CT: 28 Days Later

July 26, 2017

Miles: 22.4
Trail Mile: 484.6
Total Miles: 494? (+10 for Collegiate West)
Segment 28!

The harrowing night gives way to blue sky mornings, and, insistent on not spending one more night in the ever-dampness I am determined to hike out today. There’s one last patch of alpine flowers, one last postcard view that seems to shrug and say “what rain”, then a whole day of descent. Lupine gives way to wild raspberries, open views to narrow canyons, and then lushness to aridity.

Down and down to the warm and the dry and then Durango, where I consume an entire half pound block of vegan cheese while wandering around the grocery store overwhelmed.

The Colorado Trail was what I expected it to be, except when it wasn’t. And though I was prepared for afternoon thunderstorms, the endless rainy days and nights seriously challenged my morale. I’ve heard from others that 2017 was an unusually damp summer. Though the flowers were unbelievable, I paid in the skin that sloughed off of my constantly wet feet in sheets. Maybe I will hike the trail again one day, in reverse in the fall, trading the monsoon for Golden aspen?

But maybe there’s another lesson here too; one about not being afraid to take life a bit slower? I shoehorned this trip between finishing up my postdoc in California, and then moving (via Portland OR to makes things more complicated!) to Texas to start what has seemed like a whole new non-stop life. And maybe my Colorado trail feelings are too tangled up with moving anxieties? Or maybe, I am too spoiled by Sierra summers? Or, maybe my heart is still somewhere on the west coast?

In any case, here I am, finishing these posts two years late, on a southbound train in Oregon, heading back to the PCT.