Back So Soon

Josh, back so soon from the Colorado Trail?! Yep! In 6 days, I ended up hiking almost 100 miles before being forced (not really, it was more like a voluntary sort of "forced") to turn back and head home. But that shall be explained later!

Here is my Colorado Trail journey, in a nutshell. Be sure to read my amazing tips for surviving in the wild down below!

On the plane ride over to Denver, I met some really awesome people who lived in the Denver area who were happy to help me with a ride over to the Indian Creek campground, where the Colorado Trail started. Colin had recently graduated from Clemson and was heading home with his girlfriend, Molly. Colin and his dad were more than happy to drop me off at the campground, even though it was about 30 miles out of the way for them. They even refused any sort of payment. Colorado people are awesome! I will definitely pass the amazing favor they did me forward.

When I arrived at Indian Creek, I realized it'd be $15 to camp in the actual campground, so I decided to "stealth camp" and simply ran off into the woods a little ways to set up my tent there. As I was setting up camp, I quickly remembered one very stupid piece of information: in my excitement about getting a ride straight from the Denver airport to the Trailhead, I had forgotten to pick up fuel for my stove, and also completely forgot to grab water. I hadn't drank anything since 3 PM that afternoon-- mistake number one. Either way, I set up camp for the first night on a slope (mistake number two) and spent half the night curled up in the fetal position at the bottom of my tent because I kept sliding down the damn hill.

And then I woke up, packed all of my stuff up, found some water, and began my hike.

And so I hiked a mile.

And then I hiked another mile.

And then I hiked 96 more miles over the course of the next six days before simultaneously A) being forced to turn around and B) deciding that long distance backpacking wasn't necessarily my forte.

When I hit mile #98, about 11,000 feet up a mountain, I ran into this:

The snow was about three feet deep, and the trail was impossible to see as a result. One could follow the tracks of previous hikers who have tried to cross the snow, but since the snow was slowly melting, one would sink straight through to the bottom, where a river of water was flowing beneath the snow. My GPS informed me that my next location was a mile and a half through this winter wasteland.

I know my limits. I was here for a summer hike-- I ain't gonna die out here in the snow trying to push on further with no trail to guide my way. The blazes on the trees that were supposed to mark the trail were nonexistent at this altitude. Sure, I could've pushed on further, using my GPS to guide the way, but my feet would have been soaked from the water and I was definitely not equipped to cross snow higher than my knees. I also didn't know just how far this snow continued for. It would have been nearly impossible to camp in this sort of weather, especially when in the snow-free areas the temperature already reached the low 30's at night-- I would have frozen, literally. I was already being forced to sleep in my 20 degree sleeping bag wearing every article of clothing I had since it was so cold. If I was forced to camp out here, forest rangers would've have had to airlift my frozen and frostbitten dead body away from the mountain.

Snow up to my thighs in some places

So I decided to turn around and head home. After almost 100 miles of hiking, I decided that long distance backpacking wasn't necessarily for me anyway. While I enjoyed hiking, I did not enjoy long distance backpacking. As with the rest of my personality, I simply cannot do the same thing over and over, day in and day out.  I became rather bored with the trail-- sure, the views were spectacular, but essentially I was doing nothing but walking, day in and day out.

The trail was also incredibly lonely. Over the course of the six days that I was on the trail itself, I had seen only six other people. I only had my thoughts to entertain myself and I hiked nonstop for ten or twelve hours a day. I know it sounds silly, but I missed the company of my friends and of other people. After 100 miles, I decided that I would much rather spend this summer doing nothing, surrounded by the people I love, than doing something extraordinary and having nobody to celebrate it with.

After my snow incident, I hiked the 10 miles back to the campground where I had camped the night before and set up camp again in the very same location. I had booked a flight back to NC from Denver for the next morning. When I woke up that morning, it had snowed about three inches.

I had to trek back to the road in the snow. I looked at the sign on the road: 70 miles to Denver. I stuck out my thumb and began walking. Eventually, a man named Mark Hammer, owner of http://www.theadventurecompany.com, picked me up and took me the entire way to the Denver airport. He, just like Colin and Molly and many others who had allowed me to hitchhike with them, also refused any sort of payment. This was what I was hitchhiking in:

The people in Colorado were so incredibly friendly. I never had to wait more than 10 minutes to be picked up when I was hitchhiking to and from towns. I truly enjoyed the hitchhiking more than I enjoyed walking the trail itself. I met many incredibly people who shared their own stories of when they used to hitchhike across America. One nice woman even gave me a beer on her way back to Denver! I was considering hitchhiking all the way back to North Carolina, but eventually decided against it.

I arrived in the Denver airport around 9 AM Monday morning and caught a flight home that afternoon. Thus, my Colorado journey had ended, three weeks earlier than what I was intending.

Although I probably spent more than I should have preparing for this trail, both in time and in monetary value, I don't feel as if my time nor my money was wasted. I wanted to push my limits and see if I was capable of a long distance backpacking journey-- and while I was capable physically, I was not mentally capable of being in complete solitude for such an extended period of time. But I don't see my adventure as a failure-- I view it as a success, simply because I didn't sit around with my thumb up my ass wondering if I could hike the Colorado Trail, I WENT OUT THERE, and I DID IT. I may have failed in completing the entire trail, but I succeeded in something else: I hiked almost 100 miles, up and down mountains, in 6 days. Elevation wise, I climbed 2/3 of Mount Everest. I have no regrets.

However, I did learn a lot of my 98 mile hike through the woods, and I now shall share with you these tried-and-true words of wisdom:

JOSH'S WORDS OF WISDOM FOR SURVIVING IN THE WILD

Don't ever camp on a slope.

When tying your food up for the night to prevent attracting bears into your tent, don't stand underneath your food bag when attempting to lower it to the ground for a late night snack.

When you throw an object over the tree branch in order to make the job of raising your food bag up to the branch a lot easier, don't stand in the path of that aforementioned object's downward swing.

Don't ever say "Damn, this is easy!" when you're hiking. That's when the trail immediately goes straight up for 2000 feet.

Don't ever run from bees-- they're evil bastards and are merely leading you into a trap.

And finally, watch where you sit-- the only thing worse than ants in your pants are fire ants in your pants.

And last but not least (on a more serious note): Friends don't let friends be idiots and start campfires in areas where they aren't supposed to:

Thank you all, and have a good day.