Nathan posted on July 02, 2009 19:39
Thursday, July 2, 2009
I'm writing this from a motel room in Montrose, Colorado. Yesterday we finished our trip on the TAT.
After the harrying evening day before yesterday, neither NH nor I got much of any sleep, camped on the trail just passed where we nearly rolled the Jeep. I had quite a bit of leftover adrenaline, and I had forgotten that at 12,000 ft. elevation, breathing comes hard. Between these two factors, and an extra sense of nervousness (what if the melt-off picked up in the night, or it started to rain, and the ground became soft and we sank in or drifted off the edge, after all?), I got very little sleep. NH was in a similar state. We woke up at 5:30 to the sound of some animal licking the Jeep. NH got up soon after, and I slept for another hour. By 7:30 we were on the trail again.
We continued on through Hancock Pass without any further trouble. I guess that one snow pack had been the reason it was supposed to be closed. We'd been informed day before that Tomichi Pass should be open, no trouble at all, so we proceeded pretty confidently.
We hit another snow pack blocking off much of the trail, but it was low enough in elevation to have several trees handy, so we winched past it without much trouble at all. Just a few yards further, however, we discovered a rock slide, and more formidable snow packs beyond that. So Tomichi Pass proved to be the one that was un-passable--by Jeep, at least. A motorcycle would probably have had little trouble.
We detoured Tomichi Pass, taking forest service trails that added several extra miles and probably two extra hours to our trip--but took us through beautiful forests and ravines.
If I were to do the Colorado section of the TAT over again, or advise anyone starting out, I would allow more time for this section of the trail. We pressed on for a couple of days in Colorado, getting quite a few miles a day, and enjoying every minute of it. But it is more difficult driving and riding than any other section so far, and more beautiful, too. I think taking an extra day or two would have left us more energy by the time we got across the Rockies.
We joined up with the trail again in Whitepine, CO, and drove to Tomichi Creek, where we stopped for lunch. After that we kept going, but we were so exhausted that we decided to call it a day early.
We left the trail in Lake City, Colorado, where we will pick up again next year.
It felt good to sleep in this morning. We're headed home for Independence Day. I guess this about finishes it for blogging about the TAT; but check back, I'll keep posting.
Posted by EHenson at 9:41 AM
Quick view of our route this year:
