SUMMARY:  We are surrounded by magnificent mountains, but no way to get a picture of them because of smoke haze. We made very good time with our hiking till about 10am, and then the CDT decided to play hide and seek again. It went way up onto a broad ridge, using wooden posts and rock cairns to indicate the route, then disappeared. We spent the next 4 1/2 hours searching, bushwhacking, consulting our Garmin GPS (which was a huge help) and studying our maps.

We did make progress, but it was slow. Finally at about 2:30pm, the trail stopped playing games, and settled back down into being a nice clearly marked trail, so in the end we were still able to make our minimum of 20 miles. Grrr, we could have done a lot more if the trail had behaved itself. But the scenery today was glorious, and tonight’s campsite has mountains like a wall on one side, and on the other, it’s sloping to the valley far below.

DETAILS:  The sunrise this morning was very red–there is so much smoke in the air.  Here we are, surrounded by magnificent scenery, and I can’t get any pictures of it because of all the smoke. Sigh.  This morning’s trail was well-posted and well-cared for; we made some good miles, until 10:00 am.  That’s when the route headed out onto the massive ridgetops of the Divide, where it’s basically grass and rocks and a few CDT posts.  A VERY few.  Too few.  We started getting into a pattern of, “Where’s the next post?  Do you see one?”   “No.”  Then we’d stand there looking and looking.  Finally we would give up and get out the Garmin and the maps.  We’d locate the next waypoint and head for it.  The problem was, a lot of those “head for it” adventures involved some steep ups and down and going through bushes.  But each time, we would manage to find the waypoint and (sometimes) a bit of “trail”.

One of the worst of these “where’d the trail go?” challenges was almost unbelievable.  We had found a bit of the trail and were cheering and following it downhill into some trees.  At that point, it totally disappeared, AGAIN.  Well, actually, it turned out, it didn’t disappear–it just made a 90 degree turn to the left.  There was no signpost to show this–no rock cairn, no sticker on a tree, no arrow on the ground made with sticks…nothing.  Somehow we were just supposed to “know” where to go?

Well, out came the maps again, out came the Garmin, and we figured it out, but grrrr, it was frustrating!   All this “fun” continued till 2:30 pm, when we found ourselves once again on marked, clear trail.   Fixit says he likes the adventure of figuring out where to go…I worry about beating the snow to Canada.   But we both agree that we LOVE the Garmin!   Today would have been a nightmare without it.  We would probably have had to bail off the trail and roadwalk into Leadore.

And also, despite the frustration, the scenery up here is awesome.  We have the massive, muscular ridges of the Divide, plus rugged, rocky mountains to look at.  Some of them still have snow lingering on their north slopes.  We passed Morrison Lake–very pretty!! and wondered if the guy we met yesterday made it here OK by his shortcut route.  It was too early to stop and camp, but we did stop and look at the lake.

Tonight we are camped way up high on a ridgetop–wow, the views!!  On one side of us the mountains are like cliffs, rising high, and on the other side, they slope down to the valley far below.  It is gorgeous.  And when I did the math, I was so happy to find we had managed to do our 20 mile minimum after all.  We could have done way much more if we hadn’t lost so much time hunting for the trail.  But if we really push it tomorrow, we should be able to make it in to Leadore.