The Art of 50: Day Two: The Colorado Trail

Well, I'm a bit behind on my blog posts. Partly because of no free wi-fi at the hotel in Colorado Springs (oh, how spoiled I was in Durango) and partly because of my lack of technological saavy (i.e. I'm very slow...). So, now I sit here in Starbucks on Mother's Day morning taking full advantage of the Gold Card and the ten years of purchases keeping this company afloat ;D

So I'm going to try to catch up today starting with a little hike we took while still in Durango. One of the things we have been so looking forward to on this adventure is to explore trails around the country. On our first night in Durango, we went to visit a restaurant owned by an old friend from the Valley. The restaurant is called Digs and it was yummy. I highly recommend it. Anyways, while we were there, we inquired about hiking in the area and a couple of the waitresses recommended the Colorado Trail. When we asked how long the hike was we were told it went all the way to Denver!! Hmmm...yeah...see ya in a few weeks. They then told us we could go four miles to a lookout and then we could hike back. Walter, our guide at the bed and breakfast, showed up a map and gave us the directions to the trail. We were when on our way.

There was only one problem....We suck at estimating distance and map reading!! The start of the hike was beautiful. A trail through evergreens along a stream. It really was stunning. And there was still snow on the ground in parts. It was a gradual uphill that was not too bad and there was only mild huffing and puffing due to the change in elevation for these desert dwellers. And then we got to this point.

This is the overlook point. You know, the one we were told about (and yes that is me in all my hiking dorkiness)......the four mile point. Yet, for some reason we did not think this was the four mile point. We thought we still had a ways to go. So we continued on...... until we reached this point.

This is the point where we decided maybe we should turn around. Later on we looked at the map (again) and saw that from the lookout poing to this point was roughly...oh....3 miles. We started doing the addition in our head as we hiked back out (and we also figured out that the distance from the trailhead to the lookout point was a lot longer than we thought)......and well, it turned out that we hiked 14 miles! And if we had any doubts about it the pain in our legs, hips, and feet confirmed it!! Ouch!! It was very funny watching us walk around after this. Of course, we did indulge in a little pain killer or two. Beer for Russell and wine for me!!

Here are a few more photos from our little adventure.