Day 17 Learning about Mining in Leadville

Day 17

Sunday, July 20th, 2014

Mileage: 6 miles to Leadville! 

Elevation: 9,700 ft to 10,400 ft

Zippy was up before the sun rose this morning scampering around the tent, deflating her air mattress, stuffing her sleeping bag, and pushing Pippy out of the way. Pippy did not want to get out of her cocoon for fear of the 40 degree morning frost. But, finally she arose and slowly half-sleepily packed her things.

Little does Pippy know that she has a Dr. Seuss tree of hair on her head. 

We began our skip through the forests and hopped into a meadow where the morning sun glistened and gleamed...

Zippy's getting pretty good at these butterfly shots 

Soon after, we skipped back into the tree-laden forests and followed an abandoned railroad grade for the next couple miles. The grade was lined with remnants of the historic mining days dating back to the late 1800's. We even came across some old cooking ovens still standing today. 

Less than a mile after viewing these artifacts, we reach the end of the trailhead with a parking lot full of cars and even a glorious bathroom. To our luck, these two elderly gentlemen were just leaving and heading to Leadville! We happily hopped in and had a wonderful conversation with them during the 10 mile drive to our hostel in town. 

This concludes the end of Segment 8 out of 28. Woohoo!

We love our rest days. It keeps our energy and spirits high as we endure our challenging, butt-kicking days on the trail.    Yes, we are physically exhausted and drained, but the experience, views, people we meet, and laughs are beyond worth it! So here we come rest day #4!

Leadville Hostel, the one and only hostel in Leadville is a funky, cute, and thriving little hostel full of fun characters of people from all walks of life.

Front sign....can't miss it! 

And welcome to the front entrance!

We checked in to our dorm room for the night and walked into the world of Disney and Barbie. 

We're not kidding...we were nine years old for the night (except we didn't take the top bunks) 

Zippy scored and got the princess Barbie bed. Lucky!! So jealous. 

But it gets better...yup, that's a Minnie mous special deluxe version of bedding. Now who's jealous. 

After settling in, we needed to fill our bottom-less pit stomachs. We were starving! We were about to walk (not happily) the five blocks to town when a friendly long-term stay resident of the hostel befriended us, offered us a ride to town, and dropped us off right in front of his favorite place, "High Mountain Pies" a.k.a. Pizza! 

Our new friend Michael from one of the Carolinas! 

We ordered a huge calzone (vegetarian style of course), a large Greek salad, and two lovely orange-flavored pellegrinos, and happily ate every last crumb! 

Next, we walked the five blocks of downtown Leadville, toured the National Mining mususm, Historic Healy House, and then ate again at another delicious locals only restaurant where you couldn't tell who the customer was from the servers. They all had t-shirts on that said some kind of bike or brew fest,  backwards hats, and even one-sided ear phones! We were sitting happily, all warm, full tummies, and smiling about how great the day was and blah, blah, blah, UNTIL someone opened the door and  a freezing gust of whipping wind splattered with thunderous rain drops came right towards our table. 

And then you wanna know what? We had to now walk the longest freezing cold mile ever in that blistering 45 degree storm wearing yup, You guessed it, SHORTS!!

Here we are walking up the HILL at 10,000 ft trying to get to the hostel as fast as we can without passing out!

Our dream came true and we made to our hostel. We quickly darted to the communal kitchen to defrost ourselves with some nice chamomile tea. We recognized a fellow hostel mate who we saw at the Breckenridge hostel also. He too was a CT thru-hiker. Meet "Zenny"!

He hikes a marathon a day! Go Zenny go! Thanks for hanging out with us!

Lights out early as we had a big day ahead of us tomorrow. Ciao!