Sea of Castles — Adventures With Samson-The-Bear

On 9/23 I did 9.3 miles to a Mesa past Camp Trail. On 9/24 I did 21.4 miles to a small lake at the headwaters of the Rio Grande. On 9/25 I did 21.5 miles to Ute Lake. On 9/26 I did 21.8 miles to Squaw Creek. On 9/27 I did 21.3 miles to the East Fork of the Piedra River. On. 9/28 I did 18.7 miles just North of Wolf Creek Pass. On 9/29 I did 3.1 miles to Pagosa Springs.

Listen to "Hard Sun" by Eddie Vetter and if you have time listen to the entire "Into the Wild" soundtrack. When Christopher McCandless is brought up it usually elisits two responses; either someone who has wasted his life and received a natural outcome for his actions or someone who was chasing down an idea/dream and paid heavily for a small mistake. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know I'm in the second camp and I would rather take a few risks and see where it takes me than to play it safe. The end is the same for all of us; whether in a bus in the middle of nowhere or in a nursing home, so you might as well live the life you want to live instead of the one prescribed to you.

I had a blast in Lake City. I got a bunk at the local hostel; I normally go in and out of most towns to save money and time, and as a consequence I don't hang out with a lot of other hikers off trail. The hostel was very chill and only had a few other thru hikers in it. We sat around the table sipping on a couple brews telling hilarious hiking stories and misfortunes and never bringing up the fact we are down to the last 200 miles. I have enjoyed the solitude of this trail and the limited interactions with others, but it felt great hanging out with such a solid group of people.

I hitched out of Lake City in the early afternoon and started towards the San Juan Mountains. For the next 120 miles I'll be at high elevation. I'll spend a majority of the stretch above 12,000 feet, only occasionally dropping to 11,000 feet in a few valleys before climbing back up. It's a giant loop through the San Juan Mountains and the CDT makes sure you hit as many of the highlights as possible. The terrain isn't super steep nor are the climbs huge and rarely more than 1,000 feet of elevation change at a time. I'm just high up in the mountains, meandering through some of the most beautiful terrain in the United States. It's pretty cold especially at night. I have to bring all my gear into my tent to keep everything from freezing; I didn't realize how bad my shoes smelled until I had to share a tent with them. I'm not exactly sure how cold it is in the mountains, but it's cold enough that my electronics won't charge at night and I don't dare start hiking until the sun is up. Because of the cold weather I have shifted when I start and stop hiking. I now hike with the sun and no longer get a headlamp start or night hike the last few miles, its just way to cold to want to move without the sun shining.

Then second night in the San Juans I was kept awake by elk bugeling near my tent. If you don't know what an elk bugle sounds like, find a toddler and ask them to make the most annoying sound they can think of, and that's what an elk bugle sounds like. The next day I popped over a ridgeline to find a herd of elk. There was one massive bull elk and about 10 cows. Off to the side there were two younger bull elks fighting each other. I mixed up some coffee and watched the two go at it for about 15 minutes. It's the most entertainment I've had on trail in awhile. They eventually broke off from fighting which was disappointing because I was hoping it was going to be a death match, so I could have scored some easy and free elk meat.

I knew the San Juan Mountains were going to be epic but I really had no idea just how marvelous these mountains were going to be. I have taken over 400 pictures in 6 days! The San Juan Range is super unique in the diversity of the topography. There are sharp mountains, flaking mesas, spires, jagged ridgelines, balds and pyramids all surrounded by equally diverse valleys. The views are endless and can change dramatically in less than 100 yards as more peaks appear over every ridgeline and down every valley. The tops of even more mountains peak out from every view making the horizon look like an endless sea of castles. Being mostly above tree line I'm not walking through a lot of fall foliage but I can see down the valleys as the aspen and willows change colors. It looks like an artist loaded up their brush with green, yellow, red and orange paints and just splattered the paint across the lower valley walls.

I'm going slow and spending about 7 days in the San Juan range which is a long stretch. I did that thing that I always do, and didn't bring enough food for this stretch (shocking I know). I was rationing my food and day dreaming of a Thanksgiving feast when I ran into a group of elk hunters after hiking over Squaw Pass. They were packing up after an extended hunt and had left over food, which they offered me. I couldn't believe I was getting trail magic in the middle of the San Juans! I was also low on coffee and would rather fight a bear than hike with out caffeine; luckily the hunters had spare coffee to share which made me even more ecstatic. I talked to the hunters for well over an hour. They are professional photographers and serious outdoors men and woman who are able combine both of their passions. We talked gear, hunting and fishing and they showed me a bunch of the their photography work, some of which has been the cover photos for Outdoor Magazine. I could have literally chatted with them all day as they were very down to earth and really interesting but since I have to hike with the sun I had to get moving. Before I left they did a quick alpine photoshoot of me. They used a piece of tyvek to reflect the sun on my face and get the correct lighting, which I thought was super novel (I just hope my face didn't break the camera). I went about 2 miles down trail before I realized I should have snapped a photo with them and Fred, but it was too late to turn back.

I have been sooooo lucky with the weather through the San Juans. In late September anything can happen and I was really rolling the dice by hiking these mountains this late in the season. A huge storm came in the day before I entered and the day after I got out of the mountains. Each day was sunny and warm during the day and cold with rain at night. The rain hitting my tent is probably one of my favorite sounds in the world (as long as my tent is water proof and it stops by morning). I get up every morning to an ice covered tent and break off as much of the ice as I can before packing it up. I pull all of my gear out at lunch to crisp out under the sun which gives me a reason to take an extra long lunch break. I'm definitely going to miss the simplicity of these days.

Looking at three 14ers, Handies, Sunshine and Redcloud. I climbed them last year so I did not feel the need to make a massive detour.

If you take a selfie, just make it black and white and it will be okay.

Mt. Ronda in the background, and a bear in the foreground.

Not sure where this was, it’s just pretty

I accidentally got off trail and into the Piedra Creek Valley, but I got a sweet sunset so it all worked out