After the great day that was yesterday today I felt kinda…flat. Probably because the last two days had required maximum effort and probably because I wasn’t eating enough. I still was not even remotely hungry but I forced down some bars for breakfast. There were not many calories in them though, so not sure how much good they did.

The trail was pretty uninspiring, but at least it was “all downhill to Leadville” as one hiker said when packing up this morning (Spoiler: It was not). The trail followed an old Jeep road for most of the day, fun on a bike but not to hike. In fact there were a few sections that seemed custom built for bikes, lots of berms. Honestly I felt vaguely ridiculous walking down that section. It did get me thinking about bikepacking again though, because a lot of this trail would be fun on a bike.

After a few hours of steep descent the trail flattened out and I hit Camp Hale, which is a famous landmark on the CT. Camp Hale is an old, ruined barracks building from World War 2. Cool, but eerie. I had a break there and forced myself to eat, though it wasn’t much. I cannot express how weird it is to have no appetite. I have, unfortunatley, always enjoyed eating junk like chocolate etc. but right now the thought of eating anything, especially junk, makes me throw up in my mouth a little.

I checked the map before setting off again and was devastated to learn that the trail went up after Camp Hale. Like, a lot. It was pretty much up all the way to Leadville. So much for downhill all the way.

It wasn’t only my morale that had taken a beating, my energy levels dropped drastically the more I climbed, and walking, even on the rare flat sections, was becoming a struggle. I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on with me. It was then I realised that I hadn’t had electrolytes today, and although I had eaten, I don’t think there was enough salt etc. to replace what I was losing. Obviously my brain had slowed down a fair bit as well, as this should have been super obvious. I felt instantly better after sculling some gatorade mix, like I just had a Mario mushroom power up.

I had a huge smile on my face when I hit the trail head, but it wavered a little when I was presented with an empty car park and an empty road. It was gone entirely after I apent another 15 minutes waiting by the road and saw no cars heading down to Leadville. This was pretty odd, it was early in the afternoon and Leadville is a pretty big town. Where the hell was everyone? I tried to call some trail angels in the area, but reception was spotty. Well…shit! What the hell do I do?

In the midst of my mild panic I spotted a dodgy looking van coming out from a side road and decided to stick my thumb out. Honestly, the van just needed “Free Candy” written badly on the side to complete its ‘serial killer’ aesthetic.

Thankfully the driver, Taylor, was not a serial killer, and graciously gave me a ride to Leadville. She mentioned that the road to Leadville was closed for some reason, hence no cars, so I was lucky I saw her.

Leadville is an old mining town, was then pretty much a ghost town, before being revived by skiing, hiking and mountain biking tourists. I loved Leadville. There’s really not much to the town, but what there was was pretty damn cool.

I should have better words to describe it, but I am tired and its better than “Leadville nice. Me like”

I had an amazingly good sandwhich at the Silver Dollar, along with about 75 Colorado Colas before I headed to my accommodation for the next two nights. The hostels in town were full, so I splurged on an AirBNB (which was still far cheaper than a hotel), which had a big hippie vibe. After a shower and change of clothes I lay down on the bed, just to test it out…and slept for 13 hours.