Brian’s Microblog

July 15, 2026

We woke up around 6:00 and got up at about 6:20. Most of the people in tents around us had already gotten up but were being pretty quiet. We made some hot drinks and ate some protein bars, then most everyone except a young lady whose trail name was Highlighter left by 7:30. We used the water in the lake to do some laundry and ended up getting on trail at 9 o’clock.

The half mile hike back up to the trail was pretty steep. We returned to similar trail as yesterday – following a ridge line up and down hills through Lodgepole pine forests. We did get a couple of nice views when we got out into some meadows, but the distant mountains were hazy.

Julie had been noticing that little chipmunks are able to adapt to all kinds of environments - we see them in forests and on talus slopes. They are speedy and acrobatic, and usually pretty shy. Maybe Julie’s trail name should be Chippy, and I can be Sippy because we call the bottles with straws that we have on our pack straps “sippy cups”.

Water was still scarce on this part of the trail. At Razor Creek someone had buried a stick so that where a bit of water seeps out of the ground it trickles off the stick, making it easier to collect.

It got quite warm until we stopped for lunch at about 1 o’clock. As we finished up lunch, thunder clouds began approaching from the northeast, more or less following us. They continued threatening for quite a while, and eventually we got a few spits of rain. The clouds started to look dramatic so we put some rain gear on, but it never really rained enough that we actually needed it.

Eventually, we took some switchbacks down a hill to Lujan Pass. Here the trail is a forest road for a couple of miles leading down to Colorado Highway 114 while following Lujan Creek.

The trail follows the highway for a couple tenths of a mile, then resumes as a trail on the other side.

It crosses Lujan Creek for the last time and we filtered water there. We caught up with Highlighter there, and after she left and we were still working on our water, the young man from Nashville who we’d met on our first day caught up with us accompanied by the young lady headed for nursing school who we’d spoken with at Hancock Lakes. We pushed on for another mile to find a campsite but I think they decided to camp there - they’d had a much longer day than we had.

We found a site along Pine Creek and set up the tent quickly because dark clouds had rolled in again and then had an Alpine Aire African peanut stew “add boiling water” dinner, our first time trying that brand - it was tasty but a little more watery than would have been ideal. The clouds just ended up making the sunset more interesting.

14.6 miles of Colorado Trail plus half a mile to climb out of Baldy Lake.