Colorado Trail day 20
July 14, 2026
We slept OK. There was a little wind and rain overnight but nothing like some previous nights. We got up a bit after 6:15 and made a couple rounds of hot drinks to go with a couple protein bars. We were slower than all the other campers in the meadow and left last, getting on trail at 8:30.
The trail more or less follows a ridge to the west for several miles with various ups and downs. After 10 miles it climbs down to Tank Seven Creek where we were able to get some more water. Water is very scarce in this part of the trail. We stopped and had some lunch at a campsite there by the creek. The trail then follows Tank Seven creek uphill for several miles, through a long, winding meadow in a wide valley where we saw a couple different groups of cows. Eventually, the trail leaves the creek and climbs up to Sargents Mesa.
From there it continues more or less following a ridge, again going up and down. It wasn’t very hard walking, but it was a long day. It started getting hot in the middle of the day but then it got breezy and cloudy later. Although we followed ridges for much of the day the trail was mostly in the forest so we didn’t get many views. It was a bit boring so we finished the The Murderbot Diaries book 2 we had started the previous day and also finished the short book 3.
We turned off the main trail and hiked half a mile down a steep hill to Baldy Lake. It’s the only water for several miles and various sources said it had nice campsites. When we arrived around 6:45 it started raining and we found all the three groups we had camped with the previous night as well as a couple other groups already set up. A little tent city by the lake. We met “Highlighter” here.
We set the tent up quickly in a spot between some of the other campers so we would have a dry place to put things. Julie started some dinner and I went down to the lake to wash the dirt off my legs. This part of the trail has a lot of fine dust and I didn’t want to put my very brown legs into my long underwear overnight.
The rain lightened and was almost done by the time our dinner was ready so we could eat outside. We talked a bit more with Bear Squared and shared a cup of hot chocolate with him after dinner. As the sun went down a bunch of bats appeared to feed on the few mosquitoes that had been bugging us.
17 miles of progress on the trail with a half mile side trip to Baldy Lake, a bit over ten hours.