Day 106-107 – 9/7-8/11 Crested Butte to Goodwin Green Cabin

(Pictures to be added later)

Distance = 23 Miles; People Met = 15

Two things about these two days:  we keep meeting people even in remote places and we seemed to keep going uphill as we approached the Continental Divide.

We met Emma before getting out of town.  We wanted to get local advice on our proposed route from Alpiner, a local outdoor store.  She appeared quite young but was quite efficient and knowledgable, and had a great smile to boot!

Emma

Parry went past us as we were headed out of town and turned her car around to speak to us some more.  You could tell she was very active in the outdoors.  She seemed quite reluctant to part, as if she would have gladly joined us or have us over for a chat if she could.

Parry

Grant and AG were landscapers for Skyland Residential Properties.  Grant was enthusiastic to meet us and wanted to shake our hands.  He had just mountain biked up the route we would be taking.  He had sort of a laid back, “cool dude,” southern California persona.

Ag and Grant

We met Dave at a trail junction and, ironically, he asked us for directions.  Even more surprisingly, we were able to help him out a bit.  He kept his helmet on the whole time.

Dave

Ed and Maureen were jovial senior citizens that were part of a pack of four, young and old, out on their ATVs.  Ed seemed like a good candidate for playing the part of the local Santa Claus.

Maureen and Ed

On our second day out I was just thinking about how we had yet to see a backpacker (besides Barrett when he hiked with us) for the entire journey, when one comes chugging along in our direction, a young guy obviously in good shape.  I stopped him and said I just had to shake the hand of the first backpacker I met.  Well, that backpacker was an East-West ADT hiker named Mark Turner.  I actually knew about that cause his partner was walking for — clean water around the globe.  Unfortunately, his cause minded partner had given up the hike while Mark continued on.  He started in the summer of 2010 but took breaks for winter.  It was a great surprise and pleasure to sit down and chat with him.

Mark Turner, East to West ADT Hiker

Unfortunately, it was a cold and precipitous day, hailing while we were sitting and chatting.  We had to move on to Taylor Pass for lunch, where we met three dirt bikers.  One was a police officer from Aspen who offered to house us, but our destination was Leadville.  Another of the bikers made a comment that helped put some perspective on something I had observed.  In Nevada and Utah, you could find Bud Light cans about 100 feet apart on any ATV trail, while the ATV trails in Colorado were spotless.  The biker commented that many locals used the Colorado trails, while the people using the Nevada and Utah trails were likely from northern Utah or some other “foreign” place.  Made sense, but that led to some other questions I’ll reflect on later.

Left: Aspen police officer; Right: the insightful man

We like to have contacts lined up for the major cities.  We would hate to find ourselves without a place to stay while hiking through East St. Louis, for example.  The one city with no contacts for us was Kansas City.  Well, the next two dirt bikers we encountered came from there.  Tim Hull wanted to shake our hands, so that emboldened me to ask if we could contact him in KC.  Both he and his partner, Paul Lively, said sure enough.  We could not chat for long because Paul was feeling the affects of altitude and they need to get down.

Tim Hull

The last people we met were at Goodwin-Greene Hut.  This is part of the Braum Hut system maintained by the Forest Service in this region, much like the AMC huts back home.  Father John and Son Brent were the first muzzle loading hunters we encountered, coming down from Walla Walla, Washington to get an early start with scoping.  They were at the hut only to eat some corn they brought along, they were going out in the backcountry for the night.  John was from the area originally; and before they left he gave me some route finding advice for the next day.  That was helpful as we discovered we were off course by being at the hut.

John and Brent from Walla Walla

Call our stumbling upon the hut serendipitous, because the weather took a turn for the worse while we stayed for the night, enjoying the fire from the wood stove.  There was even some butter pecan syrup in the hut that we added to our oatmeal the next morning.  We only went 10 miles by stopping short at the hut, but we certainly had no regrets.

Haven Hut from the Storm