July 31
Miles hiked: 16.2
Total trip miles: 203.6
Rick picks us up in the morning as promised, and drives us to the Willis Gulch trailhead just off the road heading up to Independence Pass. We climb about 3 miles up to meet the CT at a junction at mile 4.3. Like I said, we weren’t about to hike on flatland all the way around the Twin Lakes reservoir just to get to mile 0.0 of the Collegiate West. Continue reading
July 26
Miles hiked: 17.4
Total trip mileage: 121.8
The only coffee shop open in Breckenridge at 6:30 doesn’t serve lattes, so I console myself with a donut. I’ve forsaken coffee on this trip because I like a lot of milk in my coffee and the powdered variety just isn’t right. Tea bags are much lighter, anyway.
We take the shuttle back up to the trailhead and start climbing right away. Up, up, up. I’m feeling great! I power on up on donut-fueled legs. We slog 3,600 feet up, topping out at 12,500′. We pass a couple of college boys having lunch at the pass, but the clouds are looking a bit iffy and we still have a few miles to go above treeline before our descent into the Copper Mountain ski resort, so we keep going. Continue reading
July 20
Miles hiked: 20.3
Total trip mileage: 20.3
We’re at the trailhead by 7:00 for the obligatory starting photo.
The first six miles are on a smooth dirt road, a good warmup. We’re lucky, the weather is cool; but even so, where the singletrack trail begins I hear a buzzing sound from underneath a bush. A rattlesnake! Continue reading
I’m baaack!!
500 miles, ~90,000 vertical feet, 29 days …
We survived the epic adventure! We finished the Colorado Trail! Our bodies didn’t break, we didn’t get hit by lightning, and (unfortunately?) we didn’t see a single hungry bear.
We emerged in Durango on August 17, five days ahead of schedule. I haven’t written about the hike here on Gydle yet (UPDATE: yes I have, and you can read it all here) because it has taken me quite a while to 1) process the experience and 2) re-engage with regular life. When your existence is pared down to walking, sleeping and putting food into your mouth, normal life is so complicated in comparison. It boggles.
I don’t know if the hike “changed” me – but coming back, I feel the need for some change. So I gave Gydle a fairly major facelift. I hope you like the new design.
Because I found other peoples’ blogs about the trail so useful and interesting when I was planning, in the posts to come I’m going to tell the story of our hike, doing my best to leave all the interesting parts in and all the boring bits out. Plus a few photos. If you’re not interested, just bear with me. It will all be over soon and I’ll be back to my usual obsessions.
But first, a video:
Boy was I glad my man walked those 500 miles with me! And we would definitely walk 500 more!
Eight rice and bean dinners, with dried kale, red peppers, onion and cheese powder from a box of Annie’s mac & cheese. Eight scrambled egg dinners, with dried green chile and salsa bark and more cheese powder. Three dehydrated green chile stew dinners. Twenty-eight one-cup bags of quick-cook steel-cut oatmeal, with milk powder, cinnamon and dried fruit. Four bags each of dried banana circles, apple slices, and sweet potato leather.
No, I’m not being prudent and stocking up in advance of the Big One that experts predict has a 33% chance of obliterating Vancouver in the next 50 years.
We’re heading for the hills. Continue reading
This body I’m inhabiting has now accompanied the Earth on fifty turns around the Sun. Yes, that’s right, fifty years ago my little eyes first encountered our star and I began my journey. Every summer, when the planet tilts its northern pole forward in homage to the fusion reactor that keeps us all alive, I eat cake in celebration.
(Can you tell I’ve been translating a book about astrophysics and space travel?)
It’s an epic moment, to be sure. On a number of levels. Epic enough that I have decided to finally reveal what Gydle means. Continue reading
After these first few months volunteering in the hospital, and now in the hospice, I am starting to come away with impressions. Things that stay with me, things I find myself thinking about offsite, things I am trying to learn how to digest.
The most important one is connection.
When you’re vulnerable like this, in the hospital or dying, things get pared down to the absolute essentials. Bodily functions, simple things. I got a good night’s sleep. A dish of ice cream.
The people whose suffering haunts me the most are those who don’t have anyone there for them. They are alone, navigating a system full of strangers, at a time in their lives when they are at their most vulnerable. Their suffering is amplified because of this. Continue reading
a house in Guilford
I was saddened to hear of Baltimore’s erupting into riots this past week over the death of a young African American male taken into police custody. But I can’t say I was surprised. Baltimore, where we lived for seven years as the century turned, felt to me a place of simmering racial tension, of fear and finger-pointing on the verge of conflagration. Continue reading
One of the things I have wanted to do since coming back to the land of English is volunteer with a hospice organization. Hospice, in case you don’t know, is caregiving for people who have a terminal illness. When there is nothing that can be medically done to turn a disease around, when there are no more treatments left, then patients and their families are eligible for hospice care. A hospice team – in a facility or in your home – makes sure that you are comfortable, as free from pain as possible, and supports your family as you make the transition out of this world.
Volunteers are a part of this team, doing nonmedical stuff like listening, bringing water or coffee or tea or warm blankets, wheeling patients outside for fresh air, and generally trying to be helpful while at the same time not making things worse than they already are. I just completed a 26-hour training program for hospice volunteers. My first shift at the hospice on the UBC campus is tomorrow afternoon.
The reason I wanted to do this? My dad.
It has been a very long, dry spell here on Gydle. My apologies. But like I’ve said before, I’m not going to waste your time and mine by putting up meaningless drivel.
I decided to break the fast with a cat story.
I know it’s taboo to write about your cat on your blog, but it’s also taboo to have a blog and not post anything for four months, so while I’m breaking the rules I figured I might as well go all the way.
But you said you weren’t going to put up meaningless drivel! you say. Good point. But just because it’s a cat story doesn’t mean it’s meaningless. Whether or not it’s drivel, well, you’ll have to make that call. Continue reading