We caught the first bus out of Frisco at about 6am to head to the trailhead (isn't that great? there's a free bus that takes you to the trailhead!). There's a lot of elevation gain today, so we wanted as early a start as possible. We passed another couple of Colorado Trail thru-hikers in the morning (a couple of guys from Portland).
There were a couple of pieces of gear that we weren't sure we'd use, the ice axes and the GPS. Today we were glad we had both of them. The trail was covered with snowdrifts in many place
s. The easiest thing to do was to key a waypoint into the GPS and then walk in that general direction (over the snowdrifts, while using the ice axes, of course). At one point the Portland hikers passed us, and asked where the trail was. We pointed out what we thought was correct, and they set off. We followed their tracks for a while, then decided that they were angling too far down the mountain (useful GPS thingy!). We realized later that they were actually headed for the wrong ski resort! Copper mountain (our destination) was actually over the ridge. They were heading straight for Breckenridge.
We crested the ridge of the Tenmile Range, and finally saw our real destination. There were also great views of Mt Massive and Holy Cross. The way was much clearer on the windward side of
the mountain, so we were able to get into Copper at about 5:30. Rooms were expensive there, though, so we just took the bus back to Frisco for our third night there. We stayed at the Snowshoe motel, which was very nice. Frisco was preparing for a BBQ festival over the weekend, so there were meat smokers lining the old-town area. They smelled really good, so it was sad that we'd be leaving so early in the morning that we couldn't eat!
kim
There were a couple of pieces of gear that we weren't sure we'd use, the ice axes and the GPS. Today we were glad we had both of them. The trail was covered with snowdrifts in many place
s. The easiest thing to do was to key a waypoint into the GPS and then walk in that general direction (over the snowdrifts, while using the ice axes, of course). At one point the Portland hikers passed us, and asked where the trail was. We pointed out what we thought was correct, and they set off. We followed their tracks for a while, then decided that they were angling too far down the mountain (useful GPS thingy!). We realized later that they were actually headed for the wrong ski resort! Copper mountain (our destination) was actually over the ridge. They were heading straight for Breckenridge.We crested the ridge of the Tenmile Range, and finally saw our real destination. There were also great views of Mt Massive and Holy Cross. The way was much clearer on the windward side of
the mountain, so we were able to get into Copper at about 5:30. Rooms were expensive there, though, so we just took the bus back to Frisco for our third night there. We stayed at the Snowshoe motel, which was very nice. Frisco was preparing for a BBQ festival over the weekend, so there were meat smokers lining the old-town area. They smelled really good, so it was sad that we'd be leaving so early in the morning that we couldn't eat!kim
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