Day 69 – 6/30/13 – 25.7 mi (1183.4)

5:15am “Drop-N-Roll, time to wake up. There’s an awesome sunrise.”

Indeed there was! We got up early in anticipation of bad weather, hoping to get miles in before storms. It ended up being a beautiful morning, and we also had nice trail, dropping down into a forested valley and by day’s end, were below 9000′ for the first time in weeks.

The clouds did start to look ominous around lunchtime, and we got a few drops during our break but nothing major. The trail took us around Monarch Lake, where a ranger asked if we were going to get ice cream at Little Moose Trading Post, just down the road and on trail. Silly question, of course we were going to get ice cream! Imagine our disappointment when we arrived to find them closed. LoveNote got to talking with a man who owned a cabin next to the store and a few minutes later, the man’s entrepreneurial young daughter came out of the cabin with a box of ice cream sandwiches for sale, $1 a piece! We sat at their picnic table and enjoyed the treats and discussed route options.

Wired warned us of major blowdowns on the next few miles of trail, suggesting following the shoreline of Lake Granby instead. We took the suggestion. The shoreline wasn’t so bad, just slow over the uneven rocks.

Then the clouds let loose and we got dumped on. Rain and hail and no cover. We huddled under our groundsheets in a vain attempt to keep dry. It slowed down after probably 20 minutes and we continued on.

We finally got to a good enough place to camp around 8:30 and called it a day. Everything is damp, but who cares? Tomorrow is town day!