Running away from home - Part 1

I think in my last post I mentioned that I need some alone time. Well, I got it! Monday was an annoying day at work because I found out that the computer I need won't be up for at least a week. So I decided to run away from home!!

I reserved a bed at a hostel in Winter Park for Tuesday night and went to REI to get a guide book for hikes in Grand County and a couple other things. Tuesday morning I left my house at 6:15 AM and headed for the mountains, with a car full of snowboarding and snowshoeing gear. Woohoo!! Unfortunately, I hit Denver just in time for rush hour traffic and had to wait at the base of Berthoud Pass for about 20 minutes while they did avalanche blasting, so I didn't get to my destination until about 11.

I decided to do a hike up toward Devil's Thumb, a supposedly prominent mountain/rock formation on the western side of the Continental Divide (I never saw it b/c of clouds). The road to the trailhead was shut down to cars, so I huffed it 2.6 miles before even getting on the trail! But it was beautiful so I didn't mind too much, and it was easy hiking. Once I got to the trail there were some snowmobile tracks that I was following, but then I got to a sign that pointed me in the exact opposite direction of the tracks. So I headed into the fresh snow, but it didn't last long b/c it was about hip deep!! That's when I discovered the beauty of my new book and my GPS.

A little side note on the GPS. My mom gave it to me about 7 years ago because she was worried about me getting lost, and I haven't really used it much. I am kind of anti-technology when I'm in the woods and up until now I've felt like it was a waste of money. But I still bring it when I'm snowshoeing so I can mark the car as a waypoint, just in case. Anyway ... I realized that my book has the latitude and longitude of a handfull of waypoints on each trail. So I plugged those into my GPS and realized that the snowmobile tracks were actually going in the right direction. Yay!!! For some reason, this was really exciting for me. I think maybe because my work has been making me feel frustrated and incapable of doing anything right, it just felt really good to figure something out and have fun doing it. Silly, I know, but it is the small victories in life that keep us sane.

About a mile later I came to a huge clearing, at least a quarter mile long, with 12,000-13,000 foot peaks behind it. It was gorgeous and peaceful and snowy and wonderful!! I kept following the snowmobile tracks up a valley and was climbing pretty good, but eventually ran out of time and had to turn around. I think I got to somewhere around 10,500 feet and was on the trail for at least 2.5 miles - so overall a 10 mile hike! That is a lot in snowshoes!! It was a wonderful day.

The hostel I stayed in (Rocky Mountain Inn and Hostel) was great. I had the female dorm room all to myself. There was a huge kitchen and common area, and lots of neat people to talk to. There were a few families and a wide range of ages. I realized just how lucky I am to live so close to the mountains as I was talking to people who had traveled from Arizona, New York, and France.