Mile 391.8 – 414.4
We got a small taste of the “horrible weather” this morning, as we were awoken to steady, heavy rain. It was loud against the fabric of the tents, but there was almost no wind, so we just waited it out. The San Juans ended up having some of the nicest weather of the whole trail. Excepting the rain this morning, it was partially cloudy with a nice breeze for the full 30 mile stretch above treeline.
We left a bit late this morning to wait out the rain. Five more miles of hiking above treeline was ahead of us, and then the home stretch: mostly easy hiking until Durango.
We watched clouds roll over the mountains in the distance until our own mountain got enshrouded with fog. We couldn’t see very far, and the trail was very rocky, so for the most part we followed the Cairns. Each one was several feet tall, made of local stacked rocks and often topped with a curious rodent chirping at us agressively.
After our last small peak, we started the hike down towards treeline. Our foggy solitude was quickly overrun with dayhikers, and we kept our breaks as short as possible to try and stay ahead of them. Given the limited water, we expected our target campsite may end up crowded, but thankfully we found a stealth spot just down the hill from the trail, several hundred feet from the cluster of tents. We had Frito pie (well, beans rice and Fritos at least) for dinner and discussed more exact mileages for our last few days. Waterton Canyon seems so long ago!
RocketWalk 