After one zero day in Lake City, we stuck out our thumbs and looked for a ride. An hour later, Tom Brady stopped in his PT Cruiser. No, not The Tom Brady but a nice old guy who felt sorry for us being he passed us an hour ago and came back to help us out. Him and his wife are locals living the dream in Lake City year-round. He drove us to the trailhead and pointed out every snowmobile road along the way. He talked and talked and talked about all the goings-on in town. He enjoys the tourist coming to town but loves the solitude when they all leave. Once on the trail, it was a continuation of the other side, but with new mountains! Now we could see Colorado’s version of the Matterhorn. We did some more plateau hiking and noticed a truck and trailer on our trail. I wondered if it was a Shepard, like Tom had mentioned. Sure enough, it was Ewe Ranch placing their trailer in the high country for the summer. This will be the first and last time I’ll ever pass up a vehicle as I’m walking. He was going really really slow. I caught up with him and talked awhile. He has five locations that he places his sheep but where we were at, he had a flock of 600-700 sheep. They will grave there till fall and then he’ll pick em up and take back to Montrose where they will become lamb chops! Those poor little sheep have no idea but I do appreciate a good “leg of lamb”. They were pretty noisy as we passed. Triple-Z was scout today. She had to find the hidden spring which would be our only source of water for the day. After reading Guthook, she narrowed it down to .2 miles into the forest near a cairn pile. Hallelujah that woman is quite resourceful and we were filling up with water! A little more road walking then up we went. The wind was howling today. If only I had a sail or wings, I could’ve been to the ridge line in no time. But all I have are my Trail legs, my Solomon’s, and a heavy pack. So I kept walking. We are getting down to the nitty gritty now with a little over a hundred miles to go. We stopped short of going over the tallest point on the CT today and decided to do that early in the morning when we are fresh and we’ll-rested. So we found some low lying manzanitas bushes to block the wind and settled in at 11,714′. We are well above tree line and thankfully there’s no storms on the horizon so we are quite comfortable. Red Cloud Mountain was the most brilliant mountain in our view today. It is something with all the ore and Cooper in the minerals. It truly is a beauty and I’m sure we will have many angles of Red Cloud as we hike tomorrow. You just can’t escape these as they are so tall and you see them for days!

The Lord is my Shepard, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths, for his names sake.

Psalms 23:1-3