By Cody. Weimenuche Wilderness, San Juan Mountains, Colorado, 11,000 feet, 10 inches of snow, early morning, 20 degrees.
I was standing in the middle of a flood-swollen creek on a little rock island about to jump for the far bank. Dad had already made it across. Mom and Jess were looking for a more promising way. It wasn’t a very big jump really. Only about 4 feet or so, and I thought even with my pack I could make it no problem. I grabbed on to the little tree next to me, steadied my trekking pole, checked my footing, and jumped. My left foot stuck in the snow on the far bank, but my right foot slipped back into the creek and next thing I knew is was sitting waist deep in the rushing ice water observing my wool hat floating off down stream with my sunglasses. My dad ran over and could see that I was about to cry with frustration. We quickly dried my camera and I changed into dry clothes. Dern - those were cute sunglasses too. That stream crossing, which dad deemed “Tofu’s demise” was the 5th of the morning. By nightfall we had walked 20 of the toughest miles of the trip and crossed 65 more.
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It was bound to be a hard section from the start - at least as far as trail conditions go. The trail, or more accurately, the “trench,” was wickedly impossible to walk in. It was steep on both sides, narrow, and filled a foot deep with mud, water, snow. The day before we covered a modest 14 miles and were pretty worn out. We were up high and it had gotten dark by the time we stopped and began to look for a campsite with somewhat less snow than all the other snow covered places around us.
We knew from the map that somewhere near by at timberline there was supposed to be a Forest Service Patrol cabin and we were hoping if we could locate it to spend the night on the porch for a little shelter. Miracle of miracles I saw the cabin in the deepest, darkest part of the woods and Dad found the key to the front door.
That night we slept like kings and queens with the wood stove blazing and lantern shedding warm light over our pasta dinner. Thank you NFS - we swept up good!
The 20 miles to our re-supply point really was one of the hardest days of the trip exertion wise. We left the cabin before sunrise and headed off with 3 goals in mind for the day: Goal one, make it to the re-supply trailhead. Goal two, count the number of streams crossed and see who guessed closest (Mom guessed 50). Goal three, see the mountain lion whose tracks we had been following up the mountain for a couple of days. Both goal 1 and 2 were accomplished but not goal 3.
Both lion and bear tracks were in the fresh snow on the trail in front of us but we did not get a glimpse of either. The amount of animals and animal signs we saw over that couple of days was spectacular though. We saw 2 big elk herds, one of which was led by a 6×6 bull who definitely thought he was king of the forest. We also saw eagles, hawks, coyotes, beaver, and deer.
Late in the afternoon on the second day, long after all of us were ready to be done, but with miles still to go, we bumped into Morgan and Deb. They had hiked out to bring us a treat to buoy us for the last few miles. The little treat turned out to be banana splits. They were so, so good. They even brought hot fudge and whipped cream to put on top. It was the best trail snack we have had yet. That night we drove down to Durango for groceries and some friends lovingly let us crash at their place and then served us a feast for breakfast. Thank you so much to the Ott family for caring for us after the toughest section on the trip. We so appreciate it.
New Mexico is oh, so close!
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