Part Sixty Eight

     October 15th - 19th                Winter Park, CO                           (Go to Pt 1)

I wasted a lot of time that afternoon just dithering around looking at maps, almost paralyzed by indecision, or more accurately, paralyzed by the only decision I felt I could make, which was to follow this dirt road down to Hwy 40 then turn south and start walking up the pavement to Berthoud Pass.

The highway, the fucking highway, that’s where this was all going to end up and there was not a single personality roaming around in my head that wanted to go backpacking on a state highway, not even the Mexico guy.

The afternoon was wearing on by the time I finally dragged myself back onto my feet, shouldered the pack, and started down the dirt road along Meadow Creek.  I hiked for about another hour until what remained in my motivational reservoir finally dried up and I quit the day well short of descending into the Fraser valley.

Click on the map for a larger image

The next few days got pretty ugly.  I ended up following the road down Meadow Creek to the confluence with Ranch Creek, about a mile from Hwy 40 and the town of Tabernash.  A dirt road ran up the Ranch Creek valley and looked to parallel Highway 40, so I took this until it ended at private property fencing.  ​

There was a house not far off but I didn’t see any other option, so I jumped the fence and probably looked like an escaped felon when I did, throwing my pack over first then jogging to some aspen trees for cover.

I continued through the upper pasture and on out to the top of the valley where I found a gravel road ambling through the woods near the headwaters of Ranch Creek.  Even though it was early in the afternoon I decided to make camp because I wasn’t sure if I’d find another water source later on. ​

The next morning I started off on this auxiliary, gravel road knowing that sooner or later I was going to get sucked down to Hwy 40.  I tried to follow every branch of dirt road, extended driveway, whatever I could find to stay off the highway until there was no more.  By mid-afternoon I was standing on the shoulder of the pavement just a couple of miles north of Winter Park. ​

I set-up my tent that afternoon in an abandoned campground near the Winter Park ski area, utterly distressed with how my route had devolved.  Not until the last couple of days had I ever considered walking miles of paved road as a legitimate tactic for attempting a Continental Divide traverse.  And yet, here I was.  

The disjointed nature of how I was cobbling this route together, coupled with my self-recriminations for having failed this stretch of the Divide so miserably, sent me straight to the Hobbit book as soon as my supper was on the stove cooking, because the book was all I had to escape what I considered to be my Continental Divide trip going down in flames.  That night when I blew out the tent candle, I just couldn’t imagine myself going any further than Georgetown. 

The next morning I embarked on the hateful task of trudging up the asphalt toward Berthoud Pass.  I was keeping a close eye out because the road was narrow with curves and, despite the lack of traffic, I needed to be able to see which cars might accidentally clip me off the road. After a couple of hours of trudging up the highway, I decided to take a break and dropped my pack where the gravel provided an adequate shoulder.

I sat staring up at the mountains forming the Continental Divide just a few more miles to the south where the road crossed over at Berthoud Pass.  I’d been dawdling by the roadside for probably fifteen minutes or so when a truck going up the pass drove by then slowed down and stopped.  The driver sat for a moment then slowly backed up to opposite of where I sat and called out, “Hey, you want a ride?” 

This was unexpected.  I don’t know, did I want a ride?  This was kind of like asking me if wanted a double cheeseburger with fries; hell yeah, I wanted a ride, I just didn’t want to be tempted with one.  Hitch-hiking in an attempt to get further south broke the single most important thread running through everything. 

Unfortunately, and in that moment, the mixed messages I had been feeding myself for weeks did not crystalize into any form of resolution but rather bled together as blue and green bleeds into brown.  For two weeks I had been teetering on the edge of capitulation, questioning the entire lot of what I was doing and why, and then some cosmic source comes along and says ‘Okay, you want to quit? I’ll make it easy for you, here’s a ride.’

I turned and looked up the road.  God, I hated walking on pavement.  I was trying to ponder out, in the short moment I had, whether or not I was actually going to quit once I got to Georgetown, because if I was going to quit in Georgetown then who cared if I took a ride over Berthoud Pass.  I stood looking at this guy for several, lost moments…  “Hey man, where’re ya goin’?” the driver asked again.  “Georgetown” I finally said, hoisting my pack into the truck bed.
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No sooner had I gotten in the truck then I had a sick feeling about my decision to accept this ride, I even considered backing out but as the first few hundred yards of pavement whisked by in seconds I felt myself go mute.  ‘To heck with it,’ I thought, ‘I was never going to make it past Georgetown anyways.’

Georgetown
The guy drove me up and over Berthoud Pass and down to the tiny town of Empire where I got off, and he continued on to Denver.  I walked the last few miles to Georgetown in a fog of depression and by the time I’d dumped my gear in a roadside motel room, my demoralization was complete.  I was done, I was going to call my parents to give them the news, and then I was going to find a bus out of town.  

When I finally called home later that evening my Mom answered and when she heard it was me, she went to get my Dad on the other line.  I hadn’t really figured out what I was going to say but before I could say anything at all my Dad launched right in with, “Hi Kip! You made it to Georgetown, Congratulations!” Then he asked about the weather, how cold was it, how much snow was there, before redirecting to say how proud he and my Mom were. 

“Listen, I just want to tell you how proud your mother and I are of what you’re doing out there.  We’ve been discussing this since we last talked to you in Steamboat and I want you to know that we understand how important this trip is to you and you have our full support.  I believe you are in your right place and I fully support you support in that.”  There was more but that was the gist.

So I’m listening to this thinking ‘you have got to be fucking kidding me,’ what happened to “Come home, take a break”?  I mean, what was I going to say to all this? ‘Thanks, but I quit.’?  I don’t know, the conversation marched on with my Dad telling me he had shipped out another box of supplies followed by more complimentary talk about what I was doing to an extent that I’d never experienced coming from my Dad.  

I was so dazed by how this whole conversation had evolved that I don’t even remember how the call ended, only that, as far as my parents were concerned, I was still forging ahead and, by golly, were they ever proud of their son out conquering the Great Divide.  

This was going to take some serious, mental recalibration, and that just wasn’t going to happen right then and there, my thoughts were a cyclone of confusion.  I really didn’t know what to do, so I escaped back into the Hobbit book which, by now, had me fairly captivated.

The next morning I got up knowing a box of supplies for the next section was waiting for me at the Post Office and with no sense of urgency I went over to the coffee shop to think this over.  I was still undecided as to what to do and I was dreading the resupply box because of what it signified.  Would I really be sending the box back home and getting on a bus?  

After breakfast I walked over to the Post Office to check on the box and was surprised to find two boxes waiting for me, the resupply box from my parents and another one sent out from Steamboat Springs, CO.  

I had no idea what the box from Steamboat was about until I got back to the room and opened it up to find a brand-new, North Face, mountaineering tent, sized for one person, compliments of Jeff and his friends back in Steamboat.  Really?  

Then I remembered Jeff quizzing me about my equipment when he’d driven me out to the Fish Creek Falls trailhead and asking about my tent, and yeah, I hadn’t refrained from describing the sorry condition of my Gerry tent.  Wow!  I was pretty blown away by this gesture and hardly knew what to think.

Now what? Damnit. If I wasn’t going to continue on with the trip then I needed to put this tent back in the box and return it to Jeff.  On the other hand, if I was going to continue with the trip then this was one, sweet, little tent. “Aw shit!” My Dad had sounded about as proud as I’d ever heard and now I had friends cheering me on with a vital piece of new equipment.

As I sat mulling this all over in my head and admiring the new tent sitting on the floor it suddenly occurred to me that I needed to call a good friend of mine, Dale, who was living in Fort Collins.  Dale and I had been ski-bums together in Vail during the winter of ’74-’75 and before starting our trip in early May, Craig, Brian, and I had stopped over in Ft Collins to visit Dale and his wife, Judy.  

At the end of our visit, and as Craig and I were piling into Brian’s jeep to leave for Canada, Dale told us to be certain to call him when we got to Georgetown because he wanted to come up and meet us.  And that’s exactly what I needed right now, a friendly face, so I called Dale.

We talked for at least a half an hour or more and it was the first time I had laughed with abandon in months.  Honestly, I think the last time I had actually laughed out loud had been all the way back in Yellowstone. Dale was so excited to hear from me that he could hardly wait to jump in his car and drive up the mountain to see me.

In fact, Dale and Judy wanted to come up and go out on the Divide with me and even spend an overnight out there if I was cool with all of that.  “Well, hell yeah!” I was cool with all that.  When I hung-up the phone I felt some real sunshine breaking through what had been days of stormy, mood swings. 

Talking with Dale, however, forced my hand.  I had to resolve these mental conflicts that had put me at such odds with myself.  First off, was the trip over or not?  I had given-up on the whole thing yesterday but now I was feeling like I shouldn’t quit.  

Actually, after the praise from my Dad, the support from friends I had only just met in Steamboat, and now Dale and Judy coming up to join me, I felt like I couldn’t quit.  And if that were the case, then the first thing I needed to do was stop thinking about going home.

For me to continue with this trip past Georgetown, I would have to recommit myself to hiking all the way to Mexico in the best style I could muster.  I would try to stay with the Continental Divide as best I could but, from here on out, Mexico guy was going to get a pretty free reign in selecting the route.  There really was no other way for me to do it.  
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I pulled the new tent out of its stuff sack and could genuinely feel my motivation and commitment begin to regenerate… when everything just froze.  Berthoud Pass.  Every time my thoughts touched on Berthoud Pass all I could see in my rear view mirror were flashing red and blue lights.  

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Go to Part 69

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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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