Day 43 - I always spend too much time in town (32.4 miles)

June 21, 2021

Miles: 32.4 miles

Steps: 75,491

I set my alarm for 4:30am. When that went off I set it for 5am. When that went off I set it for 5:30am, 3rd time is the charm.

When I woke up the skies had cleared but had a little ash on my tent.

Got to hiking and had mostly downhill to Copper Mountain Resort. I decided to head down to see if I could use their bathroom. I found an open Starbucks so I went in and ran into Swift. Hung around with him for 30 minutes at the resort, used the bathroom and we were both off to hike over the mountain to the highway to take us to Frisco.

It was about a 3,000 foot climb. Like yesterday it had its steep sections but overall not too bad. The last 2 miles were above tree line so got good views.

Came over the mountain just a little north of Breckinridge. From there it was 7.5 miles down to the highway.

Got down to the highway around 12:30pm and only had to wait about 20 minutes for the bus to pick us up and take us the 8 miles into Frisco.

The bus dropped us off right next to Walmart but we went across the street first to eat at Wendy’s, never a good idea to food shop on an empty stomach.

After eating went back to Walmart to buy 4 days of supplies to get to Grand Lake. Spent time packing everything up then grabbing the bus back to the trail. Not sure how but we were gone for 4 hours from the trail.

The hike out of the highway was about 2,500 ft of climbing but over about 6 miles. Before heading up I called home to wish my dad a happy Father’s Day. Being on trail you lose all track of dates and times.

The hike up was much easier as it was maintain by a mountain bike group so very well graded. The only thing bad about the hike up was no water sources until near the bottom of the other side.

On the way up I could see a big smoke flume coming up over the mountain I had come over in the morning. The wind was blowing towards the south so wasn’t too worried. By the evening I couldn’t see any smoke.

At the top of this peak I had a quick bite to eat then 2 miles downhill to the first water source. I chugged a liter then soon after starting back up hiking I ran into Swift. He had stopped because he heard some loud noises which then I did too. The farther we hiked the louder it got. Sounded like lots and lots of dogs barking. We get near what appeared to be a dog kennel but by now it’s too dark to see but we both knew we needed to get out of there. My guess was there was some kind of animal down there getting the dogs all worked up, maybe a bear.

We hiked another 2 miles until we found the campsite. We plan for an early start in the morning.