SUMMARY:  There was a lot of discussion among the hikers at Twin Lakes as to the best way to get back to the trail. Bill and I opted for Ley’s ‘east of town shortcut’ but when we got there, it was labelled ‘No Trespassing’. Bummer. Oh well—we simply kept on going to the official CDT.

Most of our hiking today was in forest, and it involved a lot of big ups and downs. The trail itself was pretty good, and we got a few glimpses of Mt. Elbert, Colorado’s highest mountain. But thunder and lightning were already playing games around Elbert, so we passed by as quickly as we could.

The trail was marked for a Leadville 100 training camp practice tomorrow—glad we didn’t have to squiggle around a lot of runners today!

DETAILS:  I got up at 6:00 am, took our food bags and resupply box,  then quietly tiptoed down the hall to the upstairs parlor of the Inn.  It was the perfect place to spread everything out, divide it up between our two bags, and figure out what I needed to get from the store.  The parlor had couches, tables and chairs, plus plenty of games and books.  I had to keep telling myself NOT to get distracted by the books!

While I was working on the food, along came Big John, one of the CDT hikers.  He just wanted to talk to someone–he’s a bit discouraged.  He is one of the older hikers (he’s 58) and it really frustrates him not being able to keep up with the younger guys. And he’s dealing with some medical issues, too.  But he is absolutely determined to carry on, no matter what.  Hopefully I was able to hearten him a bit, and I know I enjoyed talking to him.

At 7:00, the Inn has an awesome “continental breakfast”, and all the CDT hikers were there.  We ate till we were stuffed!  Everybody is planning to head back to the trail today, including us.  Fixit is awfully tired, though.  He did not sleep well AGAIN, even on a bed.  It seems like every night lately, something happens; I’ve been calling it “midnight dramas”.  A few days ago, I did ask him to try to be really quiet when this happens, so I can still sleep, and he’s been really nice about being quiet as a mouse.  He was so tired that when he finished breakfast, he just went back to lie down till we have to check out.

Meanwhile, I went across the street to the store and did our “shopping” for more food.  Then I hung out with the other hikers (nobody had left for the trail yet) and the discussion topic was “How do I get back to the CDT?”  One of the girls was going to try Ley’s “western alternate” that goes straight back up to the CDT from the Twin Lakes village.  The trick with that one was how to FIND it.  Then there was the “eastern alternate”, a shortcut that goes to the CDT from near a campground east of town, and then lastly, the official CDT, which was even farther away.  Guthook and Ley disagree on which way to go, and so do the hikers!  Fixit and I had already decided on the eastern shortcut.

It was 10:00 by the time we got going, and we headed for the campground and the shortcut trail.  But when we got there, to our dismay, everything was firmly posted “Private Property: NO Trespassing!”  Grrrr.  Ley maps have a bad habit of doing this to us–they have what looks like a good route, then when you get there, it’s “no trespassing.”  Grrrr.  So we just sighed and kept on walking all the way to the official CDT, and THEN headed back up into the mountains.  Eventually we even caught up with some of the other CDT hikers who had gone up by the “western alternate.”

The CDT trail today had several big climbs, first out of the Twin Lakes valley, then out of the Halfmoon Creek valley (where the side trail to Mt. Elbert & Mt. Massive is), and towards the end of the day, we were pushing up the climb out of the Leadville fish hatchery valley. But the trail was not horrendously steep or rocky at any point–it was very do-able.  Climbing out of Twin Lakes, we had lovely views of the lakes down below as we climbed, and later on, we had glimpses of Mt. Elbert through the trees.  It was afternoon by then, and those glimpses included some flashes of lightning.  We could certainly hear the thunder!  But the nice thing was, we were steadily headed AWAY from all that, rather than INTO it, as we were yesterday.  It rained a bit–enough to put on raingear–but no torrential downpours.

Also, we were pretty much hiking in forest for most of the day–sometimes aspens, sometimes pines and other trees.  And we’re back among granitic rocks–some of them HUGE.  There were a lot of little ponds and lakes along the trail, which meant a fair number of mosquitoes were out ‘n about.  And we also met a whole big pack of bike riders.  We don’t mind them at all–as a result of the many bikes, the CDT trail here is much smoother and nicer.   We also met a guy who told us that there’s a big Leadville 100 training camp on for this weekend, and tomorrow we will be meeting a LOT of runners out practicing.  Aha, that explained all the pink & black ribbons tied to bushes along the trail–they were “course markers”.

In the late afternoon, we met a hiker who’d just come down from climbing Mt. Elbert.  He said he barely made it off the summit when the lightning started.  Glad he is OK!  And then we passed a whole big campfull of teenage Boy Scouts.  They had big tents tucked into every flat place, near a creek, and were cooking dinner.  Man, it smelled good! We also met various solo hikers heading for Durango on the Colorado Trail.

When we finally stopped, I was a bit worried, because we had such a late start today, and ended up taking the LONG way back to the CDT also.  I had figured on getting more “trail time” in, and doing at least 19 or 20 miles.  Instead, we only got 16 1/2 done.  Not good.  If this happens again tomorrow and the next day, we will run out of food.  But it sure was good to be on nice trail, and to meet so many interesting people!