BOWEN PASS, CO
After some night rain I hit the trail in great weather conditions for the climb up Parkview mountain. After Knapsack Col the climbs don’t seem that scary, but this was a big one.
On top the views were spectacular. You could see in every direction for a long way. Coming down was rather tough. It was very steep and slippery, but I made it down with no incidents.
When I got down I was happy to be walking on dirt road. Unfortunately I went too far on the road and missed a junction to trail. I decided to bushwhack up a steep slope perpendicular to the road to get me back to trail. That was fine until I was confronted by a big cliff, with the trail on the other side of it. I looked it over and thought I could climb the boulders to get up and slide through some cracks in the cliff. I hate boulder hopping but I did it, which left me with trying to climb through one of the cracks. Most of them I saw looked problematic, so I chose one that looked the least problematic. This turned into a very scary technical rock climb. After scaling about 20 ft with 10 to go I was in a jam. There wasn’t much to step on or grab onto. I managed to toss my hiking poles and Platypus up and over to get my hands free. I then saw a very narrow ridge of rock to my left, which was the only thing I could step on to get me up. I decided to go for it, and had to use every part of me to scramble up the last 10 ft. With a backpack on, any lean backwards could have thrown me back down. I was very relieved and exhausted after getting up and could see the trail.
That got me down to the road where Frodo was waiting with a cold Coke for me. HeHo!
I had some more climbs leading to Bowen Pass. I once again missed a trail junction off a road and had to backtrack, which cost me some considerable time. Even though there was a cairn and marker at the junction, they were a bit hard to see and could easily be missed if you aren’t looking for them
About a year ago I climbed Bowen Pass in complete exhaustion and decided the CDT was too difficult to try. Now I got to the top of it with about 600 miles to go. I’m going to do it!
I watered up at a stream and saw a moose just about where I saw one last year. I found a great camp spot and settled in. I have 15 miles to Grand Lake tomorrow for a rest and resupply