CDT 2012: Colorado

   Heat, dryness, wildfires, strong winds....these are the things that have been going through my head the last week on the trail. We left Pagosa Springs last Friday morning to head into one of the most difficult stretches of the trail: the San Juan mountains. The San Juan's stand mostly between ten and fourteen thousand feet, so at any given time it is not an easy area to hike in. Most hikers choose to wait to enter this area until some time in June because of the snow. This year was a very low snow year, so the hiking was not nearly as difficult as it would have been in previous years. But as many of you know it has been extremely dry here and there are a number of wildfires burning in Colorado right now and we are seeing their effects as we hike. For two days we hiked through fairly thick smoke, smelling fire all day long. For over a week now we have still been able to see the smoke as we hike even though we are miles away. But the forests here are so dry, there has been so little rain and the wind has been very strong. Yesterday as we got to Spring Creek Pass to hitch into town, we finally got our first storm and torrential down pour complete with hail! But the rain lasted no more than twenty minutes then it was back to blue sky. We are taking the day off today, resting in town and it has finally rained some more today, but we need more.
   But back to the trail, Colorado has been absolutely beautiful. I have never hiked in an area like this, it is so different from anywhere back east. I was talking with someone a few weeks ago when we were in New Mexico and she was telling me about Colorado, as she had done a lot of hiking here in years past. In speaking about it, she said that Colorado has a beauty that adjectives cannot describe, and her words have stuck with me and it is exactly what I would say about this state.
We have had some great wildlife sightings- I lost count weeks ago of the number of elk we have seen. They are so fun to watch and they have a very neat call that they make. We saw our first moose of the trip, I think I startled it as much as it startled me when I came around the corner. It was a bull and he was not quite full grown, but I always enjoy seeing moose and I'm sure we will be seeing many more as we head north. We see tons of marmots everyday and we even saw some coyotes our last day in NM.
   We are spending the day in Lake City at a new hostel that just opened this summer called the Ravens Rest hostel. It is a wonderfully relaxing place run by a former CDT hiker as his wife. If anyone is ever looking for a place to stay here I would highly recommend The Ravens Rest hostel :) Tomorrow we head back to the trail and will begin to head north again ( the last six days has been a loop to the west and now turning back east to hike through the San Juan's). Below are pictures from the beginning of Colorado and I have updated the mail drop info in the post below for anyone who wishes to send us something! Thanks for reading, happy hiking.
-Jetpack