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Adventures of the Spirit Eagle - Colorado CDT

  by Jim & Ginny Owen

August 11 - campsite on Cimaronna Trail - @ 17.5 miles - total 143.5 miles

Ginny: Today did not go as planned, at all. We woke to a heavy frost and rime ice on everything. Our boots and socks and water were all frozen. Putting them on was NOT fun. It showered off and on all day. Nothing major, but with the wind it was chilly. The views when we had them were lovely as we went around dozens of lakes. There was a lot of climbing up and around all the glacial cirques. The result of all the climbing was a decision to bail out early. Jim has had serious trouble breathing, especially when climbing. He has developed (we both have actually) a dry cough that is getting worse. He started feeling serious constriction in his diaphragm then pain in his right lung - enough already. High Altitude Pulmonary Edema can be fatal. When he said that it hurt to breathe even on level trail and not just climbing, we decided that it was time to stop. We still have 46 miles to go, and about 10,000' of climbing - too much when he hurts all the time. Stubbornness might take us through, but at what cost? It isn’t fun for him anymore, so it was time to get out.

We left at Squaw Pass, which has trails down both sides of the Divide. The trail we chose, the Cimarrona, though shorter, starts with a 600' climb up to the Divide. So much for getting down to a lower elevation. The trail goes up and down and back and forth through spruce forest, endlessly. It took us three hours (six miles) to get under 10,000'. And we started at 11,200. By that time we had walked about 17 miles for the day, and it was past time to stop. We found a small perch near water. There were streams on both edges of the switchbacks, but they were hard to get at from the trail, so we just kept going. The few good campsites were up too high, and we don’t know if there is anything below us, so this little spot will have to do. We walked through a rock window. That was interesting. It was actually a pretty trail, switchbacking through the spruce, but we were eager to get lower, and it was frustrating not being able to descend low enough to do any good. Jim is really disappointed - he feels like his body betrayed him. I’m sorry we can’t do what we set out to do, but we’ve walked over 140 miles, that isn’t bad for 11 days. It has been beautiful, and difficult and worth it.

Jim: Enough - I’ve been developing symptoms of HAPE for the last several days. I thought I could hold on for another 3 days, but it ain’t gonna happen. When every breath is painful, regardless of up, down or level - it’s time to do something else. I’m operating on about one third lung capacity. That one third has become highly efficient at recovering what oxygen there is in the air - but it still leaves me a long way short of what I need to finish the next three days. We’ve actually accomplished our primary purpose for this trip (to complete the San Juan loop of the CDT) - but we’ll fail in our secondary purpose (to hike the entire Weminuche). We’ve camped right at 10000 ft on a small ledge next to the Cimaronna Trail. Still have a couple miles to drop another 1500 ft and get to the road tomorrow.

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© Copyright 1997 Jim & Ginny Owen