Day 34 – Camp Cataract

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There really are no words for this.  Otherworldly, foreign, beautifully hostile.  It’s unlike anything we traveled through so far, and unlike anything we’ll see anywhere else.

And we are camping in the middle of it.  We’re perched just above Cataract Lake, just below a saddle between two rock outcroppings.  It was the most sheltered site we could find.  The wind has been at it all day, usually at our backs but also pretty unpredictably.  Just as I wrote that a huge gust hit us and disrupted Eszter’s little combo bivy bag and tarp burrito system.

But we have a few alders to duck behind, and some mountain cover.  There really is nothing else up here.  No trees, barely even any bushes.  These alders are a treat.

We slept hard at the Hostel in Silverton.  Great peaceful night.  The morning was predictably slow.  I could have been talked into another night and a rest day, but a few cups of coffee got Ez kicked started.  She was ready to attack the big climb ahead.

That motivation lasted right until we were staring at the steep and rocky part.  The graded county road part was done and now it was time to grind up Stony Pass full bore.  I told her she was letting the negative mental image of the climb she had color her attitude too much.  Sure we;’ve both coasted down it and wished we never had the misfortune of climbing it.  But, here we were and how could it be?

By the time we could see the top, she had rebounded, grinding it out and fighting mental demons before that.  The climb didn’t bother me much — almost all rideable in 20×36 gearing and theres so  much to look at — the San Juans!

We finally rejoined the CDT, fresh out of the Wilderness.  Took the obilgatory photos at the sign then continued onto tasty alpine singletrack.

It didn’t take long until we hit the first snow… and associated mud and muck.  The soil is much more resilient over here, but there sure is more snow.

We climbed well above treeline, trying to understand where we were going, trying to understand this place we found ourselves.  Both attempts at understanding failed.  Some things are just unknowable.

Even this GPSMaster couldn’t read the trail ahead, the contours, and predict where we were going.  Clueless and lost.  Lovely.

We caught a group of  4 CT hikers that actually stayed at the same hostel last night.  I showed them their bag of trail mix I was carrying and that they had left behind.

For a while we climbed with them, through huge snow fields and across the tundra.  Then we got enough dry and downhill trail that we put some distance on them.

I LOVE how when the trail up here is rideable, it’s SO rideable.  So soft and smooth, inviting and awesome.  I love the wiggles they put into it.  Wiggle and giggle, we were coasting and smiling.

Even with snowfields this section is so worth it.  I can’t wait for the rest, tomorrow.  Hopefully the weather will hold long enough for us to get to the Yurt, or maybe Lake City.

For now we need to focus on staying warm.  It won’t be a super comfy night, but we didn’t come out here to be comfortable.  ‘Night

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