I was on the trail at 7:00. It rained a little last night and the wind blew quite a bit, but this morning looks fairly clear with scattered clouds.  I left Shadow Lake, then passed Billy Lake, then Barren Lake, and finally Texas Lake at the backside of the Cirque.

The route goes straight up the very steep slope to Texas pass.  There is no trail to speak of here – it is very rocky and you just need to power up as best you can. I reached the top of Texas pass and started down the south side which had a little snow but was much easier.  Then it was down to Lonesome lake where I was at the base of the Cirque of towers, a truly amazing place.

While descending Texas pass, I saw a guy with long hair going up.  I was a ways off trail, but he said “Hello”, and I waved back. We were a bit too far apart to talk with each other.  I got back on the trail and 5 minutes later a young woman comes along.  We talk for a bit and then she introduced herself as Super Classy.  I recognized her name from some YouTube videos – this was Nightcrawler’s friend, and the guy I said “Hello” to was Nightcrawler.  Damn, I would have liked to talk to him, but I had a very nice conversation with Super Classy who took my picture and asked if I could be in her blog or video.  I said sure, so I need to look for that.  She also gave a TedX talk on long distance hiking I need to find.

After meeting SuperClassy I continued along the alternate, but the going was very slow.  The trail was on rocks most of the time with lots of ups and downs as it went around Lonesome Lake and up and over Jackass Pass.

As I plodded along I started daydreaming about hamburgers. At some point it dawned on me that Big Sandy Lodge supposedly had burgers and it would be possible to take the Big Sandy trail to shortcut the Cirque of the Towers Alternate back to the CDT. I thought this was funny at first, but the seed had taken hold and soon I found myself on the Big Sandy trail. This trail follows the shore of Big Sandy Lake for a mile and then follows Big Sandy River another 5 miles before rejoining the official CDT.

Unfortunately, Big Sandy Lodge is in the next valley to the west, and there are no trails to get there unless I was willing to hike way out of my way. The lodge was only a mile or so away so I decided to cross country over the low ridge. This wasn’t too bad although it took more effort and time than I thought it would. It’s really odd that there is no trail here, but whatever – I make my own trails.

I had a delicious burger, a mediocre piece of blueberry pie and 3 diet Pepsi’s.  I met some thru hikers here having lunch at a picnic table here – General, Moosh, Townie, and one other that I forgot.

After lunch I felt the urge to get back on the trail. I’m not sure what it is, but I find myself getting anxious when I’m not on the trail making progress. I think it is the constant worry about hitting snow in Colorado. I walked the Big Sandy Road south for a couple miles before bushwhacking up a hill back to the CDT. The spot I chose to leave the road looked promising but I ended up in a forest of blow downs with no trail and the going became very difficult. All this nonsense ate most of the day and I wasn’t very far along the CDT when I finally rejoined it.  I think it would have been faster to just stay on the alternate.  Oh well – at least I got a burger and what’s done is done.

Once back on the CDT I pushed another 9 miles.  I scared up two separate herds of elk.  I’m camped at the Middle Fork of Squaw Creek. The trail crossed the creek and I noticed that downstream a hundred yards or so there was a small flat spot in the grass right next to the creek. There was even a sandy area nearby next to the water. It was getting dark but I took off my shoes and sat on the sand bank while I washed up and soaked my feet for a while before retiring to my tent. It’s dark now and I’m very sleepy. Night.