Last night we hiked to a yurt that is 9 miles into segment 22 on the Colorado Trail. The plan was for Tracy, the dogs, and me to spend the night and then I’d go on and Tracy and the dogs would go back. Since the snowpack is still extreme, I hiked back with them and we drove to our next lodging stop in Ouray.
The hike is mainly up hill, but following a line of mesas into a canyon at the foot hills of the San Juan Mountains.
The dogs did really well on the hike except that the ground was covered with holes for little creatures that Tracy called “mountain gerbils”. The dogs went a little crazy trying to find them.
We made it to the yurt early afternoon. It was much nicer than we expected, containing bunk beds, a woodburning stove, a propane stove for cooking, and lots of table and chairs. It was positioned on the side of a hill overlooking a spring filled, meadow. We played cards and enjoyed the view.
The yurt is open to all hikers (for a fee) and since there are very few people on the trail, we thought it was all ours; but that changed close to sunset. We heard someone step on the deck and were introduced to Jay, a Continental Divide Trail thru hiker (his blog: www.jayvandam.net/)
Jay was pleasant, hungry, and happy to have a warm place to sleep. We all enjoyed the incredible sunset views from the deck of the yurt.
Tomorrow is an off day and I’m going to need to figure out where I can trek to that isn’t covered with 6 feet of snow.