The Perfect Hitch

We arrived in Leadville yesterday afternoon after hitching in from Twin Lakes, in the middle of segment 11. We are taking the eastern route through the Collegiate Peaks, the CDT would take you through the western part. We have been passing many CDT hikers in the past day and a half & ran into even more here in town. The energy & excitement they have is contagious. There are some Colorado Trail thru-hikers near us, but we haven't seen very much of them. We have heard there are a few solo hikers in front of us & have met a couple from Boulder who we've run into a few times. The trail has again been wonderful, we have passed through some snowy parts, but each has been less dangerously snowy than we originally thought. We did take out our ice axes once to use to cross a snowy goat trail with a steep slope down a few hundred feet. We have had high wind, rain & storms occasionally but only one arrived at a dangerous time, and luckily that one had no lightning or thunder in it. As we go over each pass, we get a spectacular view of what is to come & each time, we are blown away. The trail just took us near Mt. Massive & Mt. Elbert (the highest peak in CO) & we were so close to the summit, but we decided we're going to come back & make a special trip out of summitting those mountains when we find some time in our other life. After all, we're only a few hours away from home!

We saw a ptarmigan & many marmots up in the higher elevations. The ptarmigan was beautiful, half white & half brown, transitioning from snow to summer. A critter of some sort (a mouse, I am guessing) chewed into our most essential pack straps (across our chest & mine on my hip belt) so we just did our best to sew those back up, but it was difficult because they were quite frayed. I swear I heard a mouse bouncing around outside our tent that night....We have also seen a few abert squirrels, black with tufts on the tips of their ears as well as been serenaded to sleep by coyotes yipping and howling very closely nearby (these were in our last section, though).

Here is a map of the trail that might give you some insight as to how far we've come & how far we've yet to go. We are currently in the middle of segment 11.

We got the hitch dreams are made of from Twin Lakes into Leadville. I was barely a few letters into writing out our sign while Unicroc was standing there with his thumb out (on a busy road with no shade) & it didn't take long for someone to stop & pick us up. The guy knew we were CT hikers & shared that he's an ultrarunner (runs 100-mile races, only the 2nd one we've ever met, with the first being back in Breckenridge) & he has a friend who's about to begin the CT this coming week. After getting to know him during the 20-ish miles to town, he invited us to sleep on a futon in his house for free, let us shower, launder our clothes, & then handed us the keys to a 1970-something blue jeep with no top to go run our errands. This jeep is awesome, a memorable experience for sure. We had a lazy, relaxing day yesterday & then he made a vegetarian sauce for spaghetti for us to join him, his son & a friend for dinner. His friend has many stories from his days on the AT, PCT and just ran a 50-mile race the day before. Good people, good stories, and once again reminds us that humanity has so much goodness left.

We have rested up, resupplied, sent home our heavy snow gear & a few other things (ice axes, gaiters, wild edible/medicinal book, extra camera battery that dies anyway) & I just found a new book to read at the thrift store for 53 cents. Life is good!

Our next planned stop is Salida in about 75 miles so we'll touch base again once we're there!

Much love,

Scat Tracker & Unicroc