I left one of my favorite campsites at 6:30 and soon crossed North Willow Creek. The trail here provides access to Mount Massive (14,421 feet) and Mt Elbert (highest peak in Colorado at 14,440 feet). I climbed both these peaks many years ago and have no desire to do it again, so I just kept on the CDT and bypassed both. The trail obviously gets a lot of use here, but I saw nobody this late in the season.

The trail into Twin Lakes was a bit frustrating.  I could see the town directly below and I was really excited to get there, but the trail goes far to the right as it descended to the town.  Then you need to road walk back to the left.  I really wanted to just cut straight down, but was worried about hitting a bog or something so I behaved and followed the trail.

I got into town and went to my reserved cabin at Windspirit Cabins.  I had the combination for the door lock and went right in.  The cabin was nice and even had a TV.  I never saw a manager or hotel person the entire time – it is all handled by reservations.

I dropped off my stuff and went to the only place open – the general store next door where I bought some food. I discovered that my resupply box and shoes hadn’t arrived and wasn’t due until tomorrow, and the UPS guy doesn’t arrive until late afternoon.  Looks like I am going to have to hang around here tomorrow (and maybe longer if my packages are late).

The restaurant doesn’t open until 4:30 and you apparently need reservations to eat dinner there.  And to make it even worse, the general store guy wanted to close early today and go into Leadville or somewhere.

I went out to the front to eat my food and soon Wallace and Marco joined me.  After a while the UPS truck showed up and amazingly had both my packages – a day early!!! This means I can get out of here tomorrow which is good because I am really worried about early snows. It is getting quite late in the year for Colorado hiking. This all made me extremely happy.

I let Marco use my shower in the cabin.  He drank all the coffee in the room (after checking if it was ok) and helped himself to a handful of Barbs chocolate chip cookies which came in my resupply box.  I said “Here, take a couple”.  His eyes got real big and he went for it. 🙂 It was fun to see the big smile on his face, and I’ll always owe Marco for that recharging cable he gave me so long ago.   

I had a great dinner with Wallace and Marco.  We spent several hours together and had a great time telling stories and all.  The dinner was crazy expensive, but good.  Marco came back to my cabin afterwards and we talked some more before he had to go find a place to camp for the night.  I was very sad to see him go.