“This is a slog,” I said to David.  “Let’s talk about something to make the time go faster.  Pick a topic.”

David looked at me with a blank face.  “I got nothin’.”

Neither did I.  David, Kevin, Rob E, Gordon and I were about halfway up the 1,700 feet of elevation gain required to reach the Mount Sneffels overlook by the Wilson Creek Summit, the most scenic viewpoint on our five-day hike.  Our backpacks felt twice as heavy as the day before.  We stopped frequently to catch our breath.

One of the best things about spending a week hiking with longtime friends is that it gives us plenty of time to catch up on everything – from the minutiae of our daily lives to our attempts to grapple with life’s Big Questions.  We talked through the latest news from our families, our mutual friends from high school, and our jobs.  We discussed Rob E’s feelings about attending church, Kevin’s unusual decision to hike with two coffee presses, and Gordon’s take on the nature of Truth.  We tried to figure out which aspects of our trip would be most interesting to Rob E’s and David’s dad’s breakfast group.  We talked about selfishness (mostly mine), free will vs. determinism, Nietzsche’s idea of eternal recurrence, and David’s love of shoes with wide toe boxes.

But – during that interminable climb to the Wilson Creek Summit – we were so exhausted that for once we mostly trudged forward in silence.  It was a welcome relief when we finally reached the summit, just a short walk away from the Sneffels overlook, which we’d heard described as one of the most beautiful spots in all of Colorado.  The view lived up to the hype.  We’d arrived at a high point of our trip, literally and figuratively.

 

 

 

 

This was our group’s fourth annual hiking trip.  In 2021 we explored southern Utah, in 2022 we went to Yosemite, and in 2023 we hiked the Lost Coast.  Work commitments prevented Gordon from making those first three trips, and it was awesome that he was able to join this year.  Kevin and David came up with the idea of tackling the Sneffels Traverse, a five-day, 30-mile, hut-to-hut hike in southwestern Colorado that basically runs from Telluride to Ouray.  Each of the simple one-room huts had eight bunks with foam mats, sleeping bags, and a propane stove, which significantly reduced the amount of gear we needed to carry.  The distance between huts was never much more than eight miles, but the near-constant elevation changes added an extra level of difficulty.  The trail was usually either going up or down, often steeply.

We started the trip by meeting in Montrose, Colorado.  Early the next morning we left our cars in Ouray and took a shuttle to Last Dollar Pass, just a few as-the-crow-flies miles from Telluride.  On the shuttle we met Mark and Sue, an older couple from Columbus, Ohio who’d be sharing the huts with us each night.  Mark and Sue were veteran hikers who subscribed to the ultralight ethos, and we marveled at the size of their backpacks.  Mark said his pack weighed just 16 pounds, less than half as much as ours.  “Well, I wouldn’t enjoy hiking if I couldn’t have good coffee in the mornings,” said Kevin, standing behind his decision to bring two French presses.

We shouldered our packs at the Alder Creek trailhead and started hiking.  The miles passed smoothly as we walked through aspen groves that occasionally opened up to reveal views of the jagged peaks of the San Juan mountains.  The weather was perfect that day and for our entire hike – cool in the mornings and evenings, pleasantly sunny and warm during the days.  After only a few hours we arrived at the first hut, 10,610 feet above sea level.

 

 

 

The next day we hiked a little over eight miles, stopping along the way to enjoy the views and play a few rounds of Frisbee golf.

 

 

 

 

 

Our second hut, which we reached in the early afternoon, was accessible by road, and we’d arranged to have a delivery of food and beer waiting for us.  Beers are a rare luxury on most multi-day backcountry hikes, and – after cooling them in a stream – we settled down in a shady Aspen copse and happily drank every can.  Our rambling conversation was in turns philosophical, comical, emotional, and personal, and ended with the profound observation that Kevin’s outfit made him look like a rebel commander on the ice planet Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back.  We begged him to protect the power generators so that Han and Leia could make their escape.

 

 

 

By the time we finished dinner Mark and Sue were long asleep, adhering to an extreme “early to bed and early to rise” routine that had them packing up (loudly) and hitting the trail at 5am each morning, the sky still so dark that they had to use headlamps.  We leisurely enjoyed our morning coffee (thanks again Kevin!) and started our third day on the trail with a nine mile roundtrip side hike to lower Blue Lake, where everyone except me bravely polar-plunged into the icy, aquamarine water.

 

 

 

 

 

Our time at lower Blue Lake was one of the highlights of the trip, but going there meant that we were already fatigued before we even started hiking to the next hut.  We only had to cover five more miles, but that stretch included the steep climb to Wilson Creek Summit.  It took a lot out of us, but – with a few exceptions – the hiking would be all downhill from there.

 

 

On our fourth day we only had to knock out a relatively easy five miles to reach our fourth and final hut, 9,920 feet above sea level.  Mark and Sue decided to hike all the way out that day, which meant we had the hut to ourselves.  Unfortunately it was located in the middle of grazing land, and we were surrounded by a herd of cows that all seemed to be suffering from gastrointestinal issues.  The two doctors in our group decided it would be a good idea to boil our creek water before filtering it.

 

 

 

We woke up early the next morning, said goodbye to our new cow friends, and hiked the final seven miles back down to Ouray.  After a big lunch at the Ouray Brewery, we headed over to the (clothing-optional) Orvis Hot Springs for an afternoon soak.  Hanging out in 100-degree water with limited shade on a sunny 90-degree day with a bunch of nudists turned out not to be my scene, and after about 20 minutes I retreated to the reception area to read.  The rest of the group emerged a couple hours later looking very content and relaxed (and only a little sunburned).

We headed back to Montrose for the night, and before dinner Rob E remembered that it was our mutual high school friend Lori’s birthday.  We FaceTimed Lori, who, coincidentally, was hosting four of our other high school friends – Shana, Laura M, Christine, and Natalie – up at her place in northern Michigan that weekend.  It was great to see them all.  I’m guessing that not many high school classes have a group of five guys getting together on the same weekend as a group of five ladies, all of them still friends, 36 years after graduation.

 

 

We spent the next morning checking out the dramatic views at Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.

 

 

 

From Black Canyon we drove to Telluride for our final night.  None of us were mentally prepared for the reality of being in an extremely popular Colorado mountain town on a summer weekend.  Parking was tough, the streets were crowded, and the restaurants were packed.  That evening we took the gondola up to the less-hectic Mountain Village, where Kevin had met a friend and his wife who happened to be in town, and we ate dinner there before returning to Telluride for a final beer on the roof of the Last Dollar Saloon.

I left early the next morning to start my long drive back to Montana, and everyone else flew home that afternoon.  It was another amazing trip.  How lucky are we to have an opportunity every year to explore such incredible places with such an incredible group of longtime friends?  If all goes as planned we’ll keep the tradition alive next year, likely in one of three places: Havasupai, Grand Teton National Park, or Glacier National Park.