It’s the climb….

I wake up chilly, no actually cold. Why is it so cold, in August? Stealth camped just outside of Grand Lake, what cute town, I’d live here. From my tent the lake is not visible through the fog it’s only .5 miles away. I don’t want to get out of my sleeping bag, but I have to potty so I’m up. It’s a later wake up than usual, headed into town for AYCE buffet, resupply, and make plans to get back up to Montana.

The last 4 days have been rough for me. Moral is low, energy is low but the climbs have been high. Guess I’m just trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel but I can’t with all the rain, hail and clouds! Really I’m not good at climbing, toss in crappy weather and I’m a mess.

Just south of Winter Park I got lost. After a huge climb I got to the peak and couldn’t find the trail down. It was covered in rock with like a bjillion cairns. The jagged rocks hurt my feet and I kept tripping, that’s when it started raining, great. I clumsily got myself down to some trees thinking I’d find the trail, nope. My crappy GPS would only show where I was but not any direction. I ended up climbing back uphill then following a forest service road to where the trail crossed it. So frustrating. I had shooting pain in my feet by the time I made it to camp.

It has become hard to enjoy the incredible sceanary when I am constantly just trying to out run the daily rain storm or not roll my ankle on a rock. It is beautiful, really, lakes surrounded by mountains and nice camp sites. I’d like to come back…..and car camp, sometime when I’m not racing to Canada.