SUMMARY:  There was a lot of wind last night, oh joy! It dried all our wet stuff! So we were very happy hikers as we headed off along the trail, but very quickly I grew worried. The trail was headed in the wrong direction. It didn’t match my map.

Then I was shocked to see a road down below.  This should not be!   It was a paved road.  I could not see any paved roads on our route for this morning.  Then in absolute horror, we realized the truth: Somehow we had chosen the wrong ridge again (different, but still wrong) and made a huge loop and had returned to Willow Pass and Hwy 125. We were very sad and upset, and it was all my fault, because I had been careless about checking map AND compass, and so selfishly stubborn about insisting I was right.

So after some very grievous discussion, we decided it was back to roadwalking—first to the little town of Rand, then a shortcut over to Hwy 14, which will return us to the CDT. We tried to camp along the road, but everything was swarming with aggressive, biting ants. So we went to nearby Russell Ranch, and they let us camp in their hay barn.

DETAILS:  The wind blew (often quite hard) all last night, and by morning, all our stuff that had gotten wet in the rain up on Parkview Mountain was dry!  What a joy to get up to dry shoes, dry socks, and even a dry tent!  We happily set off along the trail, thinking that our troubles were over.  Even the many blowdowns we had to climb over didn’t dim our enthusiasm!

But as we went along, I gradually became more and more uneasy.  From what I could tell, looking at the map, we were headed the wrong direction.  I kept checking the compass and wondering again, “Is my compass crazy?”  Then down below, I spotted a paved road.  Impossible!  According to the map, there should be no paved road anywhere around here.  The nearest one was Hwy 125, but it was on the other side of the mountain.  Finally I was so worried that I stopped and said to Fixit, “I’m so sorry, but I can’t figure out where we are.  I think you’d better check Guthook.”  Fixit said “Sure” and he had a look.  “Well, Guthook says we are right on the CDT” he said.  So even though I was still uneasy, I felt more hopeful, and we kept on going, switchbacking down, down to the road, and when we stepped out of the forest onto the road shoulder, we discovered that….. we were back at Willow Pass.  We had just done a gigantic circle and were back at where we started yesterday morning.

To say we were both in despair would be an understatement.  The thought of climbing all the way back up the mountain and trying again was just beyond what I could face doing.  And Fixit was once again furious and disgusted with me.  This was all my fault.  I would not listen to him when he tried to be careful up on the top of the mountain, and I would not wait for him.  He was absolutely right.  All I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and be miserable.

But I dared not indulge in a pityparty for long.  We had so little food left.  I finally said to Fixit, “If we roadwalk to Rand, we can get some food, and then we can shortcut from there over to Hwy 14, which is part of the CDT.  Then we’ll be back on the CDT, and we can follow it till it’s time to hitch in to Steamboat Springs.”

Fixit was miserable, too, but he agreed, and we set off along Hwy 125.  By 11:15, we had reached Rand, which turned out to be a tiny place with a gift shop and a small post office.  It didn’t have a restaurant or a grocery store, but the gift shop did sell drinks and snacks. The gift shop owner turned out to be supernice.  Turns out that he helps maintain the little lookout house up on top of Parkview Mountain, and he was very encouraging and helpful. So I bought a bunch of snacks to see us through, and the owner told me how to find County Road 28, which would shortcut us over to Hwy 14 and the CDT.  We also loaded up on water from the hiker/biker water cache that is kept under the gift shop sign by the road.

So we spent the rest of the day roadwalking, first along Hwy 125, then turning off onto gravel Road 28.  All along the way we were passing lovely ranches, with deep green grass, many lakes and ponds and very contented-looking cattle.  Pretty much every ranch had at least one “grasshopper” oil well.  We’ve heard that the ranchers used to barely make a living, but now, with additional income from oil, they are doing very well.  Sure looks like it!  I am very glad for them.

But we were constantly walking against wind that was so strong it made us tired just trying to constantly push against it.  That was hard. But we kept plugging away, determined to get as many miles as we could to make up for so much lost time.  At 7:00, we were seriously looking for somewhere to camp, but the road was constantly lined with barbed wire and “no trespassing” signs.  Finally we spotted a place off the road that was NOT posted, and gladly started to set up our tent (we dared not cowboy camp; the clouds were gathering).  But horrors, it turned out that the nice soft flat place was SWARMING with fierce ants!  Hundreds of them rushed onto our packs and gear, and climbed up our legs and began to BITE!  Ow, they hurt!   And they were everywhere!  All we could do was scramble to yank up the tent (we lost one of our tent stakes in the process),  and hurry back to the road, brushing biting ants off our gear and ourselves and considering what to do.

I remembered that back down the road a little way, we had passed a ranch.  Maybe they would let us camp someplace outside.  Hopefully there would be no ants.  So back we went, to the Russell Ranch, and walked carefully down the driveway.  The ranch dogs had barked at us very fiercely when we walked by before, and we were wary.  But we managed to make it to the front door without being eaten, and explained our predicament.  Mr. Russell said he’d noticed us walking by earlier, and very kindly gave us permission to stay in the hay barn.  We were very grateful!   At first we thought we’d just cowboy camp on the loose bits of hay that were lying on the ground, but oh bother, there were a LOT of mosquitoes;  too many to dare go without the tent.  But the floor of the barn was rockhard clay.  How could we put in the tent stakes?  Well, we ended up finding some wooden pallets, and tied the tent guy lines to the pallets.  It worked OK.  Whew!

We crawled into our sleeping bags as the sunset lit up the sky, and I think we can make it into Steamboat Springs tomorrow, if we really try hard.  And I vowed to myself, “ALWAYS check the compass!  ALWAYS!”  I do not ever again want to go through what we’ve gone through.  We have lost a whole day of hiking, plus what we’d already lost.  We could have been at Steamboat Springs already if we had not messed up so much.  Well, to be more accurate, if I had not messed up so much.  But we are blessed to have a safe and good place to camp, and enough to eat, and good water to drink.