Colorado Trail Days 27-29: Silverton to Durango

Hi from Durango, at the southern end of the Colorado Trail. I did it! We went straight from the trail to a Chinese food feast in a downtown Durango park, and now I’m clean, showered, and resting in a hotel bed. I’ll post a summary and reflection of the trail soon, but for now here’s the download on my last couple of days on trail.

The best sunrises come on cloudy days

We left Silverton early on Saturday morning so that we could get some good hiking miles in. When we left the trailhead at about 6:00 AM the sky was just beginning to lighten. We climbed up onto a ridge, and when we looked back at the San Juan mountains from which we had come, I was stunned to see an unbelievable sunrise. The many clouds that stretched across the sky had turned a brilliant orange and were making the massive mountains glow. I’ve been a bit scared of clouds this whole thru hike, knowing that clouds mean rain, especially since the bad weather in the La Garita Wilderness, but this was a nice reminder of the beauty that they bring as well.

The one and only 30

When thru-hiking, hiking 30 miles in a day or more (a “thirty”) is a milestone. On the AT, whenever I would hike a 30 I would feel a sense of great accomplishment. When we were getting ready to start the CT, Welcome and I said that we wanted to hike one 30 over the course of the trail “just for fun.” But when we made our plans, it looked like we would never hit the mark: our plans had us hiking 23-27 miles pretty consistently, with an occasional long day around 28. Bummer, but we weren’t too disappointed.

Our second-to-last day was supposed to be 23 miles, leaving us another 23 to finish off the trail on Monday. But as we started hiking on Sunday, the idea started brewing within me that we could keep pushing and hit that 30 mark. I checked Guthook, and saw that after our planned campsite, it was an 8 mile downhill hike to another campsite. I wanted to do it. At lunch I brought up the idea to Welcome, but she was unsure. She was feeling tired and the idea of adding a couple more hours of hiking didn’t sound great. I understood–once I get a hiking plan in my head the prospect of additional miles it tough. But we agreed to play it by ear and check in when we got to the original campsite–Taylor Lake. We reached the lake around 2:30, and as we sat collecting water, Welcome asked me, “if we hiked on, how many miles would we do today?” I couldn’t help but smile as I looked at her and said “31.” A smile spread across her face too and she said instantly, “yep, let’s do it.” We leapt up with newfound energy and headed off.

During those final 8 miles, we got caught in a thunderstorm coming over a pass (very scary!) but otherwise the miles passed easily, and we reached camp feeling proud and excited. We did our 30! One was enough for this thru hike.

Ending with our supporters

I wouldn’t have been able to hike the Colorado Trail without support, especially given COVID. My biggest support (in addition to the huge amount of emotional support and cheerleading from Blackbeard) came from my mom and dad, who met me several times on the trail and turned a disappointing weather postponement into an awesome Steamboat adventure, and Committee, who met us at trailheads to bring us into town, drove around our resupplies and generally did everything we needed to make our trip possible. It made for a special ending to our trail that I got to hike to the terminus with all of them. My mom and dad met me about 4.5 miles from the end of the trail–they hiked up to meet us in the morning. It made for awesome final miles getting to tell them about our last couple of days and hear about their drive down to Durango. Then, about 0.5 miles from the terminus, we saw Committee hiking up the trail! It felt wonderful for the five of us to walk the final steps of the trail together: me with (most of) the people who made the trail possible.

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But I just got my trail legs!

It wasn’t until I reached my last couple of days on trail that I was hit with how short the Colorado Trail is. I know that almost 500 miles sounds like a lot and it definitely is, but most of the time on the trail I was breaking my body in. It takes a couple of weeks for my body to realize “oh, all I’m doing for the next while is hiking, I should get in shape for exactly that.” Specifically, thru hikers grow trail legs: legs on which we can hike for many miles without getting tired or sore. I finally felt my trail legs about 5 days before the trail ended: I was finally ready to go and go just as it was time to stop!

My hiker hunger finally hit in the past couple of days, too. For most of the trail, I would struggle to finish my backpacker pantry dinners: I would shovel down the food quickly so I could be done eating before my brain caught up to my stomach. I knew I needed the calories, but my hunger wasn’t there. It was only since I left Silverton that I was able eat and eat and eat–finishing my dinner and then moving on to snacks and dessert.

Finally hitting my thru hiker stride just before the trail ended made me want to keep hiking! If the trail had another couple hundred miles for me, I would have done it!

Coming up next…

Sleep. Food. Driving back home. It’s been an amazing hike!!