Day 63 – Green Mountain Falls to North Colorado Springs, CO
The morning began with perhaps the sketchiest stretch of walking of this trip. I was back on Highway 24, descending towards Colorado Springs, and it turns out that weekend looky-loos aren’t the only cause of traffic on this road. Rush hour was rough. Same deal as yesterday–narrow shoulders, fast cars, loose rock to walk on–plus […]
Day 62 – Cripple Creek to Green Mountain Falls, CO
I had a ticket for the long way ‘round today, making the Tour de Pike. Leaving Cripple Creek–my latest departure, 8am, to avoid the worst of the cold–I climbed back over 10,000 feet, heading due north. This opening 10 miles was the day’s highlight, mostly off-road through scenery that, while not as spectacular as yesterday’s, […]
Day 61 – Cañon City to Cripple Creek, CO
To rip off Tolstoy, happy walks are all alike; every unhappy walk is unhappy in its own way. Today was easily my favorite walk of the trip, a stunning climb through the eastern edge of the Rockies. Coming on the heels of two other fantastic days, I find myself challenged to write about the experience; […]
Days 59 & 60 – Florence & Cañon City
As the Kansas wheatfields faded further into the distance, and then even the melons of Rocky Ford yielded ground, the Coloradan countryside finally started to shift. Wild onions lined the highway shoulder, while trucks loaded with their domesticized peers ripped past. Ranches expanded, with cows and hogs gaining prominence, and even the occasional llama. Some […]
Day 58 – Fowler to Pueblo, CO
“You need to take your pack off before you come in here!” I freeze in the entrance to the minimart, halted abruptly in my determined pursuit of coffee, and turn to the lady at the register. It’s hardly an illegitimate rule; even if one weren’t worried about theft, it’s easy to imagine unwieldy packs knocking […]
Day 57 – La Junta to Fowler, CO
Today’s walk was reminiscent of the last section of Kansas, in that Highway 50 cut through the countryside at an angle, while the ADT zigzagged along dirt roads adjacent to it, before swinging far to the north to eventually join a smaller highway. I opted out of that approach, instead sticking with tracks south of […]
Days 55 & 56 – Las Animas & La Junta
The past two days have brought me from near the Kansas border almost due west, deeper into Colorado. I keep interrogating the horizon, seeking out my first glimpse of the Rockies–locals swear it’s possible to see Pike’s Peak from here in the right conditions–but the prevailing flatness remains implacable. Actually, that’s a little unfair; the […]
Day 54 – Holly to Lamar, CO
My rampant enthusiasm for snow days has become a running joke at school; few things–if any, really–fire me up more than a couple inches of snow blanketing town. There’s an aesthetic aspect of this, as crunching through the flakes in the deadened muffle of a snowy night is unlike anything else. There’s the joy of […]
Day 53 – Syracuse, KS to Holly, CO
On my last day in Kansas, I spent a lot of time thinking about water. I hadn’t seen much of it for a while. Aside from the occasional lake, and the gradually filling Arkansas River, the view was dominated by pale yellow and brown. By all accounts, this has been an unusually wet year for […]
Day 52 – Lakin to Syracuse, KS
I left Garden City early in the morning on Wednesday. This far west in the central time zone (the end of my time there, as I crossed into the mountain zone today), it’s dark until 7:30am, so my 5:45 start meant a couple hours of darkness. Part of the benefit of an early start, usually, […]