I hadn't slept so good in days! When I got up this morning in town the van's thermostat read 43F and I didn't feel chilled. Sadie was in heaven.
By 6am the locals were up as well, walking the small downtown in t-shirts, sandals and shorts. Not me; I had to put on a windbreaker and long pants to keep warm.
A breakfast cafe was open, so was the coffee shop, and a few clothing stores. (Who shops for clothes at 7am?) I wanted a strong cappuccino, and found one at the one coffee shop in town, where I sat on an old leather couch and paged through some of the local books and magazines.
The Silverton Standard, the town's weekly newspaper, had an article about the death of Winston Churchill, owner of the Mobius Cafe, the cafe I was sitting in which now sports a new name. He had gone on a trek across the Colorado Trail and was last seen in Lake City, CO in late August 2008. His mummified body was found 2 July by hikers after the snow melt. He was only 41 years old, an avid cyclist and outside of owning the cafe also repaired bicycles. He was found leaning against a ski cabin. Locals were still talking about this man as I paged through the paper. The story read like something out of Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild." What had gone wrong?
After my cap I walked across the street to the Outfitter store to get a map of the quadrant showing Coal Bank Summit. I ended up talking to the owner there, a 44-year-old man with long pony tail who hails from Austin. A Desert Storm Veteran, he's lived in Silverton for the last 15 years.
"This town has about 300 year-round residents and about 1000 guns" he said. According to Wylie, most people don't care much about politics as long as they have their individual freedoms (which to me sounds like a town of Libertarians). He moved here to get away from Texas and its sprawl.
Another young person I chatted with worked at a t-shirt shop across from the outfitter store, a woman ready to leave Silverton and head down to New Orleans to start her Master's in Writing. Spunky and friendly, she is an amateur playwright. I wished her well and finally left Silverton, a small mountain town I've decided is definitely worth another visit. I didn't want to leave.
I wanted to hike the Coal Banks trail after breakfast, which consisted of a few chocolate-covered mini-donuts I popped into my mouth while ascending Highway 550. Once I reached the summit and started on the trail, I soon learned that the trail faded away, and Sadie got overheated. The elevation of 10,640' and the steep trail exposed on granite rock was intense for me as well, and decided instead to revert back to the original plan of walking along a creek. So Cascade Creek down the road was my next stop.
Although we had to walk up a badly-rutted 4x4 road to get to the official trail head 3/4 mile up the hill, the hike was great. The waterfalls that I was told where there were more like cascades (thus the name of the creek, I spose), but it was shaded and isolated from screaming kids, moaning husbands and bickering wives. We started our trek at 10:58am.
I met young family from Arkansas along the trail. Sadie barked at them at first but then quickly warmed up to them. They had been told the same thing about the Cascade trail, that there were waterfalls up the trail under which you could stand under. Oh really? Maybe if you were IN the creek on your knees! The trail stayed most of the time along the trail as it snaked slowly up in elevation, across high meadows and wildflowers in bloom. At 11200' the trail met up with the Colorado Trail, although I turned around at the three-mile mark, where the trail then climbs and switchbacks up a steep draw to the high peaks. At 12:53 I took my lunch break with Sadie for 20 minutes before the Arkansas family caught up with me.
They, too, were going to turn around at this mark. The return trip without breaks took me 1:15 hours and once back at the van did my usual clean-up as I chatted with more fishermen coming to the trail to catch and release trout up this creek. We had hiked a pleasant 7.5 miles.
"Looks like you are packed for any contingency" said the elderly man from Tucson as he saw the open doors of my van in which Sadie was now resting.
"Yeah, I've been on the road for 35 days!"
My goodness, has it been that long now?
By 6am the locals were up as well, walking the small downtown in t-shirts, sandals and shorts. Not me; I had to put on a windbreaker and long pants to keep warm.
A breakfast cafe was open, so was the coffee shop, and a few clothing stores. (Who shops for clothes at 7am?) I wanted a strong cappuccino, and found one at the one coffee shop in town, where I sat on an old leather couch and paged through some of the local books and magazines.
The Silverton Standard, the town's weekly newspaper, had an article about the death of Winston Churchill, owner of the Mobius Cafe, the cafe I was sitting in which now sports a new name. He had gone on a trek across the Colorado Trail and was last seen in Lake City, CO in late August 2008. His mummified body was found 2 July by hikers after the snow melt. He was only 41 years old, an avid cyclist and outside of owning the cafe also repaired bicycles. He was found leaning against a ski cabin. Locals were still talking about this man as I paged through the paper. The story read like something out of Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild." What had gone wrong?
After my cap I walked across the street to the Outfitter store to get a map of the quadrant showing Coal Bank Summit. I ended up talking to the owner there, a 44-year-old man with long pony tail who hails from Austin. A Desert Storm Veteran, he's lived in Silverton for the last 15 years.
"This town has about 300 year-round residents and about 1000 guns" he said. According to Wylie, most people don't care much about politics as long as they have their individual freedoms (which to me sounds like a town of Libertarians). He moved here to get away from Texas and its sprawl.
Another young person I chatted with worked at a t-shirt shop across from the outfitter store, a woman ready to leave Silverton and head down to New Orleans to start her Master's in Writing. Spunky and friendly, she is an amateur playwright. I wished her well and finally left Silverton, a small mountain town I've decided is definitely worth another visit. I didn't want to leave.
I wanted to hike the Coal Banks trail after breakfast, which consisted of a few chocolate-covered mini-donuts I popped into my mouth while ascending Highway 550. Once I reached the summit and started on the trail, I soon learned that the trail faded away, and Sadie got overheated. The elevation of 10,640' and the steep trail exposed on granite rock was intense for me as well, and decided instead to revert back to the original plan of walking along a creek. So Cascade Creek down the road was my next stop.
Although we had to walk up a badly-rutted 4x4 road to get to the official trail head 3/4 mile up the hill, the hike was great. The waterfalls that I was told where there were more like cascades (thus the name of the creek, I spose), but it was shaded and isolated from screaming kids, moaning husbands and bickering wives. We started our trek at 10:58am.
I met young family from Arkansas along the trail. Sadie barked at them at first but then quickly warmed up to them. They had been told the same thing about the Cascade trail, that there were waterfalls up the trail under which you could stand under. Oh really? Maybe if you were IN the creek on your knees! The trail stayed most of the time along the trail as it snaked slowly up in elevation, across high meadows and wildflowers in bloom. At 11200' the trail met up with the Colorado Trail, although I turned around at the three-mile mark, where the trail then climbs and switchbacks up a steep draw to the high peaks. At 12:53 I took my lunch break with Sadie for 20 minutes before the Arkansas family caught up with me.
They, too, were going to turn around at this mark. The return trip without breaks took me 1:15 hours and once back at the van did my usual clean-up as I chatted with more fishermen coming to the trail to catch and release trout up this creek. We had hiked a pleasant 7.5 miles.
"Looks like you are packed for any contingency" said the elderly man from Tucson as he saw the open doors of my van in which Sadie was now resting.
"Yeah, I've been on the road for 35 days!"
My goodness, has it been that long now?
No comments:
Post a Comment