It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Hiking from Conundrum Hot Springs to Triangle Pass brought us through the most spectacular, eye-wrenchingly beautiful scenery I have ever beheld or imagined--and that's from someone who's seen both Kauai's Na Pali coast and Emlet laughing. Unfortunately, my health was not up to the task and I spent a lot of time looking at my feet. I was trudging, not hiking.
We passed treeline almost immediately and no thousand feet up has ever felt like so much to me. I had had a nice smooth shoulder in mind and when I finally saw the already steep trail angle up again for the final ascent, I gasped, "I can't do that!" and really could not imagine how I could. But I could, the way I had moved for the previous two hours: one foot ahead of the other, sometimes just ahead of the other.
At Triangle Pass, we rested, drank, and ate, and let the vistas back into Pitkin County and ahead into Gunnison County dazzle us. I was glad of the GPS indicating where Copper Pass ascended from the trail down to Copper Lake, because the trail itself didn't look like much. RDC wanted to go down into the bowl and up again closer to the Copper Pass, but leaving the trail, descending into the scree fields, looked like rockslides and severe injury waiting to happen.
I was steadier where the trail had washed away from the scree, leaving dirt, because all I could think of was rockslides and how the one best friend died in The Last Season. RDC found his footing better in the scree, because on his every footfall in the dirt, he felt himself--15 pounds heavier than I and with five more pounds on his pack--slip. I had held his hand on some stream crossings, not because I could keep him from falling but because that handhold is another point of reference for balance, and I did the same here. I could have traversed this bit on two points while being careful to lean starboard into the mountain rather than port toward the drop, but his being nervous and slippery frightened me onto a third point, my right hand. I went ahead, to scout footholds.
We both were supremely glad to reach Copper Pass with all of our bones and ligaments and backpacks in the right places. I had been so supercharged with adrenaline that I had actually breathed clearly, but on reaching the summit and comparative safety I clogged up again, and RDC had been charged enough to become jittery, which is exactly what he didn't want. But we had made it, and if I ever want to hike between Aspen and Crested Butte again I will not take that pass.
At Triangle Pass, I had already asked that we eliminate the detour down to Copper Lake. After the fright and delay the traverse between passes caused, I was even gladder now to face back into Pitkin County and down.
The landscape down from Copper Pass into East Maroon Canyon nearly compelled me to break into song--"The Hills Are Alive," as either Julie Andrews or Ewan McGregor did it, and of course the last scene of "The Sound of Music" with the von Trapps traipsing into Switzerland. It was beautiful enough that I wouldn't so violate its sanctity, of course.
We violated it a little: we tested the valley's echo, which was in terrific voice and reverberated for many seconds.
This valley looked and felt a little more like home. There was moss! and big trees! and fallen trees! and babbling burns and becks and brooks, though I am not allowed to say "brook" west of the Mississippi and perhaps not "beck" or "burn" at all. And a lot like Colorado: sunshine and mountains and big trees and contorted rock and lightning strikes and vistas and illegal cairns and no litter and creeks and criks. From the top of Copper Pass and for all the miles before the end of our trek, we had eyefuls of the Maroon Bells and sister peaks--not like home at all--and the beauty bowled us over from every new perspective.
Uphill is laborious but downhill is abusive. I had a physical the week before I left and came away with a referral to sports medicine and words like "meniscus" and "MRI" in my head, none of which did me any good here. We cranked right along when the trail approached level but both goosed gingerly along any descent.
We wanted to get far enough down and out that Thursday's trek wouldn't be all day. I could have continued past 4:30, I thought, but ahead of us the topographical lines began to run very close together: bad camping, too steep. Our first trailside exploration showed us dead snags, bear scat, and many game trails, and we pressed on. Just past a little stream that cross the trail, we found what was obviously a popular site. Not too popular: we hadn't seen another human for 30 hours. But frequented enough that perhaps bears would avoid it. Or perhaps prefer it, for scavenging.
Overnight I managed to sleep through a storm whose thunder shook the valley for long moments after every crack.