What a gorgeous night I had last night. There is a half moon which means it’s like a full moon in the burbs. It’s so bright and seems like someone is shining a spot light on my tent! The stars were out and I just had to take a peek.
Having John here is a nice reprieve. We can dial our miles down a bit and concentrate more on having a mixed bag of elevation with little miles or long miles with little elevation. 3000’ didn’t seem too bad as it was spread out from early morning to early afternoon.
The sun shined today so that’s almost two days in a row. I’m counting yesterday, even though we had sporadic sprinkles, because we had more sunshine than rain. And that’s a big win on this wet trail.
We broke away from the Colorado River and meandered towards Lake Granby. It also is quite low, but still had enough water for fishermen to fish and troll. Once we started climbing, Hogged Up pointed out the snowy peaks to the north. They did not have snow on them prior to this week, so this is getting real!
I guess you get to pick your poison. Do you hike Nobo and have snow already accumulated and posthole for miles? Or do you head Sobo knowing you will get snowed on while you’re hiking? I’ll choose Sobo as I would much rather have a bit of snow falling as I hike, rather than stepping into feet of hard crusty snow as I hike. But that’s me. There’s more than double that choose Nobo over Sobo journeys.
We headed down to Granby Lake Country Store. It’s a camp store so they should have something good to eat. The gal behind the counter didn’t seem too interested in our wants and desires. Do you have any hot water for tea or coffee? No. Do you have sandwiches? We heard that those were an option. No, we don’t have sandwiches. Nobody was buying them so we discontinued them. What about anything hot to eat? If you’re not a guest, no! Hmm, well that was a bust! Luckily we didn’t walk too far out of our way. Have a nice day.
Up ahead was Monarch Lake so we planned to have lunch there. We sat and I indulged in my packed tuna, tortillas, cucumber and dried fruit with nuts. It was, oh so delicious and it gave me the calories so I could climb the last big hill. Monarch Lake is an Alpine Lake and has a four-mile loop trail that encircles the lake. We saw close to 30 day hikers and probably just as many dogs.
Once we finished our lunch, we started our climb up Mill Creek and back into Indian Peaks Wilderness. We ran into the same two guys I saw yesterday, Brad and Chris. They are hiking 50 miles over four days but have two trucks. So they park at one end and hike to the other end and pick up their vehicle, then do it again the next day. That’s brilliant! They seem so fresh and not winded at all. When the elevation is up, they park at the top and hike down! And vice versa. Well, I guess we’ll see them again tomorrow as we continue to climb Sobo.
We made it to a meadow which is near the Cabin. The squirrels are chirping, the chipmunks are hungry and I’m ready to crawl in my tent and warm up! Pretty easy day and don’t think we’ll get too crazy with extended miles until John gets acclimated. It’s all good!
So Hogged Up was all excited today when John showed her what he thought was slime mold. Hogged Up doesn’t get too excited about much so I had to see what all the fuss was about. When I looked at it, honestly I thought it was a piece of candy that someone spit out, but evidently it’s a slimy substance that is an organism.
Hogged Up explained that some country’s have studied the way these living creatures map out a route to obtain food. They will put them in a controlled area, put food in distinct areas that represent different cities on a map. Take Japan for instance. They will place food in Tokyo, Nara, Kyoto, and Mt Fuji. The slime will pick a line that uses the least amount of energy to obtain all the food. Supposedly, based on their route of choice, city planners have used this method to determine the best way to build new roads, highways and train tracks. Hard to believe that slime has an input on building our infrastructure. Hmm, maybe that’s what’s wrong with our road system!
“O LORD, what a variety of things you have made! In wisdom you have made them all. The earth is full of your creatures. Here is the ocean, vast and wide, teeming with life of every kind, both large and small.”
Psalms 104:24-25 NLT
