A Great Day

It's all about the food.  I go to bed thinking about breakfast.  After breakfast it's about lunch.  And after lunch it's what's for dinner?  

We've been seeing moose droppings the last couple of days but no moose.  Other hikers have seen them though.  The trail finished it's climb today back into the mountains and has stayed close to 12,000 feet.  I've been smiling all day.

We ran into more snow but it was just patches and not a big deal.  In the late afternoon we had to cross Snow Mesa, a 3.5 mile stretch of open and exposed ground.  

We didn't want to be caught in a thunderstorm on it.  There were dark clouds but they didn't look like they would do anything so we kept going.  In spite of our confidence we still felt vulnerable and kept checking behind us for any change.  Our goal was to make the 23 miles to Spring Creek Pass today but between reunions with northbound hikers and all of the pictures I had to stop and take I had my doubts.  But make it we did and even got a ride to Lake City where Sailor and the others had arrived earlier.  We are staying at the Ravens Rest Hostel owned by a thru hiker.  It's a great hostel. Lake City is a small mountain town at the edge of the San Juan range.  There seems to be a lot of fly fishing here and it depends heavily on the outdoor tourism industry.