We Begin!

Colorado Trail Segment 1

Today was a rough day. We had to say good-bye to our loving animals and family members. It was very hard to say good-bye to our pets knowing we probably won't see them for almost a month.

Getting up was rough today. With all the excitement in the air, I'm not sure we slept at all and it felt like the alarm couldn't come soon enough. Finally the alarm went off at 4am. We got up and at an amazing breakfast Pam's mom had made us. Then we piled our gear into the Prius and started making our way to Waterton Canyon TH.

We happen to make it to the TH by 4:30am! We said our good-byes and finally after a year of planning, started our first footstep towards our goal. What an amazing time it was too. It was a cool morning and the trail was flat. Ok, it wasn't exactly a trail yet. This "trail" was actually our first road walk that last about 7 miles. We were rewarded at the end of our 7 mile trek with an amazing water fall from the spillway of the Strontia Springs Reservoir Damn! We took advantage of the couple of shelters located here for some water, 7am snack, and to put on sunscreen.

Now we finally got to go uphill. We left the Denver water maintenance road and headed into the forest were we met our first hikers on the trail. They had got into town from California the night before and decided to walk to the first place you can make camp and turn in for the night.

We were rewarded at the end of our 7 mile trek with an amazing water fall from the spillway of the Strontia Springs Reservoir Damn!

At mile 13.1 we hit the high point for Segment 1 at 7,497 feet. This was the best part of our first day. You could see much of the trail well into Segment 2. Which actually was easier than you might think as all of Segment 2 is a burn area. Only 3 more miles until we call it quits and make camp for the day.

At about 4pm we made to the South Platte River which is the end of Segment 1. Surprisingly there were a lot of people here already! Since we couldn't find a spot near the river we setup camp up on hill. Once camp was made we wondered back down the river and soaked our weary feet in the refreshingly cool river. Little did we know that this spot would be where we met the first member of our tramily (trail family).