August 10, 2024
36.4 miles, 8071′ gain/6457′ loss
I was up at 6:15am after a lot of rain overnight (~1 inch); the trail shuttle left at 7am and I was hiking by 7:30am. I’d shared the campground’s bunkhouse with O-Ring, Ghost, and Rookie. I was dropped off with Rookie (AT 2023) and Trippy (railway bridge engineer), after a nice zero day in Lake City.
I carried water from town to the 2nd water source of the day where I filled up before a longer carry. I saw SheTroll there; she’d gone into town, resupplied, and headed back out and ended up camped out in the pouring rain.
As I ascended to the ridge in the late morning, thick low clouds and thunderstorms came rolling in, much earlier than usual. By the time I hit the high point, it was pouring rain, with 25 MPH wind and hail. Despite wearing my rain jacket and waterproof mitten shells, they wetted through in less than an hour and with the wind, I was getting cold. I descended the high point as quickly as I could, and tried to manage my raging anxiety.
I descended into a valley and then began climbing up the valley towards a mountain pass. The rain had stopped, but I was still too panicked to take off my jacket. I was in a mental spiral about the weather, getting too wet and cold, and the thunderstorms I could hear in the distance. As I hiked up the pass, I found a family of marmots drying themselves in the partial sun. They didn’t run away from me, but just kept fluffing their fur. I took a few minutes to sit with them, to breath, to remember that I needed to live in the moment and deal with the present rather than worrying about the future. It was very soothing, and helped me center myself for the rest of the San Juans. And my marmot friends were right – despite storms in the distance, I didn’t get rained on until later that night.
On the other side of the pass, I met Chef and Creek (mom and kid thruhiking) drying out their tent. Then I passed by Lightening Bolt and Farm Boy in the later afternoon. I saw 2 people camped at a lake and waved hello, and another lone tent, before I eventually set up camp at 9pm. I’d been on the fence about taking the tourist train into Silverton, but all the storms and walking had convinced me – I wanted to do this weird and unique thing! But to do that, I needed to be at the train stop before mid-morning, to catch the one train a day that would stop. So I pushed late into the day to be sure I would arrive on time the next morning.
After the challenging task of finding an alpine tent site by headlamp, I set up my tent in a strong wind. I then fought with a chonky mountain mouse who wanted to take up residence in my empty backpack. I ended up bringing everything except my shoes inside my tent to keep them save from mouse teeth. I closed my eyes to go to sleep, and the thunder, lightning, wind, and rain started. I was at 12,500′, but there wasn’t any way to get lower for at least 3 miles in either direction. So I put in my ear plugs, and went to sleep.
