Journey Day 449 | CDT Day 112

Sign bordering Collegiate Wilderness, Oct. 4, 1987

10/4/87

Up, cook breakable ramen cup, hike into the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness, which I skim for the next day. Climb up onto a ridge of Mt. Harvard, enjoy excellent high alpine views of the other Collegiates. Waste an hour falsely alarmed by the trail's direction, only realize after going cross country over a ridge off the main peak above three lakes, one like Rainbow Lake. I lose a camouflage bandana I'd been carrying since the California stretch of the Pacific Crest Trail in 1985.

Still I push again, comforted by the Harvard trailhead, Harvard lakes, although a fisherman there isn't too talkative. Daylight leaves too soon again. After a break at a road head, hoof up the road back into the Wilderness. I walk into the dark. Winds gusting, clouds obscure stars, full moon, so abandon plans to go to the pass, camp, cook impatiently at a lake in darkness.