Day 91, Mineral Basin to Hancock Lake

Our campsite was perched just below the treeline on a slope of Mount Kruetzer. As soon as I began walking, I noticed the smoke had become significantly thicker overnight. A brown-gray cast made the sky gloomy and nearly blocked out the sun.

Oblong-leaf bluebells and other wildflowers that grew along the trail were the only bright objects to see.

The trail soon climbed above the treeline. I had difficulty getting started again this morning. I felt as if I was carrying lead weights on my legs. This has become a recurring problem for me in the morning and is probably a sign I need to add more carbohydrates to my breakfast.

With a jumble of rocks and a dirty sky, the terrain took on an other-world spookiness. Sprinkles noticed that too. She caught up to me when I stopped to take a photo of some wildflowers and said, “The flowers are nice here on Mars.”

The flowers that attracted my attention were narcissus anemone. In Colorado and Wyoming, this plant is only found in a few high-mountain alpine locations. It is more common in Alaska and northwest Canada.

The sun didn't get much brighter as it climbed higher. It was still a small orb of orange fighting to be seen in the thick brown sky.

The first climb of the morning wasn't overly strenuous, and I gradually got over my sluggish start. The trail went up a shoulder of Emma Burr Mountain, which stands at 13,538 feet high.

This is one of the few mountains in Colorado that is named for a woman, though oddly, no one seems to know who she was.

After going up about 800 feet in 2.9 miles and reaching the top of the shoulder, the trail started a slightly steeper descent.

The terrain was just as rugged on the other side, but the trail had been constructed well and didn't have many rocks.

A marmot sitting on a large boulder watched me as I passed by.

Although it looked as if the trail might drop much deeper into a valley, it made a turn at a stream and then climbed up a ridge. I stopped for a short break at the stream.

While I was stopped, I looked across the valley. Mountains on the other side were barely visible through the smoke.

The climb from the stream was also not strenuous. Many switchbacks helped to make it less steep.

I lost sight of Top O' and OT again soon after we continued the climb. Although I couldn't keep up with them, I was feeling stronger than this morning.

By mid-afternoon, the smoke had cleared enough that I could see clouds and patches of blue. Nevertheless, enough smoke lingered in the sky that my eyes were starting to sting.

This climb wasn't nearly as steep and didn't ascend as high as the others today. As the sky gradually brightened, the day became much less gloomy.

The last high point of the trail today was a pass near Tunnel Lake. When I saw the lake on the map, I thought "Tunnel" was an odd name for a lake, but I soon learned why it was given that name.

Near the bottom of the descent, something unexpected came into view. I hadn't spent much time looking ahead in the Guthook app, so I didn't know the trail would turn to follow an old railroad bed, though that became obvious as soon as I saw it.

The trail took the path of tracks that had been laid around 1880. If the CDT had turned left at the railroad bed, it would have gone to Alpine Tunnel. That's how Tunnel Lake got its name.

The tunnel was 1,772 feet long but is now collapsed on both ends.

Soon after I made the turn, I could see remnants of the track's wooden ties. The rails had been removed more than 100 years ago.

This was a route of the Denver, South Pass & Pacific Railroad, which served mines and the communities that sprung up around them. It's been said that as many as 10,000 men were employed to construct the tunnel and tracks.

The effort and expense involved in constructing a railroad in these mountains show how much the owners hoped to profit from the mining boom that was underway. Their investment paid off at first but soon turned bad because of a string of catastrophes. The owners went bankrupt more than once, and mining diminished until it was no longer sufficient to sustain the railroad.

The tracks were pulled up less than 30 years after trains first ran on them.

The disasters that doomed the railroad were due largely to the unforgiving terrain and weather. With massive snowfalls in winter and unstable geology, the tracks were closed and severely damaged many times during the railroad's short period of operation. In one horrifying incident, several people were killed when a small town was buried in a snow avalanche.

I could see how keeping the tracks open was a constant struggle. At above 11,000 feet, the tracks would be buried in several feet of snow for many months of the year. Several large boulders covered the route that was now the trail, which showed the instability of the mountainside.

We followed the railroad bed for nearly three miles. Before the end, a sign pointed to a new trail that turned off the old tracks. The new section was constructed so recently that it didn't appear on Guthook, though it was mentioned in a couple of comments. It didn't look like anyone had walked on it.

Top O' said some NOBO section hikers told him the old route was a better way to go, so we decided to stick with it. The two trails would soon reconnect anyway, and as best as we could guess, both sections were about the same length.

After the trail split, the railroad bed was smoother, with fewer large rocks and boulders. The trail went past a bend called Sawmill Curve. A steep grade and a sharp curve made this the site of several train derailments.

Soon after we walked past the curve, rain began to fall and some thunder rumbled in the distance. It wasn't heavy rainfall, but it looked worse in the direction we were walking.

I stopped to put on my rain gear, and as so often happens, the rain stopped soon after that. Still seeing rain ahead of me, however, I decided to keep my rain gear on and didn't take it off until the rain dissipated.

I was glad we had decided to take the old route instead of the new trail because we passed another historic site. There wasn't much left to look at, but we walked through the ruins of a mining town called Hancock.

Nearly 200 people lived here during the mining boom days of the late 1880s. It became a ghost town then the railroad shut down for good in 1910.

Where the new trail rejoined with the old trail, the footpath left an old road and entered a wide alpine valley. A sign posted here warned this was a fragile tundra.

Hancock Lake was in the middle of the valley, though really it was two lakes. The lower one was much larger.

We reached the lower lake at 5:30 p.m., then spent several minutes looking for a spot to set up our tents. We needed some time because we wanted to find a clear spot where we wouldn't trample on sensitive foliage. The site also needed to be sufficiently far from the lake.

By 7 p.m., the sky above us was bright blue with a few puffy clouds. This was the first time all day it looked clear of smoke.

Then I turned to look north and saw the sky in that direction was still very smokey. It seemed the rain that fell on us had only cleared the air in the immediate area.

After I finished eating dinner and crawled into my tent, the wind picked up, and a light sprinkle of rain began to fall. I hoped this would keep the smoke away from us, but the rain didn’t continue for long.

I had some difficulty breathing overnight. We were camped at 11,681 feet. That was 240 feet lower in elevation than last night when I didn't notice any breathing problems. Was the smoke causing my problem, or was it the elevation? I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing the smoke was irritating my lungs as much as it was my eyes.