Tennessee Pass to I-70: July 16th - July 22nd, 2025
* Day 0: Zero day in Leadville. Wake up and get to cook ourselves fried eggs with English muffins. I haven't fried an egg in months. A CT hiker tries to talk to Susan about "segment numbers" for the second time this morning and she won't have it. Lolligag after breakfast, soaking in good feelings from 3 over-easy eggs and one-and-a-half muffins, but Susan finally gets me out the door to head for coffee. Smoke haze nearly obscures Mt. Massive and a faint charred smell wanders through the air. The lone barista at Zero Day coffee prepares an excellent cappuccino but the donuts in the counter case look suspiciously similar to the colorful assortments we found in Safeway. What are the odds both places would make Fruity Pebbles donuts? We check out their "gear store" and find mostly coffee paraphernalia that "ultralight" folks can carry without feeling too guilty. Nowhere in Leadville seems to be fully staffed. Caffeine kick-starts a bout of furious planning as we try to figure out when we'll be in Wyoming's Wind River mountains in order to coordinate with a friend. Quickly bogged down in the minutiae of whatever we're doing next, complicated by an unsettled weather forecast. Copper Mountain, Breckenridge, bus options to Frisco, Grays Peak (the highest point of the CDT) and the Argentine Spine and all sorts of alternates, in how many days? Back to the hostel, more planning. Commence hanging out in the kitchen for several hours eating and planning and chatting with guests as they come through. One women comments that she hasn't ever seen us *not* eating - yogurt and canteloupe and salad and sandwiches and popcorn and frying up eggplant to put on top of our Ben's microwave gumbo. She's from the Cedar Rapids area, hiking the CT, and overall a pleasure to conversate with because we talk about the midwest and trade sarcastic jokes and cover topics besides hiking. I see a scale in one of the common rooms. We excitedly weigh in and I've actually gained a couple pounds since the end of June in Lake City, honestly probably a good thing, and have now lost about 6 pounds overall; Susan's lost 16. She's pretty happy to have misplaced them. Take care of some other chores, dance around other guests trying to use the kitchen, and eventually decide we need even more food. Head to Tennessee Pass Café; there's 2 people working the entire front of house as servers, bussers, hosts, and bartenders, but eventually we get seated and manage to put in an order. Go with a couple beers and a smattering of appetizers. Through some black magic every layer of leaves in the brussel sprouts are a perfect level of non-burnt crisp, and Susan goes right after the enormous portabella cap stuffed with cheese and smothered in pesto. Good eats, I might find those missing pounds yet. Return to the hostel and have a new dorm-mate, a really friendly guy with a long-hair-and-mustache hippy vibe; I thought he was stoned but Susan explained to me later that he was actually taking shots of whiskey all night. He might have been a little stoned too. But he's sweet and talkative and funny and full of nervous excitement for being on his first long hike, along the Colorado trail. Shares some leftover pizza with us, which to my surprise manages to fit in my stomach without any fuss, and warns us about the steep hill by Breckenridge that "took his lunch money". Much better than the other dorm-mate, a loud woman who everyone now knows is very unhappy with the instructors of her WFR course and keeps Susan awake with complaining while even Drunk Boy is with it enough to talk in a whisper. Ah, dorm life. Tomorrow could be 18 miles, trying to get up and over one of the big climbs between here and Breck, but there are some shortcut options and the weather might shut us down anyway. Much planning done but still need to keep it flexible like the alder twigs, able to bend in case something worth grabbing onto comes along. Ready to go back to sleeping in the woods.
Hazy morning in Leadville
Susan gets ready to dig in to our smorgasbord of appetizers
* Day 1: Try to get out of the hostel early but you're not supposed to use the kitchen before 7. Susan leaves to get some coffee from Hill of Beans but the cappuccino and mocha come out as a café au lait and... A drip coffee with chocolate. She doesn't think the guy working knew how to use the espresso machine. Nowhere in Leadville is fully staffed. Still get fried eggs though. Head out and walk towards the edge of town with our thumbs out, not expecting much, when a shiny new Range Rover pulls over within 5 minutes and the driver says he can take us to Tennessee Pass. He's on the way to Dillon Reservoir with the paddleboard strapped directly to the roof, straps running through the doors and stretching across the ceiling of the cabin. He seems a little spacey and very stoked about everything. Caught up in small talk, he asks again where we're going but assures us that he's in no rush and can drop us wherever. Susan and I look around and realize the car is going east, not north like we expected. Susan checks the map and sees we're on the wrong highway. Well ****. "Oh no!" says the driver, the way a surfer might if he saw you drop your hotdog on the beach, acknowledging the personal tragedy but also mildly implying that to lose your food was Fate. Guess he hasn't lived around here long enough to know where Tennessee Pass is. So he pulls a U into a driveway and drops us off at a totally random spot 4.5 miles down the road on the wrong highway. Cars tear past at 60+ mph, still on their roaring way into Leadville; we try to hitch for about 10 minutes but our chances don't seem good. I remember there's a taxi driver in Leadville, and Susan actually has just enough phone service to look up the number and make a call. 20 minutes later, Katy Kat's Kash Kab pulls up in a dented and scraped white SUV to save us from this predicament, and $50 later she's dropped us off where the trail properly intersects the highway, as opposed to the trailhead, shaving off about 3 miles of hiking. It's a day for shortcuts. Feeling very grateful that the sticky situation loosened up with just a bit of money-grease, and by 9:30 AM we can start hiking. Not too bad. Taking another road shortcut saves about another half mile. We feel sorry for all the CT hikers heading south because a gauzy haze of smoke had settled around the peaks that direction, while as we headed north the skies actually grew clearer. Less grey perfusing the blue of an otherwise fine summer morning. Hike by historic Camp Hale, where the 10th Mountain Division lived and trained, and some nice falls. A couple new flowers make their appearance: a white teacup filled with fuzzy yellow pollen, and another with rounded white petals spread like a five-pointed star and highlighted by narrow, branching, violet veins. Tons of CT hikers are coming down and they all tell us how beautiful the flowers are. Old Men of the Mountain form yellow blankets over many of the meadows. I have a particularly egregious selection of snacks for the day: Toast Chee peanut-butter-filled cheesy crackers, a protein shake masquerading as a cinnamon-roll, and Big Mama's pickled sausage. There's a big climb to make today, up through the mountains between Leadville and Copper Mountain ski area. The forecast isn't great but the weather seems to be holding at low, grey clouds that can't be bothered to rise up and cast down lightning, so we trudge up and up and up to Kokomo Pass. Climax Mine and its huge tailings ponds still seem small under the spiny ridges of the high Mosquito Mountains, where a glacier larger than 3 Climax Mines carved its characteristically "U"-shaped trench in time long since forgotten. A family of 6 marmots all scurry around one great palatial rock and you can imagine the terrible names the two wrestling youngsters call each other as they growl and wrestle around the rocks. Wrap underneath several high points of this plateau before finally reaching Searle Pass and starting a much-deserved descent along Guller Creek. Pass up one campsite and are then made to hike slightly uncomfortably longer to find the next one. But it's a sweet spot, flat and dry and sheltered by boughs of a great spruce. After dinner I look around and fully realize the size of the nearby trees, 100+ foot-tall spruces that have had all the time in the world to grow into rotund blue-green cones. We hiked 2 miles less distance than planned but are actually 2 miles farther along than expected. Not too shabby for a day that started by hitching up the wrong road.
Susan goes to find an adddess to tell Katy Kat's Kash Kab, so she can rescue us off the wrong highway
* Day 2: Set an early alarm because the plans for the day depend on the weather, which is to say they're a bit up in the air. About 4 easy miles roll us down to the Copper Mountain ski/golf megapolis and its much-anticipated public restrooms. Check the weather and... It looks OK. Just a 25% chance of storms, and not til about 1 PM. It's about 8:15 AM now, and some quick mental math says, yes, we can get up and over the 2,500+-foot ridge separating us from the next valley over. This thing has been brooding in shadows all morning, backlit by the rising sun, but the backpacks only have 1-2 days of food in them and if we wait to do this tomorrow we'll have to carry 5 days' food so let's truck on up there! Cross the highway, follow the bikepath for a minute, and then it's time to start cutting uphill to the south. A group of 5 paragliders powers by us uphill, and a steady drip of CT hikers make their way down. They're all very nice about yielding the trail to us panting uphill folk. Very grateful for the plentiful shade and mostly cloudy sky that keep us from overheating. As we climb higher and higher the Climax Mine comes back into view, and the peaks of yesterday, and the silver strip of highway threads between them and the Copper ski slopes, and I gain an appreciation for how the Earth is stitched together. On the far side, the Blue River valley unfolds below, another seam between mountain ranges, freckled with earth-tone homes and condos. Skies are still blue and the clouds are non-threatening puffy cotton balls... Just don't look too far west. Manage to get back to the trees and a much-needed water fill-up before the clouds get too dark. It's still pretty early, only about 1 PM, and Susan floats the idea of going all the way to Frisco tonight. Sure, this would turn into a 19-mile day, but resupplying in Frisco tonight would save us a whole day's worth of time in the long run. It's mostly downhill the last 7 miles anyway. And sure it will be more expensive staying in a hotel, but that also sounds so very nice... Book a hotel using Susan's 1 bar of service, push feelings of achy feet aside, lengthen our stride, and start cruising down. A free bus network connects Breckenridge and Frisco so we don't even need to worry about hitchhiking. Below 10,000 feet the air gets heavy, muggy and hot when the sun shines down from blue skies on clear-cuts and burn-scars bright green with new life, but goes back to comfortable when passing storms to our south throw out linty clouds and gusting breezes. Finally we reach the bus stop, and I'm grateful for the 10-minute sit before the bus arrives and brings to main street Frisco. Our hotel is actually on the other end of town, because A) it's cheaper and B) it's close to the Wal-Mart and Safeway. Thru-hiker priorities: cost and proximity to food. We fumble the bus transfer ("Is this the orange line?" "No, I'm going to Frisco." "Aren't we in Frisco?" And don't we both speak English?) which sets us back half an hour, but still by just a bit after six we're checked in to the Summit Inn, charming with its wood-paneled, unfussy-old-ski-lodge aesthethic. We tell ourselves we'll be good and save money by not going out for food, but there's a KFC literally right across the street, and we're only human. Who doesn't want a hot-honey fried chicken sandwich and biscuits after hiking 19 miles? Get around to planning our next section, which should be steep but achievable in 4 days even with the iffy weather forecasts. Pick up groceries, eat more food, enjoy the shower, enjoy the views, enjoy sleeping in a bed.
Stumbling out to a pocket of upscale civilization in the morning
* Day 3: The alarm goes off at 6:15 AM but neither one of us makes a move to get up until 7. In half-sleep I've latched onto Susan's comment that today will be all below treeline, and reasoned that it will be easy and short, and therefore I can spend more quality time with the bed. Over breakfast and hotel coffee she bursts my bubble; we still have to walk almost 16 miles with more than 3000 feet of uphill. We try to make more calculations as to whether we can hike the Argentine Spine and the traverse from Mount Edwards to Grays Peak. Also try to figure out where we should hitchhike to when we eventually hit I-70. Flub another bus because we misinterpret which stops service which direction on the route. I'd forgotten how much practice it takes to become proficient in any one location's public transit system; someday we'll live in the same place for more than 2 months at a time. On top of all this, I spend a lot of time fussing with my backpack, because it's grown more and more uncomfortable over the past 3 weeks. A little internet research leads me to realize part of it is misaligned, which isn't exactly something I can fix. Time to try out the Osprey All Mighty Guarantee. Anyway, all this means we don't start hiking til after 10 AM, but thankfully the clouds already moved in so the sun can't bake us as we move in and out of trees, as we barely hit even a lowly (by CO standards) 11,000 feet. A little frustrated because on this Saturday the trail is swarming with mountain bikers, and we hike mostly in 5-10 minute blocks segmented by stepping off to yield the trail. Pedestrians technically have the right of way, but come on, I'm not going to make you get off your bike. Also please don't hit me. And all these cyclists need nicely-graded trails, which makes for a good walking pace but also crawling switchbacks where sometimes Susan and I are separated by maybe 4 vertical feet and 100 trail feet. She wants to take a shortcut down a road but it threatens my fragile sense of integrity so we stick to the Red Line, squiggling up and down over a big hill we could have gone around. Mount Guyot dominates the view all day, reminding us of the bare ridgelines that await up above the trees. Pass more CT hikers and a busy campsite, then another where we find a flat nook off in the trees, right along the middle fork of Swan River. Tomorrow we finally leave the CT, back to a CDT that promises to waste no time in a return to the rugged, exposed territory of the Divide. Better get going earlier tomorrow.
Looking down towards vacation condos as we hike up
* Day 4: Heading back up above treeline today. The steep east face of Mt. Guyot shines through the trees, catching the morning sun while we're still cool in the shadow of the hills. Susan votes to cut the "stupidest switchback on the CDT", saving nearly half a mile for the mild price of walking 50 feet straight uphill, so we duck through a gap in the fence off to our left. And just like that, we're off the Colorado Trail. For more than 300 miles the CDT and CT have coincided, providing a well-maintained tread with drains and bridges and so so many cairns; also plenty of opportunities for me and Susan to remember how to talk to other humans but sometimes a nagging lack of solitude. So long, farewell, goodbye. And the CDT returns to form, a thin line scratched through the tundra that wanders directly up Glacier Peak and the ridge that rolls on ever upward before us. As we pass over the top of Glacier Peak an extended family of mountain goats greets us, curious and unafraid and wandering closer, tilting their heads with quizical expressions, surprised we'd bothered coming up here. Winter wool, turning brown-grey from months of use, clings on to them in ragged patches despite their efforts to scrape it off, except for the linen-white kids who have yet told grow their first winter coat. Grays Peak and Torreys Peak rise tall and still far off, dominating the ridge as its obvious culmination. Up towards Whale Mountain the trail disappears completely and we have to stake out cross-country, but it adds a lightness to my step, set free to hike our own way, trusted to navigate ourselves among the hills. The rest of the day is one continuous vista of the landscapes for miles in every direction. But eventually we're reminded that this is still a weekend in Colorado high summer, as the trail joins up with a network of 4x4 roads busy with rock-crawlers and hill-climbers, Jeeps and pickups and side-by-sides and ATV's. Guess we're yielding to a different sort of vehicle today. Most of the drivers are quite polite but one pair in a SxS rips by maniacally and dusts us pretty well. At Teller Mountain we must admit that it's a hairy drive over to Red Cap, where a cluster of vehicles sparkle in the sun, then drop down along a road that has 2-3 foot cliffs in it to camp for the night. Have to get off the trail a bit for water and sheltered camping. The water coming off the 4x4 road is pretty grody and we're a little paranoid about old mines in the area leaching tailings into the streams, so there's some concern when the water we do find shines rust-red and tastes like a multivitamin. But there's not much choice so we still filter it, wash our faces, wash our feet. Turn in early because tomorrow will start early, too, but we think we can make it along the Argentine Spine route before the weather turns.
Mount Guyot peeks through in the morning
* Day 5: 3:30 AM alarm this morning. Wake up in the dark and keep all our baselayers on. A lot of walking above treeline to do today. Climb up and past Webster Pass while golden sun rays stretch over the ridge, gradually working down the peaks, lazy and slow to find its way on us and the cirque we slept in last night. Nearly to the top of Landslide Peak and finally ready to believe that it will get warm today after all so ditch the base layers. Then two more peaks, steeply up and down right over the ridge; the trail becomes narrower and rockier with steeper drops and for a few steps we can't see how it avoids scrambling. But it leads us, still only walking, to Santa Fe peak, where we'll take the Pink Line alt., the Argentine Spine. Susan musters her valor and wanders off to collect water dribbling off a snowpatch while I prepare a spread of all the snack food we've only half-finished. I mean... nutritionally-rich hiking fuel. We can finally see the home-stretch, the final ridge leading up Grays Peak, which we'll hike tomorrow. For now, trudge up and roll down 2 more hills and around another. The side slopes of that one, Revenue Mountain, still host a variety of shacks long-gone except for the 3 bottom boards, old narrow-gauge rail and ties, rusting sheet metal, and other mining detritus. The weather starts to seem iffy, with dark clouds to the west that turn into rain to the north and east. But no rumbles of thunder, so might as well keep walking. Looking up the last ridge to Argentine Peak, a big ol' steep hill over talus and tundra, but it still seems achievable before any bad storms might materialize, and we can always turn around! No rappels needed. The "Argentine Spine" alternative route is a dramatic way of naming the mostly cross-country hike along the ridge that rises all the way to 13,800 feet at Argentine Peak and Mount Edwards, as opposed to dropping down into the Peru Creek valley and climbing back out later. I don't find the hills particularly dramatic, though, rounded plateaus and lumps of green, brown, and grey that sort of slowly bleed together. Although it is the true Continental Divide, and I can imagine how these great vertebrae transfer signals from Nature down the entire length of the continent, dividing the water that will affect all the life from the endless forests of Canada south past the tropics of the Yucatan. As romantic as you want it to be. Finally reach the top of Argentine, the highest elevation we've been at yet, past a power pylon and an old work/equipment shack filled with two dilapidated bunks, an array of questionably-functional power line equipment, trash, and feces, and I'm *very* happy the weather hasn't totally turned and forced us to shelter there. Susan is intrigued though. Drop down another 4x4 road for camping tonight, towards Leavenworth Creek, and pick up water from snowmelt that hasn't had the chance to touch the road or old mine detritus. Rain goes from spitting to a steady drizzle. Don't want to descend too far, though, so settle for an unsheltered but flat camping spot. To our disbelief the sun comes back out and Susan indulges in the luxury of lounging in the solar-cooker of a tent. I'm just happy things are drying. Turn in early again. Eventually rain comes back so we fumble the rainfly closed and try to return to sleep. But the wind picks up, too, arriving in buffets that come awfully close to bending the tent poles down into Susan's face. I slip on my shoes and rain jacket and add a couple guy lines in the fading evening light, which helps restrain the tent in the wind. Susan did get all the water today, she deserves some sleep.
* Day 6: Another 3:30 alarm. Another day where we hope to beat the weather. Going up Grays Peak today, the official highpoint of the CDT at 14,276, and the only 14-er the trail officially summits. The major obstacle isn't the elevation, but the ridge connecting Edwards and Grays, which our trail follows. Supposedly it is a "knife edge", and many hikers have left comments about the exposure, steep drops, and complicated terrain, saying it's some of the "sketchiest" hiking they've done. Not a place to be in bad weather. But it should stay at class 2, so despite the wind still gusting strongly we decide to at least head up and check it out. At least the tent is pretty dry from the wind. First step, follow the jeep road back up to Argentine Pass, then the faint trail up Edwards. Come down the other side, and feel stable enough in the wind to continue. Some parts look improbable, like surely they'll have us tip-toeing along 6-inch ledges with 100 feet of air beneath our heels, but we trust in the trail and keep moving forward. And sure enough, every time it looks like we'll have to step off a cliff, a path emerges down the side through loose rocks and dirt or straight through boulders that jumble down more gradually than it first seems. After a little while I'm comfortable enough to opt for some of the scrambling directly along the ridge, feeling confident this trail won't suddenly have us on vertical terrain. Certainly sketchy for hiking, and requiring attention and a head for heights, but pretty straightforward and chill by mountaineering standards. On the far side we finally strip our baselayers before the final slog up to the top of Grays. A woman hiking just the CO portion of the CDT heads by us, southbound with her dog. I'm grateful we didn't have to lead a dog along that ridge. Top out on Grays by 9:20, 40 minutes earlier than expected. The views were nice but we'd been taking them in for 3 days now; I most enjoyed being able to barely make out the plains, hazy and 9,000 feet lower, stretching far off, back to Nebraska. For one more day we're sharing the great outdoors, as the accessibility of Grays Peak lends itself to a hiker highway. Even on a Tuesday plenty of folks are out to try for the summit. Grays itself shares a saddle with Torreys, a mere 500 feet lower than each peak, so I can't help myself, and after we descend head up Torreys with just a water bottle. Susan thinks it looks boring and has hiked uphill enough today, so she waits with the packs. It's pretty much the same thing we just did. Have fun watching the variety of outfits coming up, from people in puffies and mittens to young adults in t-shirts and basketball shorts to scantily-clad runners. I think they all smell better than us, though. Head down, down, down the trail to the bottom of the great glacial valley that stretches northward from the summit, rocky and barren and nearly-vertical upper reaches of the "U"-shaped trench yielding to gentle meadows and forests near the bottom. They've built an absolutely massive trail here, ten feet wide in some spots, supported by big, clean pine timbers that must have been a real pain to haul up. Go past the trailhead and walk the dirt road towards Interstate 70, where we hope to catch a ride. The heat down low always surprises us. Throw out our thumb to the first car that comes by and he pulls over and makes space for us, going the same direction we are. What luck! The driver figures out how to put up one of the seats in the far back of the borrowed Land Cruiser, and I cram into the backseat with my pack on my lap, squeezed against the two young guys who probably weren't thrilled about becoming a trio. But the driver had hiked the CDT so he's always trying to help a hiker out. The boys and their mom are on a road trip from Arkansas and have really been driving for nearly two weeks straight. The guy in the middle seat is good-natured and pokes fun at himself for not making it to the top of the mountain. He manages not to offend Grandma, who's on the trip with them, when he calls and says they're getting something else for lunch and will eat her tomato soup later. Because you need a heftier main course than soup after hiking up a mountain. The driver drops us off at the Dillon Super 8 and gives us each a hug before leaving. We haven't actually reserved a room here, but it's the cheapest and most convenient in town so worth our first try. They have a room for 2 nights and even let us check in right away. 2 PM and in a hotel room - now that's success! Order Domino's pizza for delivery and finally get the cheese fix we've needed because of watching too many Domino's stuffed-crust commercials on daytime TV. Get the laundry done. Rain patters down all evening with varying intensity, but who cares? We're inside! Even better, I get news that Osprey will replace my entire backpack for free. A new backpack will be waiting for me in Grand Lake, our next resupply, and I just have to hand over my current one in exchange. They don't kid around with customer service.
Dang up Torrey's and Gray's? That's truly some boingy boingy. Also day 0 conversations with strangers almost sounds like if I were having them 🤔
ReplyDeleteLol stick Susan in a hostel full of folks who only want to talk about outdoor adventure sports and she quickly channels you
DeleteLooks like a fun time! ^^
ReplyDelete