Tag: Colorado Trail

We have now past the halfway point in our Colorado Trail hike and will be taking our first day off from hiking in the small town of Salida, CO (13 miles east of the Colorado Trail).

Hiking has been great and the weather good (except for last night’s rain, but that mostly happened after we set up camp).

On Saturday we stopped for a meal and hot shower at Mt. Princeton hot springs because it was 50 feet off the trail. On a Saturday the place was busy, busy. Deb found the women’s shower room packed with about 25 women and children – she recommends you try to get there on a weekday instead. The market had sandwiches and burritos making our resupply easy.

Our hitch into Salida was so easy since we talked to a mountain biker on the walk down to highway 50 and he offered a ride without being asked. We are staying at the Aspen Leaf motel for the same price as the private room at the hostel (which had no availability for 2 nights.)

Water has been plentiful with many more seasonal streams running that are not listed in the data book, so we’ve been mostly carrying a liter at a time.

We are happy, well, and having lots of fun.

Greetings from the small community of Twin Lakes, Colorado. We have now hiked 175 miles of the Colorado Trail with 309 miles remaining.

The hike is going well and the weather has improved. It’s been three days since any significant rain has fallen.

We saw a red fox this morning from our tent site, Deb’s second sighting of a red fox since she saw one strolling through the town of Breckenridge.

Last Saturday on our second day in Breckenridge we slack packed from Copper Mountain, 14.4 miles back to our hostel room at the Fireside Inn (a great place to stay!) The day’s 10% chance of rain turned into 100% by the time we had 6 miles remaining to make it back to our room. Thankfully we had a shower and hot tub waiting for us! We both really liked Breckenridge and talked about a longer stay there someday.

We still haven’t seen any moose or elk or cougar or bear. The alpine meadows have been mostly quiet.

The Colorado trail itself can get quite steep, especially in the wilderness sections where the grades don’t have to make the mountain bikers happy (bikes are not allowed in the wilderness sections.) Deb is nick-naming the trail the “calf-burner.” The other oddity of the trail is the high treeline – it seems we have to be higher than 11,000 feet before we have expansive views.

Today we passed the 100 mile mark in our hike and we arrived in the resort community of Breckenridge, Colorado.

The Colorado Trail gives up any pretense of being a wilderness experience here as the trail drops down from the mountains between a mobile home park and a condominium complex to a bus stop on the outskirts of Breckenridge. (The mobile home park was nicer than any I have seen with many of the mobile homes built like log cabins that surrounded a small lake).

Feeling it best to adapt to our new surroundings, we checked into the lovely Fireside Inn Hostel, showered, washed clothes, and sampled one of the many restaurants. Deb has made plans for us to “slack pack” the next 12 miles of trail.

Slack packing is hiking without carrying a heavy backpack full of camping gear. Tomorrow we will catch the free shuttle bus to the Copper Mountain ski resort and walk the 12 miles of Colorado Trail back to Breckenridge for another night of luxury at the Fireside Inn. On Saturday we will resume backpacking from Copper Mountain.

The past few days have not all been luxury. A few days ago we crossed over the Continental Divide for the first time with a long strenuous climb to just shy of 12,000 feet.