This leg of my journey was different in a couple of ways. First I have been hiking alone, and second, this was a tuff section.
I last saw Raisins when he went down to Leadville to fix his GPS. I continued with my milage, but I also took the Grey/Torrey's route which is a bit longer than Ley's Red Route.
So maybe Raisins passed me on the faster route. I don't mind though, cause it is nice hiking alone.
The route started nice on the CT, then slowly got worse when the two trails separated. Then it was cross country and slow going for most the way. The view from Grey's was great, but short lived due to the weather.
The next day was rain, lightning and a long traverse on exposed ridge tops. At one point I had to shelter down in a hole to avoid the electricity all around me.
The last full day consisted of more long trail less traverses and rock scrambles, while in a hurry to avoid the afternoon storms. I met "burglar" and we hiked together to the end of my miles and made camp near a cabin.
That night I got caught cowboy camping by a big storm. It was easily the hardest, longest lasting rain of the hike. I made it to the porch on the cabin just in time to be soaked. It was not too cold though, for we were at 8500 ft. I can't let that happen again. Up high could have got ugly.
That morning we hit a long blowdown section that took a couple of hours to go a mile. It was a nightmare, but soon forgot after passing it.
We made it to Grand Lake, where it a nice tourist town with old buildings. We are trying to find out if the Rocky Mountain National Park has opened it's loop trail to hike. I want to do it.
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