Posted by 24.2 miles for the day.
During the night my nose detected the smell of wildfire smoke that had settled into the valley. No fires were nearby. The origin lay with number of larger fires to the west in Colorado and Utah.
From camp it was a 2.7 miles back to the Red Line at Jones Pass on a steep road climb. On top of Jones Pass the smoke haze was apparent on the sky line.
From the top I was cursing the wind. Several more miles on exposed open top mountains traversing into the unknown being blown left, right and centre. Numb hands required gloves to subdue the chill and multiple top layers were necessary.
A number of trail runners kept appearing out of the blue, in training for an upcoming race, all scantily clothed and had to keep moving to stay warm, no time for chit chat.
By 10:30am or so I found myself at the base of Stanley Mountain topping up water from a stream. This would be another steep climb, 1000 feet over a mile, the slowly, slowly approach employed. A number of day walkers were about and it always amazes me just how active many folk are in the US, choosing to spend a day climbing a random peak just because. You rarely see this at home. They are also eager to chat which is great for me on a climb as it provides an excuse to break on the climb up.
On top of Stanley the route remained high, following the exposed ridge tops. Surprisingly the wind had died down and it had turned into a blue bird day. The approach towards the descent down to Berthoud Pass only reinforced my impression on how active folk in Colorado are. I must have encountered 50 plus people who had climbed up from the Pass to the tops for a day trip out. Old, young, family and friends groups and dogs. Amazing.
Reaching Berthoud Pass the biggest challenge was crossing the road with fast, heavy traffic with blind corners left and right.
Of course what goes down must go up. Having descended back to 11,300 feet it was straight back up to 13,100 feet to Mt Flora. I thought Stanley Mountain was tough but Flora topped it. The additional elevation had me slowly creeping up hill taking frequent breaks, leap frogging with a mother & son out for a day walk. On top I stopped to chat with them and it turns out the son was in the Marine Core and had spent time working in Sydney.
And of course what goes up must go down – the cycle repeats. I remember this final descent down being absolutely atrocious requiring scrambling down an entire hillside of talas or scree that constantly moved under foot. At time the path would be lost requiring intuition on where it should be and careful scouting out of rock cairns.
A further 3 miles in and I was done for the day stopping at Fall River just near the eastern most corner of the CDT and another climb to 13,000 feet that I would save for fresh legs tomorrow.
Mick Beckers 