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.