Colorado Trail Day 21
Tuesday, August 19, 2025.

Strangely enough, I sleep poorly when I’m in towns and in a proper bed. Last night, I also had to get up a couple of times to contact Happybytes customer service, who are only available during European daytime. We are 8 hours behind them. We partially solved the phone problem; I have to manually select the network instead of automatically.

After having a simple breakfast at the motel, we were ready to hitchhike out of Gunnison and back to the trail. We were prepared for it to take a while. First, we had to hitchhike 12 km (7.5 miles) on Highway 50 to where Highway 114 meets it. Then we had to hitchhike the very lightly trafficked Highway 114 for 43 km (27 miles).
At 8 a.m., we were ready on Highway 50 on the outskirts of Gunnison. The sun was still low, and we had it at our backs. There was a fair amount of traffic, but not heavy. Half an hour passed. Then an hour. Inger was getting impatient. Finally, after one hour and fifteen minutes, Sara and Carsten stopped.
They were trail runners and were going out to train. The incredible thing was that they were going to run on the Colorado Trail where we were headed, but in the opposite direction. In other words, we got a ride all the way there. What a coincidence!

At 10:15 a.m., we were ready to start today’s hike. We followed a small dirt road across an open area, then up a small valley. It was easy to hike on the dirt road, which eventually became a forest service road in the woods. Then it became a steep trail before we hit a forest road again. We wondered how long we would follow it. The answer was: the rest of the day.

It was hot today, and there would be very little water to be found, so I had a few liters in my pack when we started. We took our first break, with food, after 10 km (6 miles). We sat down in the shade of a tree.

Then, after 11.5 km (7.1 miles), we came to an open area and saw a car parked where two dirt roads met. Outside the car were some chairs. Were they campers, or could it be Trail Magic? We walked faster, hoping for the latter.

It turned out to be Apple, who was doing Trail Magic. He had been driving up daily from Gunnison for over a week to hand out drinks to hikers. We sat in the chairs and cooled down with a cold Cola. We also got our water bottles refilled so that I now had 4.5 liters (1.2 gallons) in my pack. I asked how many hikers usually stop by in a day, and he replied 12 to 20.
We thanked him and hiked on.

The landscape alternated between forest and open areas. We came out of a forest and walked down onto a huge plain. The temperature was 28°C (82°F), and it was really hot to be hiking.

After 16 km (10 miles), we took another break before continuing on the plain. We now saw something far ahead of us on the trail that we couldn’t quite figure out what it was. After a while, we saw that a man was coming with something that looked like two horses with packs. But the animals were small, maybe donkeys. Just before we met, we saw that they were llamas, not two, but four with packs.

We talked a little with the man who was hiking from New Mexico and had Tennessee Pass as his goal. Then he told us that there was Trail Magic about one km (0.6 miles) further on, where we could also get hot dogs.

Fantastic. I was longing for something cold to drink. The water in my water bottles was over 30°C (86°F) and not refreshing to drink in this heat.

It was Dean who had this Trail Magic. He had really done everything he could to create the best Trail Magic ever. And he had succeeded. Cold drinks, beer, hot dogs, snacks, cookies, fruit, chocolate, dessert, and I don’t know what. It was the most extensive Trail Magic I’ve visited on my three hikes in the U.S.

«How many hot dogs do you want?» Dean asked, getting the grill ready, while I sat down in a chair. «Two,» I replied.
«Just help yourselves to whatever you want,» Dean continued while he got the hot dogs ready. «There are cold drinks in the cooler.» We each grabbed a Root Beer.

I ended up having three hot dogs, in addition to snacks, desserts, cookies, fruit, and three cold drinks. The one alcoholic beer made me tipsy after just a few sips. We had a really nice time and were tempted to stay there for the night. He had several people who had done that last night, including Mother Goose and Paul. Paul had drunk 10 beers, and the mood had been high. We didn’t doubt it.

We resisted the temptation and thanked him. I am constantly impressed by those who create Trail Magic.
Completely full, we hiked on. We had walked 19 km (12 miles) but wanted to get a few more kilometers behind us before calling it a day.

After 27.5 km (17.1 miles), we came to a place where we could set up the tent. There weren’t many such places in the last few kilometers. The sun was low, and it would set in an hour. We were still full and skipped dinner.

Today’s stage was 27.5 km (17.1 miles) and 660 vertical meters (2,165 feet). We are camping at 3,030 meters (9,941 feet) above sea level.