Well, considering my short time frame for planning, I’ll get right on it! Noting of course, that I have read (and re-read) the book or already hiked part of the trail or continue to follow blogs about the trail……
So in doing some research for the trail these are some resources that I found. There are some really helpful and handy people out there. Thank you to all who put so much effort into compiling information!
Great Over-All Resources:
Paul Magnanti’s Colorado Trail End to End
If I want to hike any of the 14ers along the trail Jamie Compos listed them all out!
Of Course there’s the Official Website of the Colorado Trail
In addition to the Official Colorado Trail book from the Colorado Mountain Club, I also bought Yogi’s Colorado Trail Handbook for another opinion and additional resource
Maps:
I’ll be using the Topo maps by Bear Creek Survey which you can buy online at the Colorado Trail Foundation Store
Other Things to Consider:
I need to get my CORSAR card, which I plan to do while buying a fishing license this next week.
What Will I eat? I’ve ordered a few books and have a few here. I’ll probably dehydrate some & buy some. This will be a new process for me. I’ve never planned for a trip this long for myself. Lots of experimental dehydration will happen…..ha! I have a really cool app on my phone however called My Fitness Pal that can help me calculate calories of meals I prepare. Handy.
Find hiking partners: I’ve invited my dad, several friends and my husband to join me on different parts of the trip. So I’m hoping I have hiking partners most of the time.
Find people to help fill in at the store my husband and I own for Sep. So I need to hire and train somebody this next month too. But I kind of wanted to do that anyway, so this is good motivation.
And of course, my IT- how far will I hike per day. This for me will be the most challenging. I have a general idea, but I don’t know how I will react for sure after I’ve been out there for past two weeks. In the past I usually get acclimated pretty quickly and could feel really strong within two weeks. But I’ve never hiked 15+ mi a day for that long in a row either. When will I need a rest day, and do I actually have time to take one? Hmmmm…… If I have 30 days that is an average of 16.16mi a day if I stick strictly to the trail and never take a break. Either way I pretty well need to be in Durango by Sep 24. I could try to start and do the first three segments and then skip segments 4-6 which I have already hiked and start seg 7 and hike on from there. This would give me 60 less miles to make. Which would bring my daily average down to 14.16. Maybe I’ll see if I can work that option out!