We were on the first bus out of Frisco to Copper Mountain. Who should we find there, but Roger (our first other thru-hiker). We chatted for a bit, but he wasn't going all the way to Copper.
Today was a hard day.
There were miles of snowdrifts, and we were at the highest elevations we've been at so far. By 4pm we'd only gone 12 miles. We did see a big snowshoe hare outside of Copper Mountain; his summer coat hadn't fully come in, so he was a big brown bunny with humongous white feet. We passed Janet's cabin (of the 10th Mountain Division hut system, website here), and just had to take a look inside. It's really nice, and HUGE. Past there, we had a looooong alpine traverse, which would have been great fun on snowshoes, but which was sort of painful in sneakers with packs on. This was where Brent broke his second trekking pole in a snowdrift. He's been through 3 of them now (1 broken before the PCT, 1 lost in the South Kings
river in CA, now 1 broken in a snowdrift). We also hiked past Cataract falls in the late afternoon. The guidebook says that you shouldn't miss the chance to stand under the falls and clean off, but there was so much water coming down that was clearly not an option. Snowmelt has been late, but it's definitely well under way now. We couldn't even get close to the falls, it was so flooded.
By the end of the day, we had done 19 miles, 7 of them since 4:00. A loooong day.
kim
Today was a hard day.
There were miles of snowdrifts, and we were at the highest elevations we've been at so far. By 4pm we'd only gone 12 miles. We did see a big snowshoe hare outside of Copper Mountain; his summer coat hadn't fully come in, so he was a big brown bunny with humongous white feet. We passed Janet's cabin (of the 10th Mountain Division hut system, website here), and just had to take a look inside. It's really nice, and HUGE. Past there, we had a looooong alpine traverse, which would have been great fun on snowshoes, but which was sort of painful in sneakers with packs on. This was where Brent broke his second trekking pole in a snowdrift. He's been through 3 of them now (1 broken before the PCT, 1 lost in the South Kings
river in CA, now 1 broken in a snowdrift). We also hiked past Cataract falls in the late afternoon. The guidebook says that you shouldn't miss the chance to stand under the falls and clean off, but there was so much water coming down that was clearly not an option. Snowmelt has been late, but it's definitely well under way now. We couldn't even get close to the falls, it was so flooded.By the end of the day, we had done 19 miles, 7 of them since 4:00. A loooong day.
kim
No comments:
Post a Comment