SUMMARY:  This morning was very hazy—I thought maybe a forest fire? But there was no smoke smell. All morning the clouds increased, and before noon, thunder was rumbling among the mountain peaks. Dark gray clouds were hanging over us. But actually, all that was wonderful, because the Colorado Trail threw some very long, hard climbs at us. If we’d had to do those climbs under a hot, sunny sky, it would have been seriously tough. So we were very grateful for the nice dark clouds and even occasional drips of rain—very welcome!

At day’s end, the wind blew very hard, just as we got into our tent. Mileage today was very disappointing—we tried so hard, and only got about 18 miles.

DETAILS:  While we were packing up this morning, I eyed the sky with some concern–it looked awfully like forest fire smoke/haze.  But there was no smell of smoke at all.  Anytime we figure there might be a chance of fire, we hike like crazy to get as far away as possible, so we turned on the afterburners and hiked as fast as we could….which was not very fast.  Too much steep trail!

But a little ways into the morning, we met a guy coming down the trail who looked just like John Muir.  He said he lives up on Mt. White (a nearby 14’er) all summer, and only comes down occasionally.  I guess today was one of those occasions?  I wondered what he does all day long up there, all by himself.  Wow.  A short time after that, we met ANOTHER unusual guy–a hiker who was so thin he was almost skeletal.  He told us he has done the AT three times!  When I asked if he was doing the whole CT, he said, “No, I’m just out for a few weeks.”  Hope he gets into town sometime for a meal–looked like a breeze could blow him over.

Meanwhile, the CT trail continued to track along the “foothills” of the Rockies.  The trail engineers don’t seem to have ever heard of “contouring” or “switchbacking”. It’s endlessly up, down, up, down.  On one of the ups, we met ANOTHER hiker, who was looking for the skinny guy.  When we commented on how “vertical” the CT was, he said, “Yeah, just wait till you start climbing out of Chalk Creek.  It’s a big roadwalk and a REALLY killer climb!”   Yikes.

Overhead, the clouds were building once again, and thunder began to rumble among the peaks.  Again, we were so glad to be below treeline and out of the way of the lightning!  But we were also glad of the clouds, because it was a very warm day, and the cloud cover kept the temperatures reasonable.

Finally we reached Chalk Creek at around lunchtime, after a nasty descent on a very steep and rocky trail.  We found a really nice “mini-beach”, complete with sand, in the shade by the creek.  I fired up the Esbit stove and cooked us a hot lunch.  Just as we were finishing up, along came a sweet couple we’d met on the trail–they said “Hi, again!” and headed for their car in the parking lot, then returned with cold sodas for us!  Trail magic!  So kind!

From that point, getting OUT of Chalk Creek valley, you begin with a long roadwalk.  At first we were hiking through a neighborhood of interesting cabins and houses, and we stopped off at a little store connected with a hot spring resort to get some ice cream.  Too bad we are trying to make it to Canada–otherwise it would have been very tempting to stop there and enjoy the hot springs!  But we continued on up the road, and the climb began, a serious climb.  Partway up, we missed a turn and ended up walking along for 45 minutes before we realized our mistake.  Grrrrr!   We turned and headed back till we found the place where we messed up.  What had confused us was that the junction where we were supposed to turn had looked more like a private camp driveway, so we thought we weren’t supposed to go there (it’s Colorado, and like I said before, they seem to have a THING here about private property!)

Well, it turned out that the road did indeed go to a private camp, but it still was a public road, and the camp was called Frontier Camp, and it’s run by Young Life, which is a great Christian outreach to teens and young people.  The camp had plenty of campers–we saw kids out horseback riding, and buzzing around in lowslung vehicles that are sort of like 4-wheelers.  At the end of the “main” road, there’s a dirt road heading UP the mountain, and that is where we went.  Along the way we caught up with a group of Frontier Camp kids who were heading up, too, burdened with backpacks, to spend a night camped up high on the mountain.

Finally, after so many miles of road, we were back on TRAIL, and it was actually nice trail that contoured along and had wonderful views of the valley below.  Still looks hazy, though.  We continued hiking till 7:00 and managed to find a small flat place to camp.  Just as we were setting up our tent, the wind began to blow very strongly, and as I am writing this, it’s close to roaring.  Fixit is once again having trouble sleeping, due to the altitude, I think, and he has to prop himself up on his pack.  I was very disappointed when I calculated our mileage for the day to find that even though we tried so hard, we only made 17.9 miles.  I guess that losing an hour and a half when we missed the turn really hurt, plus the long, steep downhill where I was going at a crawl.  Well, we will do the best we can tomorrow!