{"id":467,"date":"2016-06-15T00:09:29","date_gmt":"2016-06-15T00:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/?p=467"},"modified":"2017-03-18T03:22:37","modified_gmt":"2017-03-18T03:22:37","slug":"and-the-skies-were-not-cloudy-all-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/2016\/06\/15\/and-the-skies-were-not-cloudy-all-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday, June 15 And the Skies Were Not Cloudy All Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

SUMMARY:\u00a0 <\/strong>Clear and cold this morning as Fixit, myself, and Eric the Red prepared to face crossing roaring Cochetopa Creek. It was very tough. Fixit and I failed in our first attempt, then tried again in another place, and we made it across, so Eric went that way, too.<\/p>\n

The air was so cold that as we hiked away from the creek, our wet pants froze, and we ended up with ‘ice pants’! Finally we reached some sun and began to thaw out. The rest of the day was fine hiking through different kinds of forest and across a vast prairie. No picture could do it justice\u2014what a scene!<\/p>\n

We did meet a rancher who was out checking his gates, getting ready to bring the cows in tomorrow. He said ‘Hikers are all great about closing gates! But those 4-wheeler people never remember.’ Yay, hikers!<\/p>\n

But most amazing was the sky\u2014not a cloud in sight, all day. That is a first! And we loved it\u2014no dark grey rumbling dripping clouds\u2014just sun! We are camped tonight still in the Cochetopa Hills by a tiny creek.<\/p>\n

DETAILS:<\/strong>\u00a0 I did not sleep very well last night, thinking about the nasty river crossing waiting for us first thing in the morning.\u00a0 Usually “river roar” is a soothing sound to fall asleep to, but not this time!<\/p>\n

At 5:20 am, we started packing up.\u00a0 Oh fun, frozen socks and semi-frozen shoes, and frost all over everything.\u00a0 Brrrr, it was cold!\u00a0 We carefully wrapped all our valuables in plastic and stowed them high up in our packs, preparatory to making the descent down to the river.\u00a0 Noticing no signs of life in Eric the Red’s tent, we yelled over, “Hey, Eric!\u00a0 Time to get up!”\u00a0 Then we headed down the trail.<\/p>\n

At the river bank, we spent some time scouting for where might be a good place to cross, and since the current was so strong, we opted for the method where I stow my trek poles and get behind Fixit while we sidestep across.\u00a0 We ventured out into the river.\u00a0 It was baaaaad, very scary.\u00a0 We were less than half way when Fixit yelled, “Go back!\u00a0 Can’t do this!”\u00a0 So back we went, and climbed out again.\u00a0 Fixit walked up and down looking some more, and finally picked another place.\u00a0 We prayed for help to make the crossing OK, and this time, we made it…barely, but we made it.\u00a0 I was mega-glad to reach the other side, even though it was full of mud and bushes and mess.\u00a0 Looking back, I spotted Eric the Red, so we pointed out to him which way we went, and he made it too.\u00a0 He only has one trek pole–wow, that is brave, crossing a river like this!<\/p>\n

But we all were wet to well above the knee, and my feet had no feeling in them at all.\u00a0 We were shivering in the bitter cold.\u00a0 The only solution was: HIKE!\u00a0 Hike fast!\u00a0 Fixit and I and Eric the Red went as fast as we could along the trail, which followed the Cochetopa Creek down the valley.\u00a0 Unfortunately, there was no sun, because the high mountains around us blocked it.\u00a0 But at 7 am, we finally broke out into sunshine, and wow did it feel good!\u00a0 We stopped to eat some breakfast, and that’s when we discovered that our wet pants had actually FROZEN–they were ice!\u00a0 But the sun soon took care of that.<\/p>\n

The morning from then on was warm and sunny, so we got completely thawed out and enjoyed the hike as the trail climbed up through a pretty aspen forest, then came out into a vast sort of high prairie land with ranches and cows.\u00a0 The views were epic–a vastness of sky and prairie, surrounded by mountains, some with snow on them.\u00a0 I tried to take some pictures, but no way could a mere photo convey what we were looking at.\u00a0 Finally we were back in forest again, and had to stop for water at a very iffy source–time for the Aqua Mira!\u00a0 It’s been working great for us; we have not been sick at all.\u00a0 And it only takes a few minutes to “cook” the Aqua Mira solution and add it to our water bottles, then hike on, being careful not to drink any of it for at least 30 minutes.\u00a0 It’s way quicker than filtering.\u00a0 At noon, it was so warm that we actually looked for SHADE to sit in while I cooked some lunch.<\/p>\n

This afternoon, we were following a dirt road (part of the CDT route) when we met an old rancher in his pickup truck.\u00a0 He asked about some gates in the trail section we’d just come through, whether or not they were closed.\u00a0 We remembered the gates, and assured him that we were very careful to close them as soon as we’d gone through–he was very pleased.\u00a0 “Hikers are good about shutting gates!” he said.\u00a0 “But those darn 4-wheelers never remember!”\u00a0 He told us that tomorrow he’ll be bringing his herd of cows up to graze, since the snow has melted and the pastures are ready.\u00a0 But he wanted to be sure about the gates!<\/p>\n

The news about cows coming up into the mountains again was good news to us!\u00a0 (Yet another indicator that the snow should be less and less of a problem from now on.)\u00a0 And the amazing thing was that the SKY today was clear and sunny for the whole day–not a cloud in sight!\u00a0 And that means lots of sun to MELT the snow!\u00a0 Hooray!<\/p>\n

For the rest of the day, the “trail” was mostly on closed old road, and it made quite a climb before dropping down into a valley with a little creek.\u00a0 The forest here is green and healthy–no dead beetlekill trees.\u00a0 We ended up camping by the little creek, and Fixit took a “bath” in the freezing snowmelt water.\u00a0 He is braver than I am!\u00a0 I settled for just wiping myself off.\u00a0 We are both so grubby and sweaty, but we don’t care–the snow is melting!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SUMMARY:\u00a0 Clear and cold this morning as Fixit, myself, and Eric the Red prepared to face crossing roaring Cochetopa Creek. It was very tough. Fixit and I failed in our first attempt, then tried again in another place, and we made it across, so Eric went that way, too. The air was so cold that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colorado"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":817,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467\/revisions\/817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}