The Colorado Trail ~ Day 3

Forest Service Road 550 to Forest Service Road 560 (Wellington Lake Road)
Distance: 12.1 miles
Elevation Gain: 1520 ft

Pain? What pain?

Oh yes, this is more like the thing. Dumped that horrendously heavy pack at home and I'm back to a daypack with nowt inside but a map, the directions, some food and a day's worth of water. I had a good night's sleep, I've got moleskin slapped over me blisters and I'm having fun again. Not only that; today's portion starts off downhill. Even better, but we keep going downhill, for mile after glorious mile. How cool is that?

I could tell it was going to be a good day when the raven serenading me from the tree-tops gave me a gift of a feather before I'd gone more than a few hundred yards. I didn't trust it to stay in my hatband so I tucked it carefully in the side pocket of my shorts and tried not to biff it with each stride.

The forest here is a mix of ponderosa pines, bristlecone pines and aspens which perform admirably as shade from the sun. There's something very Lord of the Rings-ish about it all (but without all the wraiths and scary stuff). Instead, I'm treated to a symphony of birdsong as I stride along, astonished at the time I'm making. The halfway point comes and goes well before 10:00 and considering that yesterday at this point, I'd been doubled over and almost crying in exhaustion and pain, life is very, very good.

Almost made my first goof of the trail though, by not looking closely enough at the sign by an intersection and carrying straight on when I should have made a right turn. Luckily it was only a few hundred yards further that another trail intersection brought this to my attention and it only took a few minutes to get back on track. Could have been a lot worse though so I'll need to watch that on the remoter sections.



Lunch was scoffed on the banks of Buffalo Creek, not too far from where Sasha, The World's Most Irritating Dog™ and I often come on our Saturday hikes. The creek babbled beside me as I lay in the sun-dappled shade and wondered if anything could possibly spoil this moment.

Of course, when you ask a question like that, the gods are sure to answer.

Mosquitoes. F***ing mosquitoes here in my beloved Colorado. What the hell is that all about? When we were looking to relocate from Arizona, one of my primary stipulations was that there were to be NO mosquitoes. Hate them, hate them, hate them. And indeed, in the 5 years I've lived here, I've only seen 2 (and been bitten by both of them), which is manageable. I'd always believed they couldn't live at this altitude, but here was a whole herd of them, swarming all over me and biting lumps of my arms and legs like sodding piranhas. No after lunch nap for me then and I was soon back on the trail, spirits lifting once more.

Not too much other wildlife around today and I didn't even see my first humanoid until I was within quarter of a mile from the end; a mountain biker huffing his way up the rise from the trail head. As I was heading downhill, I politely stepped off the path but he stopped and waved me through.

"You have right of way." He gasped, which was technically correct but under the circumstances, it was a lot easier for me to stop. Perhaps, like me when I'm mountain biking uphill, he was just glad of any excuse to take a break.

So look at this, 12:25 pm and I'm done for the day. If I could, I would cheerfully have continued on and knocked off some of tomorrow's miles too, but there's no convenient way to begin tomorrow's hike except from here. That'll do then. Home to a cold one from the fridge and a lie in the hammock with me book.

Colorado Trail? Easy-Peasy.

This is going to be a piece of cake.