Is it ever going to be warm enough in Colorado that I don’t need to sleep with my water filter? When a water filter freezes, the tiny holes that filter the water expand, which means all the big viruses and bacteria that used to get stuck in the filter will slide right through it. Last night it got below freezing again and it was hard to get going.
The day started pretty easy since we made it up most of the climb yesterday. After going up Kokomo Pass and then continuing up the ridge, we only had 8 or 9 downhill miles to go to get to Copper Mountain.
The views were good and soon we made it down to the ski resort. There’s a lot going on there with mountain biking, golf, hiking, and a bunch of restaurants. They also host the Woodward extreme sports camp.
Our friend Switch spent last winter working at a restaurant in the village so we went down for lunch.
It was fun seeing him out of the hiking context. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that there’s a real world out there.
We ordered a lot of food and the bartender gave us some drinks. After a couple shot skis, we wanted to get going. Lucky for us, the president of Copper Mountain saw us and paid for our meals!
Another great thing was Caddyshack’s friend stopping by to help us slackpack the next section. Slackpacking is when you hike without carrying all of your gear. In this case we gave him our tents and sleeping bags, which lightened the load a lot.
After Copper, we needed to climb up to the top of Breckinridge ski resort. The climb was huge and about halfway up a storm rolled in. Thunder, lightning, and rain. Eventually the thunder passed, but the rain didn’t.
We spent the next few hours hiking in the rain getting SOAKED. Luckily, our important stuff wasn’t in our backpacks and we were staying at that guys house afterwards. One of the things that made the hike a little more enjoyable was the near constant cell phone service. I wasn’t staring at my phone, but I was able to call my dad and Meghan. Talking makes the hike go by faster.
I was also meeting an old friend from middle school, high school, and college. He moved to Denver a few years ago and was going to drive out to meet me for dinner.
I was a little late for the meet up since we had to wait out that thunderstorm but eventually I got to the trailhead. The beautiful double rainbow was a nice end to a pretty miserable hike. I was soaking wet, but he took me to dinner nearby and paid for it.
He dropped me off at the house afterwards and now I’m enjoying some wifi and a nice couch before I drift off to sleep.