CDT56
19th June monday
16miles
Leaving Leadville
Slow start this morning with a huge breakfast of scrambled eggs and followed up with the rest of my cereal and yogurt washed down with coffee.
Great feeling to get rid of 2kg
I wasn’t in a rush as the post office doesn’t open until 9am and there I finally decided to get rid of my gas stove along with other items I realised I never use, such as my kindle and some clothes. All up the weight was 4.5 pounds (2kg) plus the gas canister I would have to buy if I continued to carry the gas stove. I posted them to Grand Lake which is my next stop in 4 days time, if I really need the stove I can just retrieve the package, otherwise I can re-forward it along the trail at no extra cost.
I saw many of these ski bikes for sale in Leadville
After doing the business at the post office I walked out to the highway and not long after I got a lift that took me back on the trail. As it turned out, I skipped a 10 mile segment that involved a high mountain pass which would have plenty of snow on the north side. I got dropped off at Silverthorne which was located next to a large lake and going by the looks of it, it attracted many tourists. Before heading back on the trail, I stopped at Starbucks and had my last coffee, while I surfed the internet on my phone for two hours. Thankfully there was a Power point at my table.
Silverthorne from a distance
After an hour on the trail, i remembered that last night I’d put fish fillets in the oven at the Hostel, I totally forgot about them and I’m sure they are still there cooking but probable dried up and like cardboard now.
Towards the end of the day I come across a through-hiker like me where he was walking the opposite direction, at first I though he was South bound, heading to Mexico but he was turned away because of an unsafe river crossing. On the map he saw a bridge which was 6 miles up stream, in other words, 6 miles there and 6 miles back and for me that’s to much out of the way.
Great views but I had to work hard for them going up/down hills covered with snow
But anyway, I went to the crossing and sure enough it was fast flowing, I attempted to cross to only return when I reach a third of the way. The rocks were slimy and slippery and you couldn’t see through the water. I tried an other spot where the river split into two. It was slow going and with my walking sticks, one up stream and the other down stream where I moved real slow and this time I made it across.
Got over Ptarmigan Pass, found a great place to camp but still to early at 3pm
Firefield, the through hiker I just met, had followed, and to my surprise, he had no walking stick to balance himself, it’s the first hiker so far I have seen without walking sticks. Once across there was flat ground and we camped, I was tired but Firefield had a small fishing rod and with a new worm he just found, he went back to the river to try his luck.
