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  • gspencer16

Day 30 - the San Juans are beautiful but hard (21.5 miles)

Updated: Aug 10, 2022

June 8, 2021

Miles: 21.5 miles

Steps: 55,502


It seemed cold last night, froze my wet socks and shoes but not my water in my tent.


It’s always slow going in the cold. Took me a good hour to pack up everything before heading off down trail.


I figured my morning hike wouldn’t be too hard as the snow was pretty hard and I had my micro spikes so it was just like walking normally. The hard part about the morning was navigating the trail since the snow does a good job of hiding it.

Around mid morning I started to pass other hikers. I think in all I saw 5 hikers on the day.


As the day went on the snow started to melt making it turn into a slush just like yesterday. At times it felt like I was barely moving but I think I was able to average over 2 mph during the day.


I had a lot of snow fields to cross which wasn’t too bad.

I did have some scary crossings on snow where I was walking on the snow on a very steep slope. Best not to look down on those and I went very slowly as not to slip.

Towards the end of the day I had my final downhill. There was a lot of snow so going downhill can be scary and slow. Unless there is a nice enough slope to glasad down, sitting on your bottom and sliding down the mountain.


I saw 2 people down below, 1 near the bottom and the other half way. It looked a little scary but I decided I might as well since one of them made it. I got a lot of speed and was hard to control. I made it to the bottom in one piece. After I went the 1 that was half way decided to give it a try. She was very out of control and almost smashed into the rocks.

After that I had to find the trail again since I took a short cut.


Right before getting back on trail I ate my dinner before chugging along another mile. However I was never able to find a camping spot. By now I was starting to make my way back up out of the valley which I didn’t want to do.


I saw on the map a possible camping spot but turned out to be under snow. I was get worried now as it was getting dark and couldn’t find a spot. Just as I ran out of daylight the trail was wide and flat enough to pitch my tent. I normally wouldn’t do it but I don’t think many people if any will be night hiking. Plus I’ll get up early so shouldn’t be an issue.

Hopefully I can knock out another 20 miler tomorrow. I will say I’m pretty exhausted and should sleep well.

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