Part Sixty Three

     October 6th & 7th             Troublesome Creek, CO                   (Go to Pt 1)

The next morning I spent a good forty-five minutes bandaging my heels, consuming nearly all of the foot related, medical supplies remaining in my first aid kit. I put on my cleaner pair of liner socks then, for added cushion, I took my bandana and ripped and wrapped it into bandages over the liner sock.  I pulled on my hiking sock then eased into my boots, lacing on the looser side, and found decidedly less pain walking around camp.

I packed my gear and from Indian Creek hiked up the trail to the ridgeline of the Divide, about a mile or so distant.  Along the crest of the ridge, and starting from around 10,000ft, the trail continued on a steady, upward climb of over seven miles to an elevation of about 11,500ft.  I always felt a significant decrease in my momentum at around 10,000ft because of the elevation’s thinner air and heavier gravity. ​

Click on the map for a larger image

Thinner air acted to magnify the steepness of the ridge and seemed to increase the weight of my pack; thinner air also transferred less oxygen to my blood which meant the muscles in my legs were burning hotter.  In a very measurable way, thinner air translated to heavier gravity and by late morning, my pace had been reduced to a meager 1mph and some change.

I stopped for lunch early in the afternoon, taking off my boots and lounging back against my pack, eyes closed.  The sunny weather was so tits-up nice I ended up nodding off before I’d even opened the lunch sack. After about an hour of blissful dozing in the sun and enjoying my nuts and cheese, I mounted-up and resumed my slow motion march up the unyielding ridge.

My pace was even slower after lunch and by mid-afternoon my glute, quad, and calf muscles were burning into their last reserves.  Somewhere out at the end of this protracted ridgeline was Sheep Mountain and the Troublesome Creek valley, and Troublesome Creek was where I was trying to get to. 
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At four in the afternoon, a time when I should have been settling into camp, I was still trying to attain the southwest flank of Sheep Mountain, and I had nothing left in the tank.  I was stopping to rest every 15 minutes or so and gaining little terrain in the interim hiking. I literally moaned out-loud the last quarter mile, wishing my circumstances were anything but this.  Yes, well, be careful what you wish for, homeboy.  

Around 5:30pm, I reached the southwestern flank of Sheep Mountain at 11,535ft, overlooking the Troublesome Creek Valley, and the uphill fight was finally over - only to flip on me in the reverse.  The trail I had been following all day abruptly ended at the crest of the ridge, leaving me standing atop a screefield that fell precipitously away to a boulderfield that plunged further down the mountainside into a steep, untrailed forest below.  For being as close as it was, Troublesome Creek was still a long ways off. 
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The scree was too steep and loose to descend standing up, so I used the ‘rock’n roll’ method Craig and I had developed by sitting down in the loose fines, feet braced out front, and letting the sloughing gravel carry me down the slope to the boulderfield below.  Leaving the scree behind on rubbery legs, I then negotiated my way down through the boulders into a steep, narrow gorge of thick timber.

My legs were too weak to keep the downhill gravity completely in check and I was trying to dodge a lot of rocks and logs moving at a pace that promised a spectacular, swan-dive crash if I tripped-up.  Like an 18-wheeler riding on bad brakes, I was constantly trying to reign myself back because the downhill momentum was a force that quickly got out of control.

Unfortunately, trying to pick my way down through the gorge as slowly as my breaking power could withstand only served to aggravate another problem; I was almost out of daylight and I still had a ways to go to get out of this steep and un-campable drainage. ​

The last twenty minutes down to Troublesome Creek were a careening, too-dark-to-see, timber bash that I somehow managed to get through without pile-driving my face into the forest floor.  It was just after dusk when I finally came out to the river and by now it was too dark to tell if I was setting-up my tent on decent ground or on a stone-pitted bed of midnight misery.

Click on the map for a larger image

Once I got settled in the tent, I was too tired to deal with cooking and ate a bowl of granola topped with powdered milk instead.  I checked-in on my feet and found the blister bandages holding-up well, which was good given the few supplies left in the first aid kit; in fact, the bandana bandages would have to remain until I could get out for more supplies.

In the morning I felt better than I thought I would, considering the previous day’s mountain-madness-marathon, and Indian summer radiated down from a cloudless sky. My camp was a short ways away from the Matheson Reservoir where I could pick-up a trail that led up and out of the basin, over into Siebert Creek. 
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Since leaving Round Lake, the ‘guns of autumn’ had echoed across the mountainsides but always at a distance.  Today, however, my journey must have taken me right into the red zone because the rifle shots came often with their reports bursting from the nearby forests.

Maybe I was messing-up everyone’s hunt by traipsing down the middle of the valley, I didn’t know; or maybe it was working to their advantage, since nobody was taking pot shots at me. Either way, terrorizing for the elk, I’m sure, but I wasn’t so much bothered by it, at least not as much as I thought I would be.  

I figured the hunters were just other guys out here tromping around in the mountains same as I was and there was something comraderic about that.  Shit, given my isolation, these guys were like buddies to me and the few hunters I actually did interact with across northern Colorado were friendly, funny, and generous guys.  I didn’t worry much about getting accidentally shot the same as I didn’t worry much about a lot of other things out here that I couldn’t control. 
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Siebert Creek meandered down valley to eventually join up with the East Fork of Troublesome Creek.  Here I turned back north, following the East Fork upstream for several hours before the afternoon sun began to wane.  The days were getting noticeably shorter and once the sun set, cold and dark moved in pretty quick. I wanted to get my camp set-up before the afternoon’s warm glow dissipated into twilight.

This had not been a long or difficult day and for that I was glad.  I took off my boots, put on my camp booties and set about staking the tent and settling into my campsite.  I had brought the first book of Tolkien’s trilogy with me, Fellowship of the Ring, so after I’d eaten and cleaned-out the cookpot, I zipped into my bag and started to read about… Hobbits.  About ten pages in I was like ‘Alright, who’s the fucking middle-schooler that bought this book?’

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Go to Part 64

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The CDTC was founded in 2012 by volunteers and recreationists hoping to provide a unified voice for the CDT. Working hand-in-hand with the U.S. Forest Service and other federal land management agencies, the CDTC is a non-profit partner supporting stewardship of the CDT. The mission of the CDTC is to complete, promote and protect the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail, a world-class national resource. For more information, please visit continentaldividetrail.org.

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