Brian’s Microblog

June 30, 2026

Note: Whoops! Accidentally posted day 7 and skipped day 6!

It was a very chilly night. We both ended up putting our puffy down jackets on inside our sleeping bag/quilt. Julie ended up feeling warm enough, but I was on the edge of being shivery at times. We were pretty tired so we slept in until a little after six and then took the morning slowly. We made some hot drinks and then ate a Good Belly breakfast bar we picked up from the outfitter store in Bailey. Unfortunately these turned out to have expired in March - they were still very tasty but tested the strength of our teeth!

Then we made second cups of hot drinks and then finally got serious about getting going. We watched some deer out in the meadow and then got on trail at 8:45.

The trail starts by descending for about 2 miles back down to just over 10,000 feet. We got some nice views of Kenosha Peaks, which are very rocky and impressive at the tops. After about half a mile there was a little outcrop which had a nice view down to South Park and would have had a good view of the Ten Mile range on the other side of South Park, but the valley was very hazy with distant smoke. There was fairly good cell reception at the outcrop so we stopped there for about 15 minutes to catch up on email and Julie got a Duolingo lesson in.

The rest of the 2 mile descent went by pretty quickly. The grade was pretty gentle. At the bottom, there is a creek near the Lost Gulch trailhead where we stopped to refill our water bottles. I also needed to change into cooler clothes and reapply tape to my little blister. The moleskin that I put on did not stick at all. We met several other hikers in this area, some through-hiking and some section hiking. The trail junction here is the start of segment 5.

We walked another 2 1/2 miles or so, mostly slowly descending, and stopped for lunch. We found a nice log to sit on in the shade and took our shoes off to let our feet breathe, plus I had to reapply some of the tape for the blister. We ended up listening to an argument between a bird and squirrel for about a half an hour. The morning had started very clear, but as the day went on more clouds started appearing. By the time we finished lunch, it seemed more cloudy than clear. Hopefully this will help with the forest fires that are affecting trail segments 9 and 10.

There are some stretches in here where many of the pine trees have died, probably from beetles. Julie remarked in one section that it was like walking through a graveyard because so many gray tree trunks were on the ground.

In the past we have parked at Kenosha Pass and walked the Colorado Trail a mile or two towards the east several times - it’s a pretty place to walk a dog who has been in the car for a while. Many parts of this trail segment seemed very similar, following a south-facing ridge with a lot of aspen and a few conifers, and occasional views out to the south.

We stopped to fill our water where the trail crosses Rock Creek because our campsite would be dry. Our water filter seems to be getting slower and slower so we plan to replace it in Breckenridge.

We started looking for campsites around 11 miles. We saw a nice one, but it was very windy there so we kept going. The Far Out app mentioned one at about segment mile 12.6 that is not obvious but we found it a bit after 5:00. It is a nice site, just in the trees at the edge of a large meadow, with views to the mountains we hope to be crossing in a couple days, but unfortunately there are ants everywhere.

We set up the tent and made dinner. As the sun got lower it reddened - unfortunately it seems the smoke is coming back. We also learned that the fire near Leadville has grown again and Colorado Trail segments 9 and 10 are definitely closed.

12.6 miles over 8 1/2 hours with 1400 feet ascent but 2300 descent