CT Day 21 Skyway to Highway

July 19th, 2017

Miles: 14.8
Total: 357
Start of Segment 21 to Lake City

The sound of my alarm cuts through the predawn darkness, everything so still after the storm. It’s 4:30 am. The shuttle to town arrives at noon and the highway is fifteen miles and three significant climbs away. With no time for dawdling, I extract myself from my lumpy nest of gear, shove everything in my pack and head up the trail.

Despite the ridiculous hour, my body insists on doing its morning business. I somewhat urgently stumble about a steep, shrubby slope trying to find a potty place, struggling in the faint light of my ultralight headlamp to ensure I don’t accidentally dig a hole on the trail switchbacking above or below.

The delay serves me well, as I land atop a saddle at almost 13,000 feet just as what was initially a disappointingly dark, cloudy sky illuminates in spectacular fashion. I stand and gawk at the ever-changing display of light and clouds dancing around San Luis peak, shivering in the cold wind even as the sky warms.

I’m feeling behind schedule with these two unintended stops in the first mile and a half (one rather more beautiful than the other). So on I press, slightly anxious, every step feeling rushed yet too slow as happens when hiking on a deadline. At least the sunrise was worth it.

These hills though! There are so many steep folds in the earth. And so much beetle-ravaged forest. I keep my eyes open for Steph’s tent, but the few safe places to camp away from potential deadfall are occupied by others. I wonder how far she had to continue on last night to find a site?

Finally, after being tricked into premature victory selfies by a false summit, I reach the actual top of the last real climb of the day and soon catch Steph on the way down. She confirms a tough evening of longer than expected late day slogging, having camped most of the way up this last hill.

I’m too busy celebrating the end of today’s climbs and catching up with Steph, too focused on miles to town, to notice just how flat the elevation profile appears for the next stretch so I am completely take by surprise by the stunning contrast in terrain. A wide plateau, a brilliant blur of green from afar that comes into focus as an ever-shifting field of flowers pink, white and yellow. What is this bright wonderland, where the clouds seem to touch the ground? “Snow Mesa,” reads my data book, offering a frigid name that completely fails to evoke the exuberance of this floating garden of joyful blossoms.

Though the easy walking means making the shuttle will be no trouble, I’m slightly on edge by the prospect of being out here during a thunderstorm, though the clouds are still at in the cuddly-fluffer stage. I have no idea where one would hide from lightening other than lying in a minor divot and begging for mercy. I may perhaps be a wee bit traumatized by yesterday’s sky drama.

And then the flat bit comes to an abrupt end, the trail disappearing off edge of the earth, plummeting down to the highway below. I make the road by 11:30, an easy hitch where we are unexpectedly picked up in a van driven by none other than the trail crew leader from last night.