5:42 AM: Wake up 3 minutes before “ULTRA Life” alarm on my phone goes off. Again, do you think I was excited to hike these sand dunes? I think so. To wake Nick up, all I had to do was say, “Let’s go see sunrise on the dunes.” From there he was up and ready to go within 5 minutes. I do have to commend him for how he’s been dealing with being thrown into Dawn Patrol. He has been a champ with getting up and ready to start the day at the butt crack of dawn. It’s all part of the ULTRA life.
We then headed down to the trailhead for the dunes. There was only one other car in the parking lot and the sun was just starting to peak over the Sangre de Cristo mountains. There is about .5 mile of flat sand between the trailhead and the dunes. So when you start, the dunes don’t seem that big, but as you approach them, you feel smaller and smaller. Our destination for the hike was Great Dune and possibly Star Dune, the two tallest dunes in the park. Now there are no set trails for the dunes, so we just hiked all over these dunes. We could see Great Dune and just plotted out the route as we went. It was a good introduction to route finding. Once we got through the foothills of the dunes, we were blown away by the sheer mass of these things. We were hiking on millions of pounds sand that had been blown in from hundreds of miles away; it was pretty amazing. We found Great Dune and peak-bagged it, but we weren’t sure where Star Dune was, so we just made a decent loop and hiked out. We were off to gather JJ in Breckenridge.
Once we got to Breck and found “The Ragin’ Jajun” the trip just got a little more ULTRA. Once I discovered the ULTRA life and started spreading the gospel of it, JJ jumped on 150%. So needless to say, the ULTRA factor definitely increased. JJ’s friend, Savannah, worked at a restaurant on Main St. in Breck (The Whale’s Tail) and we went to visit her and get some food. After that, it was off the Breck Golf Course, but unfortunately they didn’t have a tee time until 6 PM. Not too upset about it because it is money in my pocket and so far everything else on the trip has gone without a hitch. We had a couple hours to kill so we went back to Whale’s Tail to chill with Savannah and JJ’s other friend, Josh. It was fun to chill and talk with some people, considering our social interaction level had been pretty low over the past few days. After a couple ULTRAs, it was time to head to camp.
We had passed the road to the trailhead on the way to Breck, and I knew it would be an interesting drive. Once we got back to the road, it was dirt from the beginning. Now flash back 3 years to Southern Utah and Joe, Steve, and I are making the drive to Buckskin Gulch, a slot canyon in the middle of the desert. The road to the trailhead was dirt for 13 miles. I was very proud of Old Blue for making it through that. Now to the present, and for some reason the dirt road we are on had signs saying it was called Buckskin Gulch. You have GOT to be kidding me. What are the odds? I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony. This road got a little dicey in spots, but we made it with minimal problems and made it to Kite Lake basin. This was the coolest campsite I had ever stayed at. With mountains on all side, and surprisingly a bunch of other tents surrounded us. Because this hike knocks out 3 separate 14,000 ft peaks it is very popular. I didn’t mind it too much, because these people had similar interests as myself. We set up camp, ate some dehydrated meals, and watched a sunset through the valley with a giant rainbow at the end of the valley. Hopefully, JJ was now equilibrated with the high altitude because he had been leveling off his gas levels all night. Time to rest up before our big hike. ULTRA day 7/39: COMPLETE
JM
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