6/15 We woke before the alarm, which we’d set since we’d made plans to meet Just Jim for breakfast at the classic Rose Cafe. It was a small, cute place, the entire front wall made of windows, vintage-print yellow wallpaper on the accent wall and ceilings, stamped tin and old china plates on the walls, …
Day 58: The Effluent of The Affluent
6/14 Oh, the glory of sleeping in. Crusoe was already at work in his remote van office by the time I even cracked an eye. When I wandered down to the lobby in search of the black morning nectar, I spotted Just Jim sitting in the lobby. We had a nice chat, trading injury woes …
Day 57: Wolf Creek Pass
6/13 We had planned to debauch onto Wolf Creek pass tomorrow morning, meeting my brother and his partner there for 2 days in Pagosa Springs, but last night we looked at the maps, talked ourselves into the idea those next 18 miles would be easy, and realized we probably could make it today. “Then we …
Day 56: In the Heart
6/12 “Want to sleep in?” Prana mumbled when the alarm went off at 4:45. Ha! A rhetorical question as far as I was concerned. 2 hours later it was fully morning, and magically neither cold nor with condensation on the tent. We took a leisurely time to pack, drying gear in the sun. The other …
Day 55: The Glissades
6/11 The sun was up so early these days. We were up with it, to take advantage of the night-hardened snow as long as possible. It was the day we’d get up among the peaks and ridges for the first time in the Colorado Rockies, a whole different flavor of hiking I relished the …
Day 54: The Solace of South Faces
6/10 The sun dawned over the same stunning backdrop it had disappeared behind last night. The South San Juans, I thought, blinking, still a bit incredulous. We wound around snow ringed pools of meltwater before dropping into the horseshoe cirque of the Dipping Lakes, source of the East Fork of the Rio Chama. Breakfasted and …
Day 53: Into the San Juans
6/9 I fetched gas station coffee, wrote, packed. We probably should’ve gone for breakfast earlier, because we were both snarlingly hangry by the time we checked out and went to Fina’s diner, where the cherry turnovers and service disappointed, but the breakfast burritos lived up to their reputation. The inside was cute, decorated with Coca-Cola …
Intermission
Well, beloved friends, this post should come as self-evident, ha! As the demands of the hike increased, I ran completely out of time, energy, creative juice, and focus to continue blogging at the quality I wanted to. Prana and I are still on trail- still with connected footsteps, still heading north. We pulled a big …
Day 52: So Long, New Mexico
6/8 Only 6 miles until the Colorado border. And only 8 and a half miles until Cumbres Pass,where we hitch to Chama, and prepare for the San Juans. The strangest thing about the morning’s miles is how smoky everything was- how could there be a fire already? Wasn’t it barely June? That didn’t bode well …
Day 51: I Spy, on the Horizon…
6/7 Everything was dripping wet this morning - I couldn’t even imagine staying down at river level. We’ll have to remember to air out the sleeping quilt later- in addition to being awfully damp, one of the funny details of sharing a double quilt became apparent this morning: double the quilt, double the garlic farts. …
muddy shoe memoirs 