CDT47
10th June Saturday
31miles

Hawkeye the trail angel 

Where I camped last night it was in an open field with a stagnate pool of water where I got my water for cooking, I had woken a few times during the night thinking it was time to get up but it was only the full moon shinning brightly.

I like the early morning starts, providing it isn’t  freezing which made things slow and painful to move. I knew I had a climb first thing this morning so at 6am I was on the trail attacking the horror climb, however it wasn’t  so bad after all. In hindsight, I should have filled up my water bottles last night and walked half of it yesterday evening as there were plenty  of places to pitch my tent.

Lujan Pass Trailhead,

The trail for today was pretty boring, it went up then down all day,  nice smooth path then rocky where you had to watch out for your ankles. What made it really boring was the lack of views, forests trees and that’s it.  Occasionally, I would see a glimpse of the valley below, but the trees blocked all views and there were the dying trees which seems to be a definite trend on this trail. Beetles would lay their eggs in the trees and when they hatch then the trees would eventually die, so along the trail were countless  trees of the colour of grey.

Two of seven bikes that passed me to clean up the trail

Unexpected visitor on the trail came along, 6 Motorbikes with the lead bike carrying a chainsaw. He stopped to talk and he was part of the volunteer group that maintains the forestry  trail. A welcome sight with the many blown  down trees blocking the trail and therefore a challenge to get around them.

Came across a Trail angel, a first for the state of Colorado, his trail name is Hawkeye and he was a welcome sight, the bananas, apple’s and a few crackers were a nice change from my dehydrated boring bland food.  He was a wealth of local information, and he confirmed what Ken and a local said in Creede, need to arrive in Canada by Sep to avoid the storms, I’m not really sure what their definition of storm is, but I guess I need to keep the miles up per day.

Hawkeye wanted to give me plenty more food but I assured him that come late tomorrow I’ll arrive at Monarch Crest where I have five days worth of food waiting, but I did accept two instant oatmeal packets as I forgot to buy them in Creede. Thanks Hawkeye.

Camped at “Tank seven creek” at mileage 1078. I only had about half an hour of light to setup camp and then did the rest with my head lamp. The full moon was blocked from the surrounding hills as I was deep in the valley, but the night was nice and warm although still a little cold.