10.4 miles to Tunnel / Alpine railroad bed elevation 11,583’
The day started off pretty cold at the campsite at the RV park. As per usual, it takes us about 1 1/2 hours to get on the trail from the time we get out of our sleeping bags. Today that even included a 5 mile hitch to the trail. We got to the road, put up the sign, and within 3 minutes Matt picked us up and gave us a ride. Matt had recently completed the Appalachian Trail and so he understands hiker needs.
We decided to skip the bottom corner of this loop and jump now to the more spectacular west side. We also needed to cut the miles down a bit so that we could complete the hike with the maximum 6 (+1 spare) days of food that we could comfortably carry. From Hwy 50 we hiked a steep Jeep trail for 1.3 miles before it intersected with the Continental Divide Trail. Once back on the trail it felt great! The trail took us onto a pass at an elevation of 12,146’ and beautiful Hancock lake. This is exactly what we wanted to see! However once atop the pass we could see a Jeep road on the other side and right below the pass. Seems like cheating to be able to drive that far and high.
The rest of the day was disappointing. We decided to walk the Jeep road instead of hiking a recent reroute of the trail. That was a big mistake. The dirt road was badly torn up by 4-wheelers. We then followed the trail a few miles along an abandoned rail bed from the 1880s. This was pretty cool, but water was scarce. When we eventually found a trickle we could collect from, we loaded up and carried further until we found a flat spot beside the old rail bed. It actually overlooked the valley below and it turned out to be a pretty cool place to spend the night. We both woke up several times during the night and gazed at the Milky Way.
Journeys with Jeff and Ellen 