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Adventures of the Spirit Eagle - Colorado CDT

  by Jim & Ginny Owen

August 6 - Campsite at headwaters of Ruby Creek - 13.1 miles - Total 66.4 miles

Ginny: We ended up last night with a bad Mexican dinner, late to bed and unable to sleep. Too soon, morning broke - bright and beautiful. We enjoyed a good breakfast with Kathy and Larry (our hosts), two couples from Texas (most of the tourists in Colorado are either Texans or French), Kathy’s son Tolan and his friend, just back from 5 weeks in Ecuador. Larry played the piano while we ate breakfast, including a lovely "San Juan Suite" that he composed. He then drove us back up to the trail (about 20 miles) and we started hiking at 10:00. It is a lovely drive, with incredible views at the pullouts. We stopped at a couple of viewpoints both coming and going to Spring Creek Pass. Beautiful mountains all around. The weather was beautiful - cool and sunny with clouds building up and passing by.

We climbed out of Spring Creek Pass and could look back to see Snow Mesa’s rim (where we hiked yesterday), and ahead to today’s hike along the Divide, and clear to the Rio Grande Pyramid to the south which we’ll hike past next week. There was an interesting formation called Bristol Head - which does remind of pictures of England’s coast. There were snowy mountains in all directions. Uncompahgre is very dramatic, and Red Cloud and Red Mountain distinctive in their coloring. Sunshine is another fourteener, and pretty distinctive too. The snow doesn’t cover the mountains, it streaks them. Up close they are just scattered patches of snow, but from afar, they look pretty dramatic. We spent the first 9 miles today on the Jarosa Mesa, following a jeep road over rolling green hills. After the first mile or two there were few trees except for a lovely grove near Buck Creek at mile 10. It would have been a good place to camp, but we needed to make more miles, so on we went. As lovely as the morning and noontime was, the afternoon deteriorated. It began to rain at about 2:00, just as we passed a herd of sheep. Their shepherd was in a small mobile hut up the hill. He came out and waved at us as we passed by. At first it just spit at us, then it became a steady rain, then the clouds moved in and we were totally socked in. Water is pretty scarce along this section, so we had to bushwhack to a creek that was off the trail. We turned off the trail too soon, so climbed back up and crossed a knife-edge with sheer drops on both sides, then eventually found the right valley. It seems to be quite dramatic under snowy cliffs, from the occasional glimpses we get through the clouds. We had to drop a couple of hundred feet in elevation to find a flat spot. By that time, we were soaked and freezing, so we threw up the tent and crawled in. It took us a long time to warm up. Two hours later, we’re still socked in, so we’re having lunch for dinner instead of trying to cook (gorp, granola bars and cookies). With luck, morning will be better. My ankle is killing me. I have some sort of bruise on the bone, and the boot rubs against it. Otherwise we’re okay. We hiked about 13 miles, despite our late start. No wildlife except birds, though Jim saw a deer in the trees. We met a forestry person looking for a hidden spring. He kept passing us on the dirt road, stopping the truck and wandering off into the brush, and returning to the road to try again. He never found the spring. We met five people on horseback. They really tore up the trail. It is so muddy, they were slipping and sliding and sinking 6-8" deep. The ATV that ignored the "Trail closed to motorized Vehicles" sign just after we left the jeep road, did even more damage. That was recent, today or yesterday. The only hikers we saw were some guys camped at the trailhead at Spring Creek Pass.

I feel pretty good. The weather is a pain, but endurable especially since the sunny hours are so glorious. My ankle is a serious concern. I don’t want to stop hiking, but by the end of the day my left ankle was in agony. I can’t hike like that. Especially since, by trying to compensate for the problem and hike with my foot in certain positions that prevent the rubbing, I could screw up the rest of my body. We may end up drastically shortening the hike, which I would hate. [NB: I found a way to wrap my ankle with an ace bandage above the bone so that the boot stopped rubbing against the bruise. It didn’t get rid of the problem entirely, but it sure helped.]

Jim just keeps on smiling. He bears his own aches and pains better than I do, agrees to cookies for dinner with a grin, and is a great companion all around. A better partner can’t be found. When we lay in our sleeping bags shivering and trying to warm up, I was looking for distractions, so I thought, "Okay, I’ll sing to myself." The only song I could come up with was, "On a clear day, you can see forever . . ." Given the dense fog outside, we both had to laugh.

Jim: The morning was just great - it was clear and we could see mountains all around us - including the Rio Grande Pyramid. We probably should have camped at Big Buck Creek - it started raining on us a couple miles earlier - but we got into the thruhiker "gotta make miles" mode and kept going. Unfortunately, the trail headed up above treeline and there wasn’t much in the way of camping up there. By the time we got to Ruby Creek, we were a little too close to hypothermia for comfort. We had to drop 300 ft off the ridge to find a place to camp - and we were still at 12500. It took us a couple hours to warm up - and that’s not happiness. The tent was only a little wet after we spent yesterday afternoon trying to dry it out, but it’ll be wet again in the morning - the fog rolled in as soon as the rain stopped.. The sleeping bags are also coming apart at the seams - and they’re not very effective. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised - they’re the same bags that made the AT thruhike in 92 and they’ve been in constant use since then.

Water II - there are no "good" water sources here. Almost all the streams are born in snowpack - and I have yet to see snowpack here that isn’t RED. Don’t eat RED snow. In addition, even the local literature makes no pretense that the local water sources might not be contaminated by at least Giardia if not other, nastier livestock. And given the proliferation of cattle and sheep, only a fool would depend on bleach or iodine. A good water filter is a necessity.

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© Copyright 1997 Jim & Ginny Owen