In this last stretch I transitioned from the Southern San Juans to the Northern San Juans. I make the 118 miles from Pagosa to Lake city in 5 days.

The San Juan range has more area above 10,000 feet than any other range in North America. Staring across these mountains is staggering.

The snow is melting fast and the different slope aspects mean less full coverage and more patchy snow.

Every time we crest a pass we hope to see less snow in the basin. Each aspect is undergoing a different stage of spring depending on how much direct sunlight it gets. Some basins will be in full bloom others still 90% covered.

“The Window” gives me a good opportunity to see the scale of the distance I’m traveling. See the notch circled in this photo.

That evening, I’m right below it. The next morning hike in between the two spires.

Geology…

Day 42 has a lot of bushwacking and sun cup traverses. Has anyone told you about sun cups? I could talk to you for an hour about the different types of sun cups. In short, they are a pain in the ass to walk over, contorting my legs and sucking the rhythm out from under my feet. I push hard and don’t realize how much the bushwacking has sliced my legs.

The thing with snowshoes is they suck at traversing and they suck at sun cups (and this is 90% of our snow travel). So they mostly stay on my back.

The view at 13,000 feet.

On day 2 out of Pagosa, I find out the pass to Silver is a really tough hitch. I’ll have to push my 84 mile food supply another 33 miles to Lake City. I end up rationing for two days, and make it with a few calories to spare.

This is Moose… Moose has the evolutionary backing of a wolf, so Moose is completely comfortable on this terrain. We are jealous.

Camp for the night.

The route off the knife edge.

Found a wing from a plane wreck.

I am pretty beat up from this last section, bushwacking through alpine shrubs and postholing against snow crust has torn my legs and left me with swollen ankles.

I rest a day in Lake City, preparing for a fast push to Salida. Caitlin is coming to visit and I am ebullient. I just need to travel over a 100 mile mountain range to get to her 😀

We start to hit snow pretty quickly. The trail is no Sierra PCT… We travel high and higher. Out of Chama, the trail/route doesn’t drop below 11,000 feet for 70 miles. The CDT just kicked it up a notch.

The miles are much slower and more arduous… We’re on trail about 5% of the time. I spend my days carefully dropping from passes, finding the safest way up to ridgelines, kicking steps on steep slopes, clutching my axe, and staring down (and stumbling over) sun cups.

There’s no point in trying to stay on top of the trail, so we pick our own paths into each basin and up to each pass. Nav is a lot easier when you’re in a group of people.

We must plan our camp locations strategically in order to avoid reaching passes at the end of the day. This often means breaking for camp as early as 5 pm… We don’t really know what to do with all of our free time. Our mileage is dictated by the geography – it’s difficult to plan food.

The passes are incredible and it’s hard to believe I’m finally climbing through the San Juans. These mountains are immense and humbling, it takes us hours to traverse each basin.

I’m wearing Altra Lone Peak 3.0 trail runners with 5 mil neoprene wetsuit socks. Aside from a hardshell mountain boot, I don’t know of any other waterproof footwear option in these conditions. My feet will be wet in the snow and the knee deep streams, but they will be warm.

On day four out of Chama we climb to high alpine plateaus.

Eventually the route dips and changes aspect. The snow begins to thin and we see trail again. No, nav, no postholing, no steeps, we start to cruise again.

At noon I plant the seed to my buddy, “we could make it to Pagosa today”. There’s more snow, a ski resort to climb over, and hundreds of blow downs but we make it to Wolf Creek pass at 7 pm.

We don’t even stick out or thumbs, someone rolls up and drives us to the brewery. 15 hours earlier we woke up at 11,500 feet, 29 miles later and now we’re at the Riff Raff brewery. One of those epics… We are so beat up.

There’s a music festival on town so we camp in the park by the river. The next day we’re walking around dazed ad still unshowered when we meet a wonderful couple that offers to put us up for the night. Thank you so much to the Nemeths for my most comfortable night on trail yet. Really amazing hospitality for my first Colorado town, can’t thank them enough!

Looking forward to more San Juan’s in this next stretch to Silverton. More snow yet to come.