Great night in the yurt – best night on the trail so far. It was exciting to meet Triple Crowners, others who understood and shared the passion for long distance hiking. Got out of bed feeling surprisingly refreshed. The twinge in my hip I’d had for the past week was gone. I ate a breakfast of Muesli cereal with Nido powdered milk and set off. Shortly before noon, I caught up to Bill and Keith at the highest point on the Colorado trail at 13,271 ft. Coming off the high point, dark clouds were already starting to form. By the time I got up and over the next 1000 ft climb 5 miles later, the weather was turning. The wind kicked up and the temps dropped 20 degrees in a matter of minutes. I stopped and donned my rain gear and put my pack cover on and continued the last mile for the day to the campsite. Got pelted with a few pieces of hail and a minute or so of light rain but I escaped the worst of it.

When I got down to the lake and campsite I looked up to the pass I’d just come over and it was white with a sheet of hail. Narrow escape. I could see it wasn’t over yet though. Storms were forming to the west and north so I quickly made camp, a supper of spaghetti (at 4pm!), cleaned up and crawled into the tent just in time for the rain.