Friday, June 20- New Friends and Closed Doors

I woke up yesterday morning on the North Fork of the Swan River. I pulled myself out of my sleeping bag, and stumbled over to the stream to get some water for oatmeal. I light the stove, cook up my breakfast, and I hear two hikers coming down the trail heading west from Georgia Pass. Both of the hikers, Travis (pictured left) and Dan (pictured right), were part of a Colorado Trail online message board I had joined before leaving for the trip. I met Travis while he was working at REI who initially invited me onto the message board, and Dan was his co-worker who I hadn't previously met. They left the day before I did, and I somehow passed them on the 18th when I hiked the 3 miles down the ATV trail. I knew that I would eventually catch them, but I didn't know when, and I had a bit of a hunch that it was their footprints I was following the day before.

I packed up camp and hiked the rest of the day with Dan and Travis. Because of Travis' ankle, we went at a calm pace. We had plenty of time to talk and to catch up on each-other's hike. It was great to see Travis' familiar face. Unfortunately for him, Travis couldn't continue with the hike because he had sprained his ankle on the 18th when he was trudging through the snow drifts. He post-holed and his ankle twisted on a hidden rock. Dan's trip was over as well; he'd only planned on getting into Breckenridge, and had to be at work on Monday morning.

Now for the bad news: Travis and Dan had told me about a guy they met who was apparently a seasoned hiker who said that the next section of the trail leading into Copper Mountain was impassable. He said that anything above10,500 feet was still blanketed in snow; much worse than Georgia Pass. Silverton, 300 miles south-west, recently received over a foot of snow. Dan, Travis and I agreed that it would be stupid of me to make a solo attempt, especially after seing Travis' injury and the trouble he would have been in had he been solo and had the injury been much worse.I hiked into Breckenridge with Dan and Travis, taking the last steps of a 105 mile journey on the Colorado Trail.

Last night, Travis, Dan and I met up with Travis' wife Barbara and went out to eat at Moose Jaw, a local burger joint in Frisco. After eating, Travis and Barbara went back to their hotel room while Dan and I went back to my Grandmother's condo and got cleaned up. We sat in the hot-tub and passed a plastic canteen filled with Jameson back and forth until we both decided it was time to walk over to the Loaf-n-Jug for some chocolate dough-nuts and greasy toquitos. I bought a pack of celebration cigarettes, and Dan and I stumbled back to the condo to hit the sack.

I woke up early this morning to wake Dan up, as he had to be back in Denver to his job selling tents at REI by 9:45. Currently, I'm sitting outside of the Rocky Mountain Coffee Roaster's in Frisco for a cup of the best coffee in Summit County.

Now what the hell am I going to do?