at 39.5394, -105.9437
Got up above treeline today for the first time, and got a reminder of why I am out here, why I am so drawn to these mountains. It’s not just that they are beautiful; lots of things are beautiful. It’s the scale.
When you are walking among 13,000 foot giants they are no longer a pretty abstraction on a distant skyline. They dominate your senses and demand your attention and force you to consider, however subliminally, your place in the universe. The tiny sky pilot underfoot, the mountain above, the sky beyond: they force an expansion of the world and of the self.
mile 83, Georgia Pass and Mt Guyot
Met with hikers Veronica and Mark again, Matt and Shannon, and Joey Smith, also of Boulder. But he is a much faster hiker and I won’t see him again – after he gets to Durango he will hitch to the point where the Continental Divide Trail enters Colorado from New Mexico, and then will hike back to Boulder.