No vacation time
Means taking a poo outside
Just on the weekends
…I think I summed it up pretty well there. But in all seriousness, since I moved to Denver my sister and I have talked about hiking the Colorado Trail. Thru-hiking is out of the question for me with my current job. So here I am in the process of planning my section hike. I’ve hiked and backpacked before so it seems simple enough to plan, right?
So far, getting to and from the trail seems to be the major source of my headaches.
Section hiking is kind of a hilarious concept when you break it down. I’m going to drop my car off at our planned end. My sister will drive us from there to our starting point on the trail. Then we walk from one car to the next, only to have to drive back to the beginning of the section to retrieve the second car. WHAT. Worth it though I think. Might be time to make some friends along the route who can double as a taxi service.
I’ve looked at sections 1-5 of the trail, and plan to start sections 1 and 2 the first two weeks of May. The quicker I accepted my fate as a long haul uber driver, the more excited I’ve become to actually start the trail. Until I remember the weight of all of the equipment that I currently have.
The only time I’ve backpacked was when I was living in New England.
Some friends and I wanted to do the Bondcliff Traverse through the Pemigewasset wilderness (it can be done in one day but we wanted to make it an overnight trip for fun). I was so focused on getting all the gear I needed that I honestly didn’t do a lot of research. Made absolutely NO effort to replace some of the bulkier items from a camping package I bought a few years ago at REI. Did not AT ALL consider the weight of the gear that I was planning on bringing. Why is this important? Well, when you take your pack off and feel like your spine decompresses and you grow an inch or two? Probably should lighten the load.
As I plan my section hike, I feel like the first 2 or 3 weekends will be like shakedown hikes. I at least know it’s possible to use the equipment I already own, but dear Lord am I frantically searching for lighter alternatives that won’t break the bank. To be honest I’ll probably still pack out an entire jar of peanut butter because why the hell not. Delicious and nutritious! So if I’m not going to reduce the weight of my food I figure I better start looking at my sleeping bag or tent to see where I could cut some pounds. Any suggestions are much appreciated – my current sleeping bag takes up about 1/2 of my 50L pack…
Realistically if I wanted to go ahead and start the trail tomorrow I very well could.
Dialing in my gear will make the experience better, but the trail has always been a place where I could decompress and forget about real life for a couple of hours. While thru-hiking may be out of the picture, I’m itching to get out on the Colorado Trail even just one weekend at a time.
I can’t imagine a better way to spend my weekends: eat, walk, shit in the woods, sleep, repeat.
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