Old Lady on the Trail- Triple Crown at 76

by Mary E Davison

  Every time I headed uphill I did my imitation of a crippled slug. Bad imitation. A slug would have been faster. And it rained. All afternoon it was either raining, had just stopped, or was about to begin. My umbrella did well but my gloves were soaked.

  Going by Illinois Creek I saw a cow moose peering at me over the willows. At Prospector Gulch it started raining again. Rats. I was lucky to find a spot just big enough for my tent, mostly on dry duff under a tree. I was bushed on my last night before Cottonwood Pass Road. I was running out of steam, but I was dry and warm, or would be warm when my cold hands warmed up.

  I had a hard time getting up in the morning. I walked downhill to Texas Creek, walked to the bridge, had a short climb, and I was done.

  Chuck met me in 10 minutes, driving me to my car, which had been parked in his yard for weeks. I drove to Olive's in Breckinridge to gather stuff left there and then to Denver for a visit with the sister of my heart. It was lovely to lie abed in the morning. Eventually I moved.

  My God-sis in Denver was at least 10 years older than I was. So, at least in her 80s, maybe more. She and her neighbor, about the same vintage, were politically active and socially concerned activists. Scrappy elderly ladies. I loved my visit. I had a very good time being the youngest of three old opinionated ladies. We could all take on any issue and enthusiastically and joyfully argue our opinions.

  The rain in Colorado in 2013 wasn’t a problem just for me. There were record rains and destructive floods causing loss of life and property. Though I didn’t like so much rain, I was from Washington and knew how to hike with an umbrella.

  Last Stitch in Trail for 2013

  I wasn’t quite finished with the CDT for the year. I had now hiked all of Colorado SOBO from 1 mile below the Wyoming border. I had hiked Wyoming’s Great Divide Basin from Smiley Meadows to South Pass City. I needed to stitch those two pieces together.

  Leaving Denver, I drove to Steamboat Springs to meet RockStar. My friend had been touring other places while I’d been hiking and visiting. Amazed she stuck around to give me trail support even though she didn’t hike much in Colorado, she was in for this last part.

  Setting a car where we would finish, we drove to Rawlins. It was WONDERFUL to have a beautiful sunny day and exciting to see antelope again after all of Colorado’s rain. We gave five stars to Rose's Lariat, a Mexican restaurant in Rawlins, a tiny place with excellent food and the most incredibly light and tasty strawberry sopapillas I’d ever eaten.

  A bit of pre-adventure began the day. Highway 71 south of Rawlins had a sign announcing possible road closure. What? We can't get to our trail? We drove on and hoped for the best. About 20 miles down the road, we ran into construction. The flagger let us by, cautioning us to drive slowly. The road definitely required us to go slow. It was completely torn up in preparation for more paving. Reaching our destination, we parked the car and started up the hill.

  Most of the trail was on a ridge with lovely views, north, south, east and west, and the temperature was comfortably between 60 and 70. The trail had cairns built of abundant quartz in the area, some milky white, some a crystalline variety looking like fractured ice, some rose- colored and some a coral-orange.

  Two cowboys looking for their cows passed us at lunch; cows and chipmunks were our wildlife. An alternate road paralleling the trail sped our walk and took us by log cabin ruins, the smaller cabin, mostly intact though roofless, added interest to our walk.

  Tired and ready to stop by the time we hit the creek, even without a good camping spot we plopped down on top of greenery hoping for another sunny day to dry whatever would need drying in the morning from night time condensation. It was dark by 7:30.

  We heard quite a few elk, probably as close as a couple hundred yards away, but we couldn’t see them through the trees and bushes. Even though we camped near the stream and on all sorts of green, we were again in the land of dry Wyoming and had no condensation problems.

  The ridge we walked on felt like it would never end, the Continental Divide Trail running right along the Divide. We could again see Hahn's Peak, which we’d viewed at the beginning of our hike in August, the best view from the top of Bridger Peak. The trail bypassed the peak by 25-50 feet, but even I could make a peak that close to the trail.

  The wind was ferocious at times, cold one moment and hot another, making it hard to tell what to wear as we hiked on an old jeep road. We saw three ATVs, a dune buggy from Bridger Peak, and two people leaving their summer cabin traveling by ATV. They told us it was supposed to snow the next day. We hoped they were wrong.

  Someone had left water for CDT hikers near a trailhead, and we took a little as insurance. The short half-mile on the highway was brutal with the wind; blasts tried to pick me up and throw me into a car lane! Fortunately cars were sparse. Reaching our destination by 5:30, we found water and places for our tents.

  Although it rained a little in the night, the tents were almost dry when packed, the sky clear and the trail gradual in ascents and descents. Through lovely meadows edged with contrasting dark green trees, we caught views to Bridger Peak in the north and Hahn's Peak in the south, and felt gratified to see Hahn's come closer as Bridger receded.

  A few flowers, a bright paintbrush, two kinds of yellow daisy, a scraggly lupine and a few pearly everlasting were making a last gasp before supposedly coming snow. The wind was cold and sometimes fierce. As we watched dark clouds approaching, accompanied by rolling thunder, our lunch was cut short. We hastened to prepare for what was coming but weren’t quite fast enough. Scampering as fast as we could down an open ridge, thunder cracked above us, wind blew hard, and hail and rain pelted us as we ran.

  In the shelter of trees, we made some clothing adjustments and went on. For a number of miles the CDT was mostly cross-country travel, marked with posts and cairns. In the fog that came with the rain, it took two sets of eyes to find the next post or cairn. RockStar stood by a post, and I walked out to find the next one staying in sight and hearing. That post located, we would repeat the process. We didn’t wish to be lost on the second to last day of trail.

  By the time we reached our water source, the rain had ceased. Watering up and feeling sprinkles, we went only a short distance to stop at the first decent campsite.

  It rained off and on in the night, occasionally sounding like sleet instead of drops. The tents were wet in the morning, and it was cold, 36 inside the tents. Heading out, our shoes, damp from rain the day before, received fresh doses of cold wetness from greenery and bogs. It stayed in the 30s all morning. The fog, pushed by the ever-present and very cold wind, turned grass and trees white with thick frost of rime ice. We stopped to take pictures of rime-iced trees even though the temperature was literally freezing plus a substantial wind chill.

  We were on a mission to reach the car, stopping for pictures but not for lunch. Clouds lifted briefly just enough to see the Hogg Park Reservoir, and by two o'clock the sun came out, though we still had to put up our umbrellas one more time before the border to fend off rain drops and pelletized snow.

  The state border was marked with a white quartz line on the trail and a large deposit of mica on the ground. We took our state line pictures and soon found the intersection with the short trail to our dirt road and RockStar's car. Yay. The hike for 2013 was officially over, and Colorado was complete.

  However, not all the adventure was done. We still had to get to my car. On the map, it looked like the shortest, most efficient route was Highway 71, then Sage Creek Road from Highway 70. So we took FR 550 to 70 and drove west to Sage Creek Road, there called Deep Creek Road. After driving in six miles, barricades and road-closure signs stopped us 12 miles or less from my car.

  We had to drive all the way back to Encampment, then to Saratoga, inquiring at the police station if the Jack Creek Road was open all the way to 71. It took more than four more hours to reach my car, and RockStar had to drive directly into the setting sun on Jack Creek Road.

  At long last, we both drove to Raw
lins in the dark through construction. Adventure had piled upon adventure, but all was well, and life was good.

  Chapter 40 Fall and Winter 2013-2014

  Reciprocity

  I had surgery in the winter of 2013. Men of a certain age can have problems with their prostate. Women of a certain age have trouble with their bladders dropping. Human animals don’t seem to be built as strongly in that area as we might desire. The surgery should have been a relatively easy one. Unfortunately, a stitch or two was too tight, necessitating another surgery two days later to repair the first. Two surgeries that close together are hard on a body. Nothing showed but I found it more difficult to recover my strength from that particular surgery than from others. Nonetheless, I worked at it and did recover, all while planning the next year’s hikes.

  I’d run out of trail on the CDT that could be done in spring. So my first hike in 2014 was the Camino De Santiago in Spain. That’s another story only included here to say it prepared my body for hiking on the CDT.

  To hike again was the motivation that kept me on track to recover following surgeries. Two long hikes a year were also paying dividends to my body. I was still getting older, of course. And we all someday completely wear out our bodies. Yet in spite of surgeries, even as my body was heavily used walking up and down mountains, I seemed to be staying healthier than other people of similar age, who didn’t hike or work so hard at conditioning.

  There was a beneficial reciprocity between the conditioning efforts to be ready for long-distance hiking each year and my general wellbeing. Focusing on recovery from surgeries so I could hike kept me active and fit. And the more fit I was going into a surgery, the better I could recover.

  I am quite certain hiking is not a panacea to fix old age. But at least for me, long-distance hiking for 2-3 months each year contributed greatly to my general physical health and attitude toward life, even as years went inexorably by, wearing on that same health and attitude. It wasn’t a draw between them. Age would win in the end. But I was far healthier as I aged than I’d expected I would be; the trail itself the reason that was so.

  Chapter 41 August 5, 2014

  CDT—Wyoming

  Tailwinds

  RockStar was again good to go and both Tailwinds and Yellowstone agreed to give us trail support in their respective areas. Detailed planning, allowing for limitations in speed and the distance between resupplies, called for one complicated resupply box delivery, arranged with three people I’d never met before. I picked up RockStar at the Boise airport on the drive from Washington to Pinedale, and we were good to go.

  Tailwinds drove us 100 miles to South Pass City for a little three-mile walk. Kind of crazy to do 200 extra road miles to walk three miles, but the itinerary didn’t work with adding leftover miles from the previous year. The crazy beginning also allowed us to stop again at Farson for another spectacular ice cream cone.

  Back in Cora after our little walk, Tailwinds and her partner, Fred, fed us a wonderful dinner and assisted with final organizing. The next morning, Tailwinds drove us out to Highway 28, and we set off for real. Old dirt roads became sketchy before they turned to trail, and this approach to the Wind River Range was probably only frequented by CDT hikers; more popular approaches were farther north.

  Our trail went up to 9,200 feet. We carried bear spray now, which had been recommended for grizzly country extending all the way to the Canadian Border. Packs were heavy with our choice of bear cans, and we were very slow going uphill through bright green meadows, flowers, and more small streams running than I’d expected for August.

  Umbrellas were dual purpose. When it wasn't sprinkling, they provided shade from a hot sun. Drying off after a brief 10-minute rain squall, we pitched our tents between blowdowns by the river.

  My water purification systems failed. It was a good thing I had a hiking companion. Tears in plastic bags allowed my Steripen to get wet from a leaky Aqua Mira bottle, leaving that bottle empty—which meant a failure of my back-up, system too. Even very experienced hikers can make stupid mistakes like neophytes. RockStar gave me Aqua Mira for my water.

  Once I figured out my shoulders were happier with less air in the air mattress, I had a pretty good night's sleep. Even old hikers can learn new things, or perhaps old bodies require new things to be learned.

  The foothills of the Wind River Range reminded me of the Southern Sierra, only the rocks were whiter, and—as RockStar reminded me—there were no aspen in the Southern Sierra. The correlation in my mind was based on the dryness of the air, the heat of the sun, and the sense that there were big mountains coming.

  Contouring around the Southern Winds, we continually dropped into draws with trickling creeks and climbed up ridges, moving from hills of sagebrush to forests of aspen and pine. A lovely red tail hawk spoke to us disapprovingly from a nearby tree as we shook RockStar’s Tyvek ground sheet preparing to pack it after lunch. Later, I startled two large birds, perhaps some kind of goose, although not the familiar black-and-gray Canada Goose, and RockStar was very excited to see her first moose.

  Beating the rain, we arrived at our campsite by 4:00. After the storm passed, we got our water, and I took my usual bath in a Ziploc bag, washing underwear and socks in leftover water. I am one of the cleanest long distance hikers I know. I feel better clean, good for my psyche as well as my body.

  The morning was uphill, sometimes steeply. NOBO Big Daddy D walked with us and chattered. He’d read my journals so to him I was the famous Medicare Pastor, which I thought hilarious. Talking with him helped us move along, though he eventually moved ahead of our slow pace.

  Crossing the Continental Divide at 10,200 feet, we had a late lunch. The afternoon climb was in alpine fir by a lovely stream, yellow daisies and pink monkey flower on the banks. On the descent we peeked through trees at Little Sandy Lake, tucked below towering mountains.

  Fording two mountain streams, my feet were wet. RockStar changed to crocs for fording, but I was used to just walking through in my hiking shoes.

  It rained, sometimes with a hard shower; then it hailed. Setting up our tents in tiny flat spots, RockStar gave me a Platy Patch for a leak in my water bladder. She’d now twice rescued me from equipment failures.

  Cirque of Towers

  It was hard to get enthused in the morning with everything wet from condensation and cold; we didn't move very fast. The trail was rocky, with a few blowdowns to climb over or around. We were briefly misplaced, forded two rivers, and climbed up and down hills, only making four miles by lunch.

  The afternoon had a better trail, and after our second ford we had a great view of the Winds and the route to Cirque of Towers, which was an alternate route famous for its towers loved by rock climbers. RockStar decided she wasn’t up to the side trip, but they were on my must-see list.

  Tailwinds brought us our resupply boxes that night at Big Sandy, along with dinner: fried chicken, Caesar salad, watermelon, and the biggest chocolate chip cookies I’d ever seen. What more could a hiker want?

  Heading off in the morning for an awesomely beautiful but progressively difficult day, I planned to meet RockStar two days later. Just before a beautiful meadow filled with purple asters (fleabane) and yellow daisies, I took my first break. Passing Big Sandy Lake, quite beautiful with towering granite peaks all around, I had lunch after the first steep climb with an amazing view back to the lake and meadow flowers.

  Then it was up. Seriously up.

  Working very hard and taking one slow step at a time, the flowers and towering rock faces kept getting more and more scenic. I needed boosts from other hikers for a couple high steps. Many people were on the trail, a shock compared to our previous four days of almost complete solitude. Some 30-40 people were coming out of the Cirque and 30-40 more were going into this very popular destination.

  Jackass Pass before Lonesome Lake was almost anticlimactic compared to the ridges hiding Fourth Lake and Arrowhead Lake. But from the pass, Lonesome Lake was revealed in the circle of towering pe
aks. Awesome.

  Since it was illegal to camp near the lake, I and several other folks camped in the trees above and a respectful quarter-mile away. A patriotic array of flowers: red paintbrush, blue lupine and white bistort, as well as sheer rock towers, were the view from the door of my tent, clusters of white columbine and elephant heads nearby. (Elephant heads, a high-mountain flower growing in moist areas, has clusters of pink blossoms resembling elephant heads. Really. They look like tiny elephants.)

  The challenge of the morning was getting down to the lake from the rock shelf, where I and others had camped. On the other side I wondered if there would be marked trail up to Texas Pass.

  No.

  At least there was none that I could find. There were cairns now and then, but following them took me obviously off track as they were climber cairns, not hiker cairns.

  I struggled with altitude, struggled with no trail, and struggled with climbing over very large boulders, always moving at my familiar pace of a crippled slug. I thought I would never reach Texas Pass. For at least half of the ascent I couldn't even see Texas Pass. I had rewards, though. Flowers grew everywhere, and looking back at towering spires of granite all around was stunning. I was in a truly beautiful place.

  Eventually I stopped for a break and saw a couple guys ahead of me. Keeping them in sight, I had more assurance of where I was going. Cairns also became more reliable as I climbed higher.

  After a view of lakes in a rocky bowl on the other side of the pass, I went down, no easy feat on the steepest trail tread I’d ever seen. (Appalachian rock doesn’t count. Rocks aren’t trail tread. Park Mountain doesn’t count; it had no tread.) I had to brace my poles forward to avoid sliding down the mountain when I was simply standing on it.