Searching for gold...

What a day! Today was the absolute most beautiful day in the mountains. For starters, we managed to get going very early since we knew we had a big day ahead of us.

Day 190
9-13-2006
Started: Canon City, CO
Finished: Cripple Creek, CO
Today's Miles: 26.5
Total Miles:2628.5

What a day! Today was the absolute most beautiful day in the mountains. For starters, we managed to get going very early since we knew we had a big day ahead of us. When we woke this morning we were at an elevation of just over 5000ft and by the end of the day would reach more than 9300ft. We had our work cut out for us because we are still pushing our cart and have not mailed the extra gear we've been able to tote with us because we've had the extra room and could push it. You know how the space equation goes, if you have a one bedroom house it's filled up with stuff, and if you move into a two bedroom home you somehow manage to accumulate more stuff so that the space is once again full. Well, our cart has allowed us to accumulate more stuff. Today, having more stuff came back to haunt us! As soon as we started heading for the mountains we soon found ourselves overwhelmed with their beauty and were engulfed in their grandness. The first part of our day we followed paved roads that meandered through the mountainside and walked by many beautiful ranches as we envied the homeowners inside. We found ourselves dodging the occasional line of cars that were being escorted through the mountains as they drove around the fresh asphalt that was being laid. For about two miles today we actually were forced to walk on brand new hot pavement that stuck to our shoes and caused everything we stepped on to stick to our shoes. But, nothing seemed to matter because we were feeling so spoiled to be spending the day in one of the most beautiful places either of us has ever seen. Usually Randy is the one who flashes most of the pictures, mainly because he does not like to be in any of them, but today we passed the camera back and forth as we both tried to capture the beauty of the mountains. After a short break for lunch, we started our treck down, or we should say, Up, Shelf Road. The Road is a very narrow and bumpy dirt road with very steep drop offs. We would be on Shelf Road the rest of the afternoon heading to the small town of Cripple Creek, the "worlds greatest gold camp". At times, we wondered how a single car had enough room to stay on the road, and even found ourselves walking toward the center of the road to avoid any fatal accidents that could easily occur with the stumble of our feet. We were truly taken by the beauty of the mountains today and have both agreed that today was our favorite location on the trail so far. The drastic change in scenery probably influenced our appreciation of the landscape somewhat, but the hike along the "shelf" that towers over the cripple creek as it runs through the canyon below is most definitely a hike we will always remember. When Sheri turned the first corner leading into the Canyon and took her first steps out on to the "shelf" she actually had a tear run down her cheek. She was crying happy tears from having become a bit overwhelmed at how lucky we are to be in such an amazing place. The "shelf" is literally a shelf of rock that sticks out off the side of a canyon wall that at times has hundreds of feet of rock face towering over you on your left and at the same time drops off hundreds of feet down to the flowing Cripple Creek in the bottom of the Canyon. The powers of nature and her erosive force were on display everywhere we looked. Signs of downcutting through the Canyon by the mighty movement of the water as well as jagged rock outcroppings that continually battle weathering processes all give the landscape it's breathtaking personality. Hiking from where we entered the Canyon to where we reached the town of Cripple Creek took us on an uphill adventure following the "shelf" through a good portion of the Canyon and then following the many twists and turns the Creek made as it cut out it's path of least resistance through the rocky terrain. Shelf Road is the historic wagon road to riches that opened in 1892 allowing stagecoaches and freight wagons to make their way through a previously untraveled wilderness to get to the Cripple Creel Mining district in search of gold. The elevation change was steep at times and there were very few down hill sections. We got a kick out of how many people stopped to speak with us as they slowly and carefully negotiated the narrow road, and when they learned we were going all the way up to the town of Cripple Creek they seemed to enjoy telling us how far away we were from the top of Shelf Road. At first we giggled with the poor souls trapped in all that metal and glass who were having to pay more attention to the pot holes then the beautiful Canyon below and thought, who cares, but after a while the combination of carrying our very heavy packs along with pushing our not so light cart caused us to start to feel a slight annoyance with the negative encouragement we were receiving. Randy decided early on that if Sheri pushed the cart for too long that he would probably end up having to push her uphill, so he took on the brunt of pushing our extra gear most of the way up to over 9300ft. Needless to say, by the time we did reach the top, we were both pretty warn out. At the top of our long and exhausting hike we were rewarded with the historic town of Cripple Creek. The mountainsides all throughout Cripple Creek are covered with scars from the numerous mines that have been dug over the years in search of gold. Ever since a gent named Bob Womack struck gold here in Cripple Creek back in 1890 many a man has tried his luck at finding the precious element. His discovery eventually led to the recovery of more gold than was retrieved in the gold rushes of California and Alaska, therefore becoming the greatest gold camp in the world. The Cripple Creek gold mining district formed on April 5, 1891. Today in Cripple Creek there are still people trying their luck at finding gold, but even more people trying their luck at one of the many casino's in town. The entire Main Street of town is now covered with casino's. We made our way to Bronco Billy's Casino, not to gamble, but to get off our feet and get a bite to eat while we waited for a "professional trail angel" to make his way into town. That's right a "professional". Dick Bratton is the Vice President of the American Discovery Trail Society and the Colorado ADT State Coordinator so he makes it part of his job to help out hikers on their way across the country, making him a "professional trail angel". Dick has been following our Journey and wanted to meet us in Cripple Creek so that we could go over some maps and options for our Colorado terrain. Dick joined us for dinner at Bronco Billy's and even picked up the tab, saying that he must because he couldn't break tradition. He has obviously done this "trail magic" stuff a time or two. After dinner we all went back to Dick's home in the Green Mountain Community and we enjoyed discussing the trail with someone so enthusiastic about the ADT. Dick has a map of the United States that has a different color pin marking the location of the ten travelers who are currently attempting to walk, bike, or ride horseback across America utilizing the ADT. Our pin was the white one. He also keeps a chart that shows each of the travelers daily miles, starting point and ending point, and he has everyone's journals stored in his favorites list on his computer so that he can monitor everyone's progress on a daily basis. We discussed our plans for the rest of our hike and tried not to become discouraged by Dick's opinion that, "you guys are coming through too late and aren't going to make it, it will be impossible!" Dick suggested that we continue to follow the turn by turn guide of the Colorado section to the north and take our time enjoying Colorado with the plan of stopping our hike for the winter and starting back here in Colorado next summer to resume our treck to the Pacific Ocean. We understand the reality that winter is coming quick and with the many high elevations we will have to go through it is more then likely that some of them will be covered with snow. We also know that there are many alternate routes that the ADT has provided so that travelers will have safe options when going through some of the more rugged areas of the trail. Dick said that we should definitely, "hike your own hike", and provided us with an alternate route he calls the Cripple Creek Cutoff so that we could continue to make western progress with the hopes of reaching the Pacific while still following the corridor of the American Discovery Trail. We spent a good amount of time looking at maps and Dick drew the route for us using a highlighter so that we wouldn't have any confusion. We discussed our plan of eliminating our cart and Dick assured us we wouldn't have any problem pushing the cart as far as Buena Vista but that we should definitely go without it from there. Having a resource with local knowledge is priceless when you are hiking in unfamiliar territory. We could have talked with Dick all night but after the exhausting day of hiking 26.5 miles with over 4,000 feet of elevation change we were needing some sleep. Just before we retired for the night Dick surprised us with a gift. He had a shirt for each of us that had the ADT logo printed on it and some patches and pins that were of the ADT logo as well. Dick is definitely a "professional trail angel". We look forward to a good night sleep in a soft bed and can't wait to talk more trail talk with Dick in the morning.

Your Friends on the ADT,
Randy and Sheri
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