“My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She’s ninety-three today and we don’t know where the hell she is.” ~Ellen DeGeneres

 Copper Mountain, CO Segment 8 – Copper Mountain to Wurtz Ditch Road

What happened to Segment 7, you ask? Logistics played a part in our segment order again. As we had a long weekend on Labor Day, we hiked Segment 8 and a small portion of 9 that weekend and then did Segment 7 two weeks later as our grand finale for the season. When you work full time, you sometimes have to sacrifice the purity of hiking the trail in segment order so that you can take the most advantage of your time off. We feel that this is a small sacrifice compared to the alternative of walking less of the trail this season. I think it would be fair to say that the Colorado Trail bug and the adventure it provides us have bitten us all. Walking the land in the state we have chosen to make our home is extremely satisfying. We surely wish that our lives were less constrained so that we could do more but are thankful for the opportunities to go as far as we have.

August 28, 2003 Our plan for tomorrows hike is to start at Highway 91 by Copper Mountain and hike to Camp Hale 16.2 miles to an unofficial trail head at the East fork of the Eagle River. It was our plan, just not the one we ended up following. As we had accommodations near Copper Mountain, we left the girls there while Tim and I drove to leave a vehicle at our end point. First we checked out the road crossing and trail head at Highway 91. Although there are two wide pullouts (wide and long enough for 20 cars) there are no parking signs, so we scout a place about .3 tenths of a mile away to park in the morning. We then head out to Camp Hale. The first road we take is barricaded so we turn and go in by the main entrance. As we drive towards the trail head, we run across another barricade. Signs tell us that the area is closed, and there are confusing signs about hiking the trail from Friday evening (today is Thursday) to Monday morning only. We look at our map for alternatives and none pop up. We than notice a vehicle parked inside the barricade a short ways up the road. We decide to walk in and investigate and as we get closer, Tim says there is someone inside. We walk up to the vehicle, which has music playing and go up to the passenger side window, which is partially rolled down. I say excuse me and there is no response. Tim gets closer puts his head by the window and says excuse me sir, which proceeds to scare the **** out of the guy. We ask him if there is a way in to join the road and he says no, that he is the security guard. This gave us a real chuckle later but we held it to ourselves at the time. He says we can walk from the barricade along the road to the trail and walk the trail as long as we stay on it. Sooo, we recalculate and decide we will leave the Explorer here and try to cut a mile or two off the front end as the additional mileage to the barricade would make it a 19-20 mile day. As we are going up over 12,000 feet, we feel that this might be too much. We drive back to Copper Mountain and find a place we can join the trail in the resort. That being settled, we return to our lodging, knowing the girls would be wondering what happened to us. We had told them we would be back in 2 hours and it has been close to four. We made up a story that we had gotten two flats before we ended up telling them the real story. A late dinner and we ready for bed.

August 29, 2003

Two Trails for the Hike of One

We start at Copper Mountain near the American Flyer lift at 7:00 AM. We walk a short distance up an access road and join the trail. The trail crosses several ski slopes before we turn up the valley of Guller Creek towards Searle Pass. We spot deer in two different places along this section. As we walk along the valley, steadily climbing towards Searle Pass, we pass several ruins of old cabins. This valley must have been a popular place. Our breathing the last mile or so to Searle Pass gets a little more difficult, but the views are great and a nice excuse to stop for breathers. We make Searle Pass and break the 12,000-foot level for the first time with an elevation of 12,040 feet. We take a long and luxurious break at Searle Pass.

Charlie at Top of Elk Ridge Ten Mile Range in Back

The next several miles to Elk Ridge are all above tree line. We round a ridge and can see the next ridge, which is the high point of this hike, ahead of us. The switchbacks take the wind out of us but slowly we progress until we are finally on top. We are at 12,380 feet and the views are phenomenal. You can see down towards the Climax Molybdenum mine (say that three times fast!) and the surrounding mountains. We enjoy lunch at the top but our bodies cool down fast up here and we are ready to go after taking some pictures. We descend to Kokomo Pass (12,000 feet) and begin a steady, sometimes steep downhill. About an hour from Kokomo Pass I start to lag. I have hit a small physical wall, my feet are aching, and my pace slows down considerably. It is time for a rest break. After a nice break with my shoes off and some food and Gatorade in me, I feel a bit better. The rest of the hike down into Camp Hale is all descent with some fairly long, steep sections. I keep plodding along until eventually I work through my aches and get back to a more normal pace.

Charli and Tim Soaking Toes in Cataract Creek

When we reach the north fork of the Eagle River (our originally planned exit), we take another break and soak our feet in the extremely cold water. It feels incredibly good on our tired feet. There is a small waterfall just beyond the trail. We have about two more miles to the Camp Hale Trail Head and then whatever distance it is to the truck from there. We make it to the Explorer at 4:55 PM having hiked a distance of 17.3 miles, our furthest distance yet. As tired as we are, we are surprised that we feel we could still hike a few more miles if we needed to. We have slowly gotten into trail shape and we feel better than we felt after 11.4 miles on Segment 2 in the beginning of the year. Our total time today was 9 hours and 55 minutes. We had a moving average of 2.8 miles per hour and an overall average of 1.9 miles per hour. All in all, this was a great day.