cows, Jeeps, pickups, motorcycles and ATVs. I didn’t want to worry about water anymore.
But when it came time to load the pack again after I finished the Collegiate West, guilt did me in. If I was going to walk the Colorado Trail, then it couldn’t be just the best of the Colorado Trail. I would have to walk all of it.
Turns out Sargents Mesa and Marshall Pass were one of the most pleasant interludes of my journey. The last wildflowers of summer were in full bloom, the forests were a delightful, tangled mess of decaying fallen trees mixed with wild jumbles of new growth. I picked handful after handful of huckleberries, smashing them into my mouth as I walked until my lips were stained purple.
Water wasn’t plentiful, but it was available. Waiting for a small trickle to fill my cup at Razor Creek was as refreshing as a nap. Getting water led me to hike to Baldy Lake, a place so peaceful and pleasant I spent the night. The dripping and bubbling of tiny seeps and springs through soft green moss beside the trail was as good as music, and finally arriving at the clear, flowing waters of Tank Seven Creek was like entering the land of plenty.
Tank Seven Creek was where I met Victor Hanson-Smith, trail name “Flamingo,” a Continental Divide hiker who was taking a break from the trail to cook an early dinner before walking into the evening. Victor told me he was a scientist. He’d taken an unpaid leave of absence to walk the divide and had started in Glacier National Park in late June. Now, 2,000 miles later, he was getting ready to enter the San Juans.
Victor was the first divide hiker that I’d found sitting still. Most are walking. Fast. Making time, making distance, hurrying between snowmelt and snow’s arrival. Divide hikers travel early, before light, and go all day into the dusk.
I’m continually impressed with divide hikers. I’ve put in 300 miles, so multiply that by five … I can’t imagine where that puts a person mentally and physically. So I asked.
“I have had my moments,” he said. “Why am I doing this? Why not just go home? Why not just quit? Sometimes it was a struggle. But now it’s like my mind is detached from my body. I’m like an observer of myself. I can walk uphill, downhill, rain, snow, wind, sun, whatever, and my body just does it. Just walks. Every so often my mind checks in with my body and it’s like, ‘Oh, we’re still walking. OK.’ And then my mind goes back to thinking about whatever it is that I’m thinking about or looking at.”
Dinner finished, Flamingo packed up his gear while I set up my tarp. “I can get a few more miles in before dark,” he said. “May be even do some night hiking.”
The next day, I made the long climb up from Tank Seven Creek to Marshall Pass. When I got to the trailhead at Marshall Pass, a man sitting in a lawn chair beside a campfire yelled to ask if I wanted a beer. I said, I’d love a beer. And how about some peanut M&M’s, the stranger asked, opening up a big bag. Yes, I would.
You sticking around, the stranger asked, camping here?
Nope, I replied. I’m moving on. And into the evening I walked.
Dean Krakel: dkrakel@gmail.com,
Editor’s note
Former Denver Post photo editor Dean Krakel is thru-hiking The Colorado Trail this summer and fall, sending in dispatches whenever he comes off the trail to resupply. For photos from this year’s hike and his latest from the trail, follow Dean at dpo.st/coloradotrail.
