Dear Families,
The B2B clients circumnavigated a mountain range in the San Juan / Lizard Head wilderness on their week long backpack trip to Colorado from the 30th of June to the 5th of July. It took about 5-6 hours to get from flagstaff to the trail head. On the first day of the trip the guys pushed up a good sized mountain taking us 1,000 feet up in elevation. Everyone all had to adjust to the high altitude so we hiked 4.5 miles of light work. We found a nice campsite and set up camp for the night. A couple of the guys took a refreshing polar dip in the freezing cold river which was all snow melt. A natural ice bath was real good for the sore muscles. That night also consisted of a friendly snowball/skunk cabbage war. After the tiring first day we all had a good dinner, ran our daily AA meeting and hit the sack. We woke up early the next morning and started one of the harder days of the trip, Navajo trail to Wilson Mesa trail. We hiked 4-5 miles but half of it was up hill. Day 3 the guys hiked the Wilson Mesa trail and did some off trail hiking for about 7 miles in heavy hail, deep snow, and relentless mosquitos. During the day Aaron took us to a steep snow covered mountain side where we were all taught some self arrest techniques with an ice axe used for if you start falling down a steep snow covered part of a mountain and need to stop yourself. A small camp spot was found in the woods with lots of snow on the ground. The next day was another day of elevation and beautiful scenery. A couple of awesome waterfalls were found off the trail were some journaling was done and more polar dips in the freezing run off water from the mountain snow. a couple of the guys went underneath the waterfall and got pounded by the water. After that we hiked up 2,500 elevation all uphill at a 45 degree angle. The group crushed it. We ended the night in an awesome Basin where all of the surrounding mountain ranges could be seen in the beautiful dusk sunlight where Ian shared his story for the A.A. meeting.
On the morning of the 4th of July the guys made a big push to finish the planned hike totaling 25-30 miles and 6,000 ft total elevation grain and 6,000 ft elevation loss with highest point of over 12,000ft elevation. After feeling accomplished from the big adventure the group went into the small town of Telluride to see one of the first firework shows put on there in over 3 years. It was held in a beautiful park at the base of the ski resort where the clients hung out, played games, had a couple of sodas, grown up red rover red rover, and wind sprints in a base ball field. It was nice being in a big celebration with families, kids, and grown ups all coming together to celebrate the 4th. The fire work show was amazing. Some clients had never seen a real firework show and others hadn’t seen a big show like this one since they were little, a very nostalgic heart felt night. At the end of the show the guys drove back to the end of the trail head just outside of town and set up camp for one last night before starting the 5 hour drive back to flagstaff. The trip over all was one of B2B’s hardest hikes with lots of mental and physical adversity. In the moment a lot of the clients struggle and go through some hard work, but after all is said and done and we are all back in town we all agree the the hard work and struggle is a good leaning experience and would absolutley do it again regardless of how hard of a time it can be in the woods and mountains for a week learning about ourselves and each other.
Until Next time,
B2B clients
