CT Day 25: The Junction

July 23

Miles: 19 + 1 Bonus Mile
Trail Mile: 409
Segment 24 Start to 18.6

In the morning, everyone pitches in ingredients and Arcade cooks up an amazing town breakfast. We rush to clean up and leave in time to meet Scott, a tourist who was rented some kind of Toyota version of a Jeep, who has so very kindly offered to drive us all the way back to the trail.

From seatbelt security inside a vehicle, we have a full view of the road and what we travelled in the back of the pickup truck yesterday. And darned if there aren’t some sketchy stretches! But Scott drives with admirable caution and skill, and amusingly refers to the road as a “trail”. We stop once to take photos of flowers and then we are back up where we left off, saying thank yous and goodbyes and walking back off into the green hills.

The puffy clouds are out and about, but still the difference compared to the same time yesterday is heartening. We take photos and marvel at how exposed we could have been had we walked into the storm yesterday. Then Arcade and I spy strange hoof prints in the mud. Too long for deer, too small for cows. Sheep? We guess. One ridge over and we catch a train of pack llamas a geared up for rain – how fun!

There are more high meadows with the most rugged peaks we have seen yet in the distance. And then we reach the junction. The one where, after 300 miles, the CT and the CDT arrows point on opposite directions. The junction where we have to part ways with Glimmer and Arcade. “May the thunderstorms stay off your ridges” I wish the couple. “And may you have dry feet” replies Glimmer.Then, misty-eyed and racing dark clouds, I misread a confusing sign while almost running up what I think is our last climb before the trail dips to safer elevations. Part way up, thunder booms so I power up and over, across the ridge and follow the cairns down the other side. In relative safety, I check my GPS only to find I’m half mile off trail, and Steph has followed too.

The actual trail headed DOWN way back at the confusing sign. So I just ran up a ridge toward thunder-danger for no reason. It is, however, the most beautiful bonus mile I have ever done.

The actual CT is spectacular too, in its own way. We descend a narrow canyon with massive wall and waterfalls spilling over the edges. There are mountain goats and, miraculously, the rain holds off.We cross the train tracks and the Animas river before climbing up and up some more to camp a smidgeon shy of the official Molas Lake campground. Finally, an almost entire day of hiking without rain jackets, without wet feet, without cooking dinner in the vestibule. It’s enough to make me want to hike all 3,000 miles of the Continental Divide Trail. I try to remember a night we have not been rained on while camping and can only come up a single instance way back on Day 3.