[Day 39] Compounding Risk

I woke later than I’d like again. I did the usual: pack up, jam my feet into my frozen shoes, and start hiking. I chugged down a liter of water (as is my usually routine) that tasted of burnt food. I had to melt snow last night for water, and in the process, I burnt whatever slight remnants (probably Idahoans) remained in my cook pot, providing my water some burnt after flavors. It was tough to drink, but the next possibly unfrozen water source wasn’t for another seven miles. Clouds kept the sun at bay the first half of the day, which firmed the snow for my approach to my landmark feature of the day: the knife’s edge.

The knifes edge is a traverse around a thin blade-like jut from a mountain. After hiking the steep slopes and undulations of the watershed divide, I was about two miles from the knifes edge. I decided to stay high on the watershed divide, since the trail went straight off a cornice into a long, steep traverse. Staying on the divide line, however, meant rock climbing. I’m not a rock climber, but it was fun — albeit dangerous — travel. However, the pace was slow — 30 minutes to cover a quarter mile. I crossed one significant snowfield, probably the steepest and slickest chute yet, but the consequence wasn’t tremendously high.

Once I had a closer view of the knifes edge, I was convinced to stay high. It would have been a 700 foot drop to traverse around the knifes edge, then another 500 foot climb back to the pass. I continued my scramble on the divide line, and it continued to be gnarly climbing. Some features include 20 foot drops on both north and south faces, as I weaved through and over pillared rock columns.

I made it over the notches of the knife edges’ mother mountain, and I bushwhacked my way down to a mountain pass. It was my break time; I needed water. Surprisingly, despite all the snow, water can be hard to come by on the divide. The divide is the origination of the watershed; the melt runs to one side or the other, but isn’t stagnant on this line. And, there isn’t the benefit of an accumulation effect as you might see in the stream or lake of a valley or basin. I collected from a trickling snowmelt, which gave me dirty, brown water. I pushed it through my filter and chugged. Some burnt flavors from yesterday’s water must have stuck in my filter, since this water had a little gag factor as well.

I stomped my way through another six miles for a 14 mile day. The end of the day was tough: more dangerous rock climbing, more steep snowfields with tremendous consequences, more snow traps, more post holing to my hips. A number of things cycled through my head: Do I have food enough to last for six more days to Lake City? Can I reasonably bail out to Silverton if I need to? Will the terrain remain slow and risky? Will the impending weather of tomorrow be a further set back?

I ran the calculations in my head. Though I love this terrain, I worry I can’t afford 15 mile (or less) days to get to Lake City. My access points to Silverton, either closed Stony Pass (about 15 miles of walking) or the Colorado Trail (about 15 miles of walking) are both additional days I’d need to dedicate — both into town and back to trail. From Wolf Creek Pass to Lake City at 15 mile days, it would take me eight days. I have food for about six or seven, as I was expecting 17 mile days or so.

With an impending thunderstorm only adding more complication to my slow, dangerous, high-altitude, high-snow travel, I’ve resolved to plan my own alternate, which cuts a couple of days off my route at lower elevation. I plan to cut across the Rio Grande Valley (at least, that’s what I’m calling it) to the San Juan’s on the other side via the Squaw Creek Trail to the Rio Grande Reservoir and then to the Lost Creek Trail. Is it what I want to do? No. But with the absurd amounts of snow and risky maneuvers I am taking to avoid dangerous traverses and vertical ice climbs up cornices, I’m better off resetting my impending doom clock of compounding risk.

I will be back to collect on these 30 or so on-divide miles I am cutting off. I’ll be interested to see the San Juan’s in a different season, when the wildlife is present and a trail provides a path through the mountains. It hurts to skip it. But, it’s the toll of being the first person into the San Juan’s in a high snow year. I could be sitting in a town, watching movies for a few weeks, waiting on the snow to melt, but I’d rather be putting myself out there.

Though I looked forward to seeing Silverton, it is a bit of a crapshoot to access. I haven’t been since I was a kid, and I remember the western town in a torrential downpour.

I’m camped at the Squaw Creek Trail, getting ready for a morning run to avoid incoming storms.

I may be a freak, but I must remind myself that I am a freak on a leash (I’ll accept this CDT trail name). I will take risk, but I can not control my brain’s will to analyze and mitigate — and those will hopefully keep me grounded and reasonably operating within an appropriate risk tolerance. I am not upset, but may be I am a tad bummed.

Signing off,

Zeppelin / fReaK (ON a leash)