Day 2

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When I woke up in the next morning, after a semi restless night of trying to keep warm, it was a chilling 27 degrees and it turned out that all the few other people in the camp area had left shortly after the sun went down.  So, first thing was breakfast, which required the filtering of some more water, which is not a fun activity in freezing water.  Once I had the water the next task was getting the stove going, after fumbling around with it with numb hands, I got it going and started heating the water to make oatmeal.  After I devoured that, I had to take down my camp, pack up the car and head out.

Once I got back into Santa Fe I found the temps to be much nicer at the lower elevations, and wanting to see a little more of Santa Fe, I decided to see if there was an REI store in town, so that I could maybe purchase some last minute unessential items.  However, after driving around for a while I found no REI store and decided to continue on my way to Colorado.

Back on the highway headed north I bide my time listening to the radio, enjoying the scenery, but was mostly just bored.  It really is no fun to sit in a car by yourself for hours on end.  But when I finally crossed the state line the excitement began to build, suddenly the mountains were much taller and covered in a thin layer of freshly fallen snow probably from the same storm that at the time was plaguing the plains states and giving Matt, Chris and Andy a headache as they made their way westward.  At this point I was running way behind schedule since I didn't leave Santa Fe near as early as I had planned, but after checking in the other guys and hearing the slow progress they were making it turned out not to really matter.

My next destination after getting into Colorado was to visit the great sand dunes national park.  Turns out half this trip was about visiting sand dunes.  These sand dunes are very unique though, they're formed when streams and rivers in the San Juan Mountains in western CO grind the rocks into sand.  This sand is then carried by the wind across the San Luis Valley to the east where the winds hit the Sangre de Cristo mountains on the other side, depositing all the sand in one place.  This makes for some remarkable views, where standing at the base of the sand dunes the perspective makes the dunes look almost as tall as the mountains.

After driving up to the base of the dunes, I was really tempted to climb the tallest dune, but not know exactly how much time I had before I was to meet the other guys in Aspen, I decided against it and just ended up hiking around on some of the smaller dunes, but someday I'll be back to reach the highest dune.  After being there a fairly short while it didn't take long before I had sand filling my shoes and  pockets and decided to get out of the blowing sand and back to the car.  I would later find sand haunting me the rest of the trip.  Back in the car I drove through the rest of the park, and then hit the road and this time was Aspen bound. 

A few hours later as I was nearing Aspen, I decided to pull over on the side of the highway and wait for the other guys to arrive.  Having been to Aspen once before and knowing what Colorado ski towns are like, I knew that without having a place to stay and not knowing anyone there it would be very difficult to find any public place to park and wait, thus the decision to wait outside of town.  While I waited I read some, but it seemed like an eternity and  I quickly got restless.  After making a few attempts to call Matt without him answering, I figured he was some where near independence pass where cell service cuts out (the high mountain passing leading from aspen to Arkansas river valley on the other side)  So tired of sitting and waiting I drove down into town and followed some signs to "public parking" hoping to find a public place I could wait, turns out though public parking isn't free.  So I parked next to a park and waited there briefly until a few locals started looking suspiciously at me and then ended up driving around town, awaiting Matt, Andy and Chris' arrival.

When they finally arrived we met on the side of a road, and discussed options for places to eat, using my GPS we decided on a place that sounded awesome "The Kickin' Chicken Pizza Kitchen"  but as we drove to it, we were unable to find it and had to settle for McDonalds.

Once we were done eating we made our way to the Trailhead to camp...  read the rest of the day and most of the next here