I. Perspective
Saturday, September 7th – near Grand Lake, Rocky Mountains National Park
The sun had yet to crest the ridge, and a blue-tinged darkness still occupied the meadow and hillside. It had been two minutes since I paused, my eyes fixed on a shadow that broke the shapes of pine and underbrush, a few hundred meters downhill from the trail, at the forest’s edge. Suddenly, it moved – lifting a dark, heavy head from the grass. A moose.
The trail led me to the top of my last pass, where the path then fell away into the valley and the town of Grand Lake, a resort on the outskirts of the Rocky Mountain National Park. I sat on a stone, bitter cold to the touch, its surface chilled all the way through by the mountain night. I devoured a protein bar as I watched the sky burn itself slowly into color. Though the sun was still hidden behind the hills to my left, its rays painted horizontal strokes across the valley, revealing all the vibrant hues of green and yellow – blades of grass shimmering with morning light and aspen leaves catching fire. Birds played a live concert of their own, calling back and forth in notes so beautiful, in a language I couldn’t understand.
I moved quickly down the trail and connected with the road that led me straight into town. My foot screamed in pain as it hit the harsher surface of the blacktop. Yet, my spirits lifted up at the scent of food and the sight of the first rooftops. I slipped behind a hedge, in front of a hotel parking lot, to answer a pressing call of nature. It was a common phenomenon among thru hikers. When you were out on the trail, you could answer nature’s call whenever you needed to – nobody was around, so you never had to wait. But that freedom came at a price. After weeks in the wilderness, my ability to hold it had pretty much disappeared. Back in town, where you couldn’t just step off the path and go, it was a stressful scramble to find a bathroom in time, my bladder muscles long out of practice at holding anything in.
Business taken care of stealthily, my stomach was now screaming for food. I made my way to the grocery store and loaded up my basket: a cinnamon roll, a microwave-warmed breakfast burrito, an iced coffee, and an entire jug of orange juice. Breakfast of champions. I sat outside at a picnic table, enjoying my feast under the blueing sky. I checked the group chat I maintained with “Grazer,” “Lennon,” Tom and “Three Moons.” We’re leaving Grand Lake this afternoon! “Lennon” had written. A jolt of joy ran through me. They were still in town, and I had a chance to see them.
As if on cue, a familiar figure came rambling up with a big grin – Tom! We hugged each other like long-lost kin, sharing stories as the minutes slipped by. Before long, “Lennon” and “Grazer” joined us too – her Southern drawl, his British wit, his contagious laughter. I had missed them. For a brief moment, we were together again, as if we had never parted ways. They left sooner than I wished, but I knew, deep down, that I’d see them again.
Sunday, September 8th – Community Center, Grand Lake, CO
The morning broke bright and clean as my eyes opened early. I had pitched my tent in the small grassy plot outside the town’s community center, where they let hikers stay for a small fee. Rest had been deep, and I felt ready to get back on the trail.
I opened the vestibule of my tent and stood up to go to the restroom.
“Argh!” The sound escaped before I could catch it. A bolt of pain shot up from my foot, as if I were driving a spike straight into it. I wobbled into the building. Every step caused excruciating pain. Something had worsened overnight, something that I couldn’t see. My thoughts ran wild. What happened? Somehow, while I felt better the past two days, my foot had gone back to square one. Did I break something? Can I even hike? And yet, somehow, I felt this quiet, steady pull toward the trail – deep and unrelenting. Even as my thoughts spun, my body moved on its own like some sleepwalking corpse, going through the motion of breaking camp and getting ready to hike. It was as if my brain had disconnected entirely, leaving my legs to move forward, guided by some quiet, automatic instinct.
Around 11 am, I was on my way, walking slowly on a street that led to the lakeshore trail. The dirt path was busy – every gaze from a stranger felt like they could see my weakness. I hated that. I limped like an injured animal on the side – hurt, defeated. Suddenly, I passed a hiker who stopped me in my tracks. Both his legs were gone, replaced by prosthetics that carried him steadily up the trail. Despite my own troubles, I felt nothing but awe. In that instant, my injury shrank into perspective, and a deep sense of gratitude washed over me. Yes, I was hurting – but here was someone with a far greater challenge, moving onward without excuses. Perspective was a powerful kind of medicine.
While the path seemed easy, I slogged through it. Light rain came and went, and the sky darkened in scattered patches. I felt more worn-out than I expected – every careful, painful step, every thought spent trying to ease the ache in my foot, was taking a quiet but steady toll on my body and mind.
By evening, I was at Monarch Lake, a familiar sight I’d first met years ago on my first trip to Colorado. I ate my dinner while watching an ant wrestle a fallen morsel of my ramen dinner, dragging it with tiny but determined legs across the soil. Its world was different – it had no idea what was going on in mine. But although our struggles weren’t the same, we were both survivors under the same darkening sky.
II. Don’t Be Moosin’ Around
I woke to the steady rush of the river tumbling out from the lake. My foot, though still aching, felt a fraction better than the day before. Still, I stepped on the trail limping hard. At that point, my routine was two ibuprofens in the morning and two more in the afternoon – I felt like a drug addict.
I climbed out of Monarch Lake and left the boundaries of Rocky Mountains National Park. The sky turned a heavy grey and hinted at rain, as it usually did in the afternoon. The trail led me through a burn scar, blackened and raw, before pushing me back onto the ridges. As I walked by the last cluster of trees, my eyes caught movement – three shapes shifting gently in the brush. A family of moose! The old bull grazed apart, while the mother and young buck lingered just a few meters away.
I dropped my pack, grabbed my camera, slipped behind some bushes, and crouched low. Inch by careful inch, I moved closer. The bull was larger than I’d expected – older, with a wide chest and thick, rugged antlers. I clicked a few shots, then realized that he had turned fully toward me, eyes sharp and fixed. His breath came out in heavy huffs; his hoof scraped the earth like a bull in an arena, ready to charge.
The day before, I’d read one of those information boards made for tourists about the signals a moose gave when it was ready to fight. It was ticking all the boxes. Realizing that this was a bad idea on my end, I slowly turned away, retracing my steps back toward the trail. Glancing behind, I saw the bull had moved forward, stalking me. “Shit,” I whispered while taking slow, deliberate steps. No sudden moves. No reason to start a fight I couldn’t win. When I finally reached the trail, the bull halted – still watching, still daring me to challenge him.
Never again, I told myself. This was foolish and reckless.
I topped the ridge and took in the world. The town of Winter Park stretched out before me while several rain clouds darkened the peaks beyond as the sun began its slow descent. Walking on ridges like this was some of my favorite kinds of trail – a place where the horizon ran forever, where one could witness the whole world! I spent time looking far into the country and wondered. What were these lights? What town was that? What trail ran up that mountain? What kind of pass would take me into those jagged hills?
Up there, some might say it made them feel like kings and queens. But not me. I felt humbled under all that sky. Small and blessed to be a part of it. I didn’t own any of this – who could? I was only a visitor, passing through, searching for something deeper with each mile. And day after day, I was finding it.
By the time I reached Rollins Pass, my belly was empty, so I cooked dinner there before dropping onto a dirt road that ran just below the trail to avoid thunderheads that were piling up. I pitched my tent in the dark, tucked against the road. A few hours of restless sleep later, I was up again, moving toward James Peak as dawn crept up.
The climb was steep, my foot still screaming in pain. Eventually, I gained the summit just as the first rays broke across the sky. To the East, a band of golden mist hovered on the horizon – Denver. To the West, Winter Park’s lights faded beneath the glowing sky. The spectacle was of a rare beauty. But the wind was fierce up there, slicing through my clothes like a cool knife. No matter how many layers I wore, that wind found a way in, and it forced me off the top.
I descended from the summit rapidly, regaining usage of my hands as they thawed with the elevation loss. In the afternoon, I hiked up towards Mount Flora. The trail was rougher up there – rocks loose and steep – and the wind fought me every step of the way, poking me as if it tried to make me lose my temper. The altitude got me and stripped me of much-needed oxygen. Anger built as my body and the trail rebelled against me. Suddenly, my bad foot caught a moving rock and slid. I nearly went down. White pain shot up my leg. And then it broke – all my frustration, my stubborn patience, the broken hope, the suffering and exhaustion of the past two weeks spilling out. In a burst of fury, I swung my trekking pole like a woodsman with an axe, smashing it hard against the rock again and again until my hands went still and my breathing slowed.
That was all it took to find my focus again. Rain began to spit as I pressed onward. Raging thunderstorms circled me like sharks stalking their next kill, striking the ground with savage, unpredictable force. Dark curtains of rain and hail swept across the landscape, cutting off every line of sight as if their trap were snapping shut. It was a game of cat and mouse, and I was the mouse.
I reached Flora’s summit but wasted no time there. The weather was menacing, so I dropped quickly into shelter at a warming hut along the trail. By the time I was set up inside, rain was hammering on the roof. A few tourists came and went – most hardly noticing me as I laid out my pad and dug out my pot.
Wednesday, September 11th
When I rose the next morning, I felt stiffness in my bones from the restless sleep that came with the hut – a mouse had kept me company all night. Still, I was determined to have a good day. I walked out into the dark, passed a man leaning on his car and smoking at the trailhead, then crossed the highway carefully before heading up again.
The climb was slow, my foot aching as my muscles warmed up. Too early at the summit, I huddled in the freezing dark until the first streaks of color broke across the east – golds and pinks and deep blue – a melody of light. I took a few photos before moving again to stay warm.
As morning advanced, the sun worked its gentle magic, lighting the hillsides and picking out patches of snow on the distant peaks – early signs of the winter that was already on its way.
I progressed through green valleys before climbing back up on a ridge for a few miles without water. Dark clouds built sooner than usual, but I kept my pace and admired the world all around me.
I paused at the Silverthorne junction where an alternative dirt road dipped down toward a lower, easier trail. I never considered leaving the high route. Injured or not, I’d keep my path across these wild ridges. I took my lunch against the embankment. An old woman appeared from nowhere, hiking the road for a day’s outing. She was kind, wished me luck, and snapped my picture before moving on. I wondered, as I often did, what people might do with those photos – some small proof they’d crossed paths with a lone hiker.
I pushed on and topped the last summit before my descent to the highway. Up there, the world opened up in every direction – so beautiful, so immense, so impossibly high. I could see forever, including threatening dark clouds already massing on the horizon. Time to go.
The trail down was no less stunning, and before long, my boots hit pavement at I-70, where “Beer Slide” would be meeting me. I’d first hiked with him on the PCT last year, forging a bond as we crossed the Sierra Nevada together – climbing icy passes, fording wild rivers, and riding out some fierce snowstorms.
The rain came down hard just as I reached the roadside, so I ducked into a porta-potty to wait. A few minutes later, a horn honked outside, and when I pushed the door open, there was Beer Slide in his car, grinning.
“Man, you look rough,” he chuckled as I climbed in. Eleven days without a shower or clean clothes will do that.
“Whew – I can smell you already,” he added, cracking a window as he laughed.
We rolled back toward town, grabbed dinner at McDonald’s, then swung by the grocery store. When we finally made it to his apartment, I took a long, hot shower. Washing off all that trail dust, I felt like a new person again.
