From Rawlins, Wyoming to Highway 34, Colorado(outside of Grand Lake) is a great stretch. It starts with Rawlins at mile 1381.5 SOBO to Highway 34 at mile 1616 SOBO. Since we flipped up to Rawlins and did the Gread Divide Basin going north, going there and heading south lets us fill in the trail from Rawlins to the place outside of Grand Lake where we got off.
Others roadwalked Highway 40 because there was too much snow, but this is some beautiful hiking without bear canisters required and only four days of food and a liter or so of water at a time needing to be carried.
This is the resupply path in an area of the trail that doesn’t currently have fire problems.
- Start at 1381.5 Rawlins
- Gentle from 1381 to 1440. Then there is an ascent the last twenty.
- (82.2 miles or four days of food)
- Resupply 1463.7 Riverside & Encampment
- (hitch on Wyoming Highway 70 into town)
- (or text Patti, trail angel, at — — —-)
- (84.4 miles or four days of food)
- Resupply 1548.1 Steamboat Springs
- Hitch US 40. 1546.2 to 1548.1)
- Has a stretch of almost 20 miles above 10,000 feet.
- (68 miles — three to four days of food.)
- Finish 1616.1 Highway 34, hitch to Grand Lake.
For the altitude and ascents, there is the following:
- Border of Colorado is mile 1480 and is 9580 ft
- At mile 1492.1 and altiutde of 9,458 ascent begins
- Mile 1493 is 10,066
- At mile 1496 it starts to drop back towards 9,431
- Mile 1505 is around 8,000 feet
- Starts to climb.
- Around 1513 it is over 10,000 feet again.
- This section peaks just shy of 12,000 feet (11,852 at 1517.1)
- Mile 1541 isstill over 10,000, but drops below shortly after that.
- At mile 1566 climbs back over 10,000
- By mile 1592.2 it has risen to 12,296 feet
- Down to 9,218 at mile 1601.4
- Back up to 11,500 feet or so just before mile 1610
- Drops to 8,793 feet at mile 1617. Trailhead. Can hike to Highway 34 from here and hitch or continue on to mile 1616.1.
Updating my table of contents it was good to see the twenty mile days and the times at 12,000 feet or higher we had, and enjoyed. This could make a great two to three weeks of trail or so.
For comparison from Halfway Anywhere:
- ⛺ Grand Lake – 82.5%
- Steamboat Springs via Rabbit Ears Pass – 93.7%
- Georgetown – 1.6%
Wyoming Resupply
- ✉️ Encampment via Battle Pass – 55.1%
- Riverside via Battle Pass – 23.2%
- ⛺ Rawlins – 99.3%