The Beginnings of Preparation

Usually when planning a long-distance backpacking trip of any sort, there is a decent amount of preparation involved—if you are a planner like me, that is.  There are a few people out there who enjoy flying by the seat of the pants and just winging it.  I'm not in the category.  Besides, the Colorado Trail is a little more remote and less accessible than a trail such as the Appalachian Trail, and so planning becomes a little more imperative if one enjoys being able to eat and find fresh water.  As Ben and I get ready to hike the Colorado Trail this summer, we have begun our time of preparation by: 

1.  Purchasing the Colorado Trail official guidebook and planning out our resupply locations (and where we can find a shower!)

2.  I have already dehydrated several meals, but have many more to go.  

3.  We have barely begun, but we have started physical training, which includes any machine that works the legs, hiking, running, and doing "stairs".  A weighted pack will be added a bit later, as well as longer hikes on the weekends.  

4.  Checking snow reports and trail conditions to determine our start date (as of now, the mountains still have a lot of snow from a hard winter, and so we may have to delay our originally planned start date of June 10th.  We are already anticipating at least June 15th, unless Colorado has an unexpectedly warm spring.)

As the hike gets closer, there will be other items on the agenda, like scoping out some of the water sources, looking at resupply locations a little bit closer (maybe even printing maps of the towns), packing up food packages to be shipped at a later date, purchasing a few gear necessities, etc.  We’ll keep you updated.