{"id":506,"date":"2016-07-04T04:33:17","date_gmt":"2016-07-04T04:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/?p=506"},"modified":"2017-04-21T15:42:58","modified_gmt":"2017-04-21T15:42:58","slug":"back-to-hide-n-seek-trail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/2016\/07\/04\/back-to-hide-n-seek-trail\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday, July 4 Back to Hide ‘n Seek Trail"},"content":{"rendered":"

SUMMARY: <\/strong>Maps are wonderful\u2014they have everything all laid out to see. How can you lose? Well, when the trail decides to play hide ‘n seek! We started off OK with the climb over Bowen Pass, and had no trouble negotiating the snow cornice at the top, but the rest of the day was one frustration after another.<\/p>\n

First, the trail disappeared in a meadow\u2014no cairns, no posts, no nothing to mark the route. We finally found it, then it followed an old road that kept disappearing, along with the trail. Finally we just bushwhacked straight up a mountain to reconnect with the trail. Alas, then we missed a key turn (it went into a meadow, but we kept following what we thought was the trail, way down a mountain).<\/p>\n

Finally, we realized our mistake, climbed back up, looked and looked for the CDT, and finally found it. Grand total CDT miles today: 11. We needed 18.\u00a0 I figure we lost more than half a day with all this “playing hide ‘n seek trail.”<\/p>\n

DETAILS:\u00a0 <\/strong> No 4th of July firecrackers going off to wake us up today…and no pancake breakfast, either.\u00a0 Oh well!\u00a0 Happy Birthday, USA!\u00a0\u00a0 We saddled up and headed for Bowen Pass…but first we had to get by Bowen Mountain, which was very tall and blocked the morning sun, so we had no nice “sunpatch” to eat breakfast in.\u00a0 Brrrrr!\u00a0 The trail of course was climbing steadily up, and it was muddy, rocky and rooty.\u00a0 That’s OK–I would rather deal with mud than with icy snow.\u00a0 Finally we were high enough to leave the forest behind, and wow!\u00a0 Gorgeous alpine country!\u00a0 Wish we had more of this and less walking in the woods!<\/p>\n

But the beautiful views also included the fact that there was a big snow cornice at the top of Bowen Pass.\u00a0 Hmmm.\u00a0 We stopped and looked at it–the conclusion was, “Looks do-able.”\u00a0 We switchbacked up the face of the Pass, and when we reached the cornice, the trail of course disappeared under the snow.\u00a0 No problem–we sort of sidled along sideways, just below the cornice, till we found a spot where we could safely climb over it.\u00a0 Up top, the view was awesome!<\/p>\n

Then it was down, down the other side, until the trail disappeared (sigh) into a big mountainside meadow.\u00a0 There were no rock cairns, no posts, no nothing to show where to go.\u00a0 After much searching, we finally found the trail again on the other side of the meadow area.\u00a0 At that point, it began to follow what looked like an old road, but very rocky and overgrown.\u00a0 You’d think that an old road would be easy to follow, but not this one–it kept disappearing, and so did any indication of trail.\u00a0 We hunted endlessly for some indication of where to go.\u00a0 Finally Fixit said, “Forget this trying to find the trail HERE.\u00a0 Let’s just bushwhack to where we know we will at least cross the trail.”<\/p>\n

The bushwhack involved going straight up a very steep mountainside, through the forest (with all the usual blowdowns to deal with).\u00a0 Sometimes it was so steep that I had to use my hands to help in the climb.\u00a0 But to our great delight, up top, we found TRAIL!\u00a0 This we followed for awhile, enjoying the fact that we had trail to walk on, but then…without realizing it, we missed a crucial turn.\u00a0 We were on what was obviously well-used trail, heading straight ahead, but the CDT made a right turn into a meadow.\u00a0 There was no signpost at the turn, no cairns, no nothing to let us know we should go there.\u00a0 So we just kept walking obliviously along.<\/p>\n

The trail we were on (not the CDT, but we didn’t know it) led us down, way down the mountain, then it too disappeared.\u00a0 I sat down with the maps, and Fixit with Guthook, to make a plan.\u00a0 I figured it out–“Oh no!\u00a0 This is not the CDT!\u00a0\u00a0 This is the Bill Creek Trail!”\u00a0 Fixit confirmed that with Guthook.\u00a0 It was very depressing to have to climb all the way back up that mountain, and then we had to find the CDT.\u00a0 We looked and looked.\u00a0 I was studying the maps very closely, and started to think…”Maybe on the other side of that meadow?”\u00a0 I walked over to have a look, and hooray!\u00a0\u00a0 There was the trail!<\/p>\n

We were very tired at this point–we’d spent so much time and energy trailhunting.\u00a0 But knowing we were back on track–at least for now–was really encouraging.\u00a0 The CDT at this point headed steeply down a canyon, and at 7 pm, the only flattish spot we could find was right by the trail itself.\u00a0 We were setting up camp when one of the other CDT thruhikers came by, and asked if we’d seen Buttercup (one of the guys who was with Allgood).\u00a0 No, we hadn’t.\u00a0 Hope they find each other!<\/p>\n

I figured out our miles for today and found we only did 11 CDT miles for all this time and work.\u00a0 If only we’d been able to just hike along a trail–we would have gotten WAY more miles done!\u00a0\u00a0 I figure we must have lost more than half a day just playing “hide ‘n seek trail.”\u00a0 But the one bonus today:\u00a0 we got to see more moose!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SUMMARY: Maps are wonderful\u2014they have everything all laid out to see. How can you lose? Well, when the trail decides to play hide ‘n seek! We started off OK with the climb over Bowen Pass, and had no trouble negotiating the snow cornice at the top, but the rest of the day was one frustration […]<\/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-506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colorado"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506","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=506"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":873,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions\/873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}