Renegade Backpacker: Day 2

…I was COLD.  I put on another layer of wool.  Then my down micropuffy (orange, pictured below).  Then I added the bivy cover to my sleeping bag.  Finally I put my framepack under my butt as insulation (which helped a lot).  I still woke up at 3am and needed a hot bowl of oatmeal to warm the body and refuel the furnace that was burning all night.  I thought about breaking camp then and hiking out, but managed to get some solid hours of sleep and woke up to the bright morning sun.

Mmm…candy. After a touch-and-go night’s sleep, this little gem hit the spot, and gave me the energy to carry on in good spirits!

I headed down Eldorado canyon, still without a definite plan on how I was getting home.

Morning in Eldorado Canyon. If you look really closely, you can see the train winding across the other side of the canyon (near the bare, brown area on the distant mountainside).

It warmed up quickly, and soon I was hiking in shorts.  Apparently Eldorado Canyon is a hotspot for rock climbing.  I had never seen rock climbers doing their thing before.  Terrifying!  Those folks are crazy, let me tell you what.  They are up darn high, with nothing but jagged rocks below!

Rock climbers. (Look closely, just above the trees)

Rock climbers, closer up.

After a quick dip in a very chilly South Boulder Creek and some lunch, it was the full length of the Mesa trail through Chataqua and back to my neighborhood.  It was nearly 80 degrees, and as I got closer to town, there were so many people it was like an amusement park.  And another 13-mile day, lucky me!

A hike on 04/02/2011

~ by awerbuch on April 7, 2011.