Day: 054
Date: Saturday, 29 June 2024
Start: Granite Mountain
Finish: Twin Lakes (but staying in Leadville)
Daily Kilometres: 26.6
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos
Total Kilometres: 1584.3
Weather: Cold early then warm and mostly sunny later.
Accommodation: Rental apartment
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Pop tarts
Lunch: Snacka
Dinner: Pork steaks, macaroni cheese & salad, apple crumble & icecream.
Aches: Dave - very tired and the usual niggles; Julie - nothing reported.
Highlight: Reaching the top of Hope Pass (12532’) after a tortuously steep ascent of 2500’ in 4km. Along the way we saw many trail runners and learned that the trail over this pass is part of the famous Leadville 100 Mile trail race which is on in a few weeks. Reaching the top was not only an accomplishment. We had fantastic views over the Collegiate Peaks and, in the other direction, down to Twin Lakes.
Lowlight: Julie lost her sunglasses somewhere along the trail today.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
It rained lightly a lot overnight, but it had cleared by daylight and we packed up a reasonably dry tent and were on our way by 6:10am. The first couple of hours were beautiful hiking as we followed Clear Creek downstream through the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness. Lovely quiet conifer forest, meadows and marshes and the rushing creek to our right, backed by towering rocky partially snow-covered mountains.
After about three hours we turned away from Clear Creek and began the steep ascent to Hope Pass (see above). Dave found it very tough and there were plenty of short breaks to catch breath. We continued to see trail runners along with day hikers.
At the top of the Pass we spent a few minutes admiring the view before beginning a not-quite-so-steep, but long descent to a trailhead followed by a 3km road walk into the hamlet of Twin Lakes where, arriving around 3:30pm, we met Dave's nephew, Fraser, and his partner, Annalisse, who had driven 2.5 hours from Denver, where they live, to meet us. They then drove us to an apartment we had rented for the night in Leadville. It was great to catch up with them and we appreciated the dinner they cooked for us, along with interesting conversations about their lives in the US and our hike.
I had a bunch of friends in Leadville yesterday doing the marathon and heavy half (15.5 miles). And yes, the Leadville 100 is in the end of August, and being an out and back, you go over Hope Pass twice.
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