Day 30 – Tuesday 8/11/2920 – Silverthorne Alternative 10.1 – partially cloudy, sunny, warm. Justin and I slept overnight at a US Forest service area which was away from the trail. I woke at 5:15 am and Justin at 5:30 am. We left the campsite at 6:00 am and was back at the trailhead at 6:35 am. I slack packed the next 3 miles through Silverthorne to another trailhead on the other side of town. There I called Kathy and Katie, who was visiting, and had a nice chat with both of them. Afterwards at 8 am I headed off. Next I’ll see Justin at Copper Mountain in two days. The trail was quite flat. It came to a large waterfalls. There were day hikers there too. The trail showed I had to hand climb a steep narrow crevice. So up I went. About 10-15’ up I couldn’t find a hand hold. I was worried about falling backwards with my heavy pack on. Very carefully I found a hold and with difficulty I pull myself up. Whew! Then trail disappeared into underbrush so I scrambled through it. At last I found the actual trail. Welcome to hiking an alternate trail. From then on it would climb and then flatten, climb and flatten. At the top I could see the whole valley. As I was eating my lunch another hiker appeared who was new to section hiking. He was trying it for 8 days. He had no trail name yet. He said after my next climb it would be downhill until ten mile creek. I got to the creek at 2:45 pm. There I met a couple who were day hiking. They were from Boerne TX which is just south of Austin TX. Overall it was a good day. I was done at a reasonable time and didn’t feel like a zombie. Maybe it was because I ate my candy snack as soon as I got settled to give me some late afternoon calories. I don’t know.
