Day 34 to 37 Pippy and Co.

Thursday, August 7 to Sunday, August 10, 2014

Mileage: 53.3 miles

Elevation: 10,900 up to 13,250 and down to 8,900 ft 

Pippy apologies in advance for the motherload of pictures and the combination of days, but Zippy snatched the phone away for her adventure. So, Pippy needed to remember all of her adventures in her head until she reunited with the phone and blogging app again. 

As Zippy previously mentioned, Pippy continued on the trail with our two new best friends, Hobbit and Sparkle ( and Duke Harrison the 2nd, her dog). We were reunited with Sparkle and Duke at the hostel in Lake City after about three weeks and 200 miles of not seeing her on the trail. She happily waited for us to finish our day hike the day before so she could join the hiking party. 

Day 34 Spring Creek Pass to small pond in alpine land with three trees 

Mileage: 9 miles 

From left to right: Sparkle, Duke, Hobbit, and Pippy at the start of our four day journey to complete Segments 22-24. 

Duke is ready to go with his backpack! 

We began a steady climb through scattered rocks and tundra grass for about 5 miles until we came to a...

YURT!! Right off the side of the trail on the hill. Open year round. 

It's like a Sauna inside, about 75 degrees. Complete with a propane gas stove, three bunk beds, kitchen supplies, wood burning heat, and some skiing magazines. Great place to hide from the scary grey clouds and whipping wind. 

Once the scary clouds disappeared, we enjoyed our lunches on the newly built deck and mesmerized ourselves with the mountainous views 

We hit the trail again and began climbing again through a flower laden forest 

Up and up into alpine land again at about 12,500 ft 

The views were everywhere!

Our book mentioned a "small pond 400 ft down and 0.5 miles off the trail". We spotted the only grove of trees seen in the last 3 miles. It took us 3 seconds to decide that this would be our campsite for the night. 

The beetles have eaten all of the Spruce trees in this ares, but they were still great shelter from the wind. 

Tents are up! 

See the little speck of water down the hill. That's the far away pond. Rain and clouds were coming that evening so we tiredly decided to filter water the next day.

Day 35 Small pond to highest campsite ever  

Mileage: 16 miles 

A heart leaf floated on Pippy's shoe. A beautiful way to start the morning 

And of course, we begin by climbing up some mountains 

Lake San Cristobal behind us....and then we entered into Marmotville! 

Hey guys!

What's happening over there?

Is there a problem? Hmmm...not sure, can't see over the red backpack 

Up down up down 

Highest point of the Colorado Trail. 13,250 ft. Naturally, we had to jump. 

And then straight down the gnarly jeep road we went

Me and Sparkle had to stop and eat a quick snack half way down the road, so we found Hobbit at the trailhead patiently waiting listening to The Lord of the Rings sound track, of course. 

The trail continued on into another gorgeous valley with all these cool high alpine rock sculptures to look at

Pippy needed to continue Zippy's tradition of capturing the forever flutterihg butterflies and vibrant wild flowers..so here's her shot at it...

Can't get enough of the alpine flowers or the massive, majestic, mountainous views...

Tada!

Filtering water for the night at a fresh snowmelt stream...we had to walk back about a 1/4 mile to camp as everything was on a slant since we were on the side of a mountain 

As Pippy walked back to camp, she spotted this amazing sunset view.

It didn't get long to get dark after we settled into camp. And with every passing minute, the temperature dropped       like 2 degrees to a whopping 30 degrees.   

Day 35 High Campsite to Elk Creek 

Mileage: 17 miles 

6:15 AM....Woke up in a ice-covered tent and frozen water. Nice. 

6:45 AM. Mr. Morning sun decided to finally show up!! Instant defrost. 

9 AM on the trail. Another unbelievable day ...

The trail traversed down and up the side of that bald mountain peak 

The 'Windblown' effect 

Just keep walking, walking, walking....

That is until you need to take a food and leg break to enjoy the amazing ....

Views!!

The flowers just keep getting better and better ...

So happy!!

We emerged out of happy land and came face to face with the not so pretty, boring jeep road. 

We walked up on this for 10 mins until thankfully the trail diverged left and we met up with...

Hobbit! He was like 10 miles ahead of us. We contined on about another mile until we saw these big sideways, white "raindrops" gently hitting us. 

It was snow! The first snowfall of the whole trail. Luckily, it only lasted like 5 mins 

And then, this unicorn horse appeared out of nowhere in the middle of nowhere!

We stopped for lunch at the top of our next climb at a pretty alpine lake 

On we went through a relatively flat meadow 

Duke baseball player slid into the snow. He loved it.

There's Hobbit at his favorite view point. Finally after talking about it for 456 hours, he has arrived. 

Sparkle is still coming 

And there's that heavenly view behind us

Yippee for Pippy! 

And then our final descent. 15 something switchback surrounded by...

More gorgeous flowers!!!

These old miners must've been so happy to see these amazing views everyday when they woke up..

Down through the valley we went, following a stream, and big huge boulders 

And then of course, it started raining on us. Here's Sparkle sporting her Barney poncho....so attractive

After four days, we are back in trees! Almost forgot what they looked like.

Rain, guy in a hammock, grumpy lady  who said "I'm sensitive to noise" upon a peppy Pippy "Hello", jolly Chinese man eating his Mountain House dinner with his chopsticks, and a couple " I'm *f***ing  done!!!", we stumbled into the next campsite and were so glad to be there. 

See the look on Pippy's face. Yup, she's done.

Day 37 Elk Creek to Silverton

Mileage: 12 miles 

Nice and warm last night at our 10,000 ft campground. We hit the trail at our earlier hour yet: 8:30 AM. Yes, still on Hawaiian time. 

Goegeous morning walk 

Came across "Goat Man" with his four pet goats. Each goat is carrying about 25 pounds of "equipment"...not sure what. Goat man said he was going to hike around to look for more mountain goats. Hmmm....

Colorado at its finest

Aspen

After about 6 miles, we reached the train tracks of the Durango-Silverton railway. Sparkle and Pippy arrived thinking they would find Hobbit...but no Hobbit. 

Hobbit nowhere to be seen. 

Pippy and Sparkle thought hard and fast, and realized he must've taken the first trail to the train tracks about a half mile back. So, Pippy left her bag and ran/walked about a half mile until lo an behold, she spotted Hobbit's orange shirt. The train was just chugging by and closely behind it was a small little train car. Pippy playfully threw our her hitching thumb, and to her and Hobbit's surprise, the little train car stopped. "Charlie" the little train car driver from Durango happily took us aboard and gave us a fun ride the half mile back to meet up with Sparkle and Duke.

Yay! Thanks for the ride Charlie! Good luck in school!

And then, we walked 6 miles worth of train tracks to the town of Silverton to meet Zippy. 

 But they weren't just any train tracks....they were the prettiest train tracks in the world!

We see Silverton!

Pippy was so over walking. Where's Zippy???

Oh there she is! Eating a key lime pie. She's a local now as she's been in Silverton now for 56 hours and has walked around it 12 times. 

We dropped off Sparkle at her camp spot for the night with Duke as we had to go return the car in Durango. We'll meet up with her tomorrow. 

Bye car! You've been good to us!