wilson

Segments 1, 2 and 3 on the Colorado Trail

This fall I was often meeting up with my friend Jenna to go hiking. Since she lives south of Denver it was fun to look for new places to go that were a reasonable drive and not too crowded. We went to Roxborough State Park and very much enjoyed the beauty and the trails there. On the way to that park I noticed we passed Waterton Canyon which is the northern terminus of the Colorado Trail. So then we met there to hike the start of the Colordao Trail. The following week we did segment two and I lost my smurf so Justin kindly went back to help me find it. So now he also completed segment two and the following week the three of us decided to do all of segment one which was made a little easier since Laurel dropped us off at the trailhead and we hiked back to our cars at the other end. So now we had the first two segments complete. This past weekend we did segment 3. So now we have 40 miles of the 567 miles completed. Next time we are going to try a more efficient method. Rather than doing the shuttle drop off which can add an hour each way to get from the start trailhead to the end trailhead (and then again at the end of the hike to get the drop off car), my friend and I will start at one end and Justin will start at the other. Then we will drive the opposite car north to an agreed upon meeting point and I will hop back into our car. This will save us the shuttle time. We will hopefully still meet somewhere around the middle to eat lunch together. We will see how far we get with this method. At some point we will probably need to to transition to weekend backpacking trips because some of the segments are just too long for a day hike but for now it is a fun little project to chip away at. Also, because of snowy back roads we will be haulting the project until spring. But since the hikes are pretty hard with both distance and elevation it should keep me motivated to stay fit throughout the winter in order to be ready to hit the trails again in spring. Here are the stats so far:

Segment 1: Just a taste- 13.4 miles Dec 5- start of the Colorado trail out and back

Segment 2: 11.5 miles Dec 20