Our trail angel was coming at 9:00am to drive us the 23 miles up to Monarch Pass. Most everyone in the hostel was up by 7:30am. I repeated my meal again and had a breakfast burrito. Everyone not going to the pass had made plans to raft the river today. Someone had ridden to Walmart this morning and purchased vinyl rafts. I was double checking my pack to make sure I had everything. I checked with Just Mary as to whether she was still riding to the pass with us this morning. She was uncertain. She really wanted to go river rafting, but wasn’t sure if she should. Onion was out late last night and told me she as no longer going, too hungover.
Party arrived to pick us up. I introduced myself and went into tell Monk and Just Mary our ride had arrived. Just Mary was packed, but torn. Monk finally told her, “You can hiking today and you’ll never remember it, or you can river rafting and do something you’ll never forget.” Mary put down her pack. It was just Monk and I riding up to the pass.
Our driver Debbie was in her late 50’s or early 60’s and very pleasant. We had a nice conversation on our way to the pass. When we arrived I gave her $20 to help with the gas, $10 from me and $10 from Monk. There was a hiker on the highway thumbing a ride down so Debbie left us to go grab her. Monk headed for the store to get a fuel canister. As I headed for the trail I saw another thru hiker heading the same way on the other side of the highway. It was G-String! Last I had seen him was Lake City. We greeted each other and headed up the trail. Five minutes up and something felt wrong. I checked FarOut and saw that we were on the wrong trail. A quick one minute walk cross country would set us right. G-String checked FarOut and saw the trail we were on met the correct one in just a little distance. He decided to follow it around, I scooted over to the correct trail.
The trail wound around the mountain and entered the Monarch Mountain ski area. It stayed right on top of the ridge, which is the Continental Divide. The wind was howling. It was a consistent 35 mph making walking difficult. The trail stayed just on the windward side of the ridge top. There was no escaping it. For seven miles Monk and I literally held onto our hats as we staggered up the trail. Mercifully, at mile seven the trail dropped off the ridge and we got out of the winds fury.
The trail dropped down below tree line. I was surprised to see how much snow there was on the trail at this lower elevation. The trees provide shade to keep the snow from melting. We passed the Boss Lake Reservoir and started climbing up the Middle Fork of the Arkansas River.
Four days ago we came into a clearing or meadow where we could see distant mountains. One in particular had an unusual snow pattern on it ( Mt. Aetna). At the time I wondered if we would get near it. This afternoon we passed directly below that mountain with the unusual snow pattern.
Monk and I kept working our way up the valley until we crossed the pass at its head and dropped into Hancock Lake. The wind was still fierce so we moved past the lake as it had no protection. The lake was so high it only had short grass around it, nothing to block the wind. The trail was now on a traverse of a steep slope and offered no level ground for camping. Up ahead the topographic map showed an area where the contour lines indicated a possibility of a flat area. We left the trail and searched in the woods finding two small flat pieces of ground where we could pitch our tents. We were in the forest, so protected from the wind. However, we were faced with the perennial problem. All the trees were dead. No place else to camp. We crossed our fingers and spent the night.
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