Brian’s Microblog

July 23, 2026

I heard alarms going off in another tent at 4:45 and 5:00. We didn’t get up until about 5:30. It had rained from about 10 to 11 the night before, sometimes quite hard. The inside and the outside of the tent were both very wet, the inside from condensation. I kept wiping the tent off but more moisture kept condensing on it in the chilly morning.

We had some hot drinks and Amish pies from the little store at the Matterhorn Motel for breakfast. The pies were disappointing - maybe would have been better if we’d had a microwave.

We got on trail a little bit before 8:00, but then we had to stop and filter some more water because we didn’t filter much due to the moose last night.

The trail climbs a series of ridges, each higher than the last, for six miles.

We learned that our firefighter friend who has been checking our mail and looking in on our house was called out to a wildfire and will be away for at least a couple weeks. Fortunately some of our several great neighbors agreed to take over. (We could still see a cell tower for the first couple ridge climbs.)

After six miles we reached the highest point on the Colorado Trail, 13,271 feet.

After that we descended steeply to some old mining roads that are jeep roads now. We walked past a few small, old mines.

Then the trail leaves the road to cut over to Lost Trail Creek Valley. We stopped and had some lunch – Nutella with fruit and nuts wrapped in a tortilla. The trail goes up this valley and towards the upper end of the valley we saw three more moose from a long distance.

The mountains surrounding the Lost Trail Creek valley are rugged and impressive looking. There are a bunch of unusual rock formations near the saddle at the top of the valley.

The descent on the other side is more gradual, and new mountain ranges were visible.

We followed the trail down a ridge and got a view of the Cataract Lakes. As we got closer we noticed a couple moose on the east side of the biggest lake. It started raining and we put on rain gear.

We followed the trail further to the intersection of the trail to Cataract Lakes and turned down it. The rain stopped. We found a campsite on the west side of the biggest lake and set our tent out to dry. One of the guys we’d talked with the night before came over to say hi. He and another guy were camped at the north end of the lake.

We got the tent set up and went to the lake to filter some water but the rain started again so we only got enough to make dinner. We had arrived around 4:00 so we had plenty of time - we sat in the tent and looked at the guide book to plan tomorrow’s hike. After the rain stopped Julie made instant mashed potatoes with chicken and cheese. We had some San Juan Shortbread we’d bought in Lake City for dessert with hot cocoa.

We filtered more water and heard a coyote and saw that the moose across the lake were noticing it, too.

We went to bed a bit after 8:00 since neither of us had slept well the night before.

14 miles over about eight hours.