This day was a lot of fighting through willows and brush trying to follow wet blue diamond routes. First, I traversed from the top of the Guller Creek trail across the top of Stafford Creek. Then I headed NNWish below the Sugarloaf Peak N Ridge.

Most of it had a tiny bit of tread to follow, but it was some fighting through swampy willows taller than me. I was walking on wet ground and through dew-covered plants. By the end of the ~5 miles of winter path, I got better at finding my best way through. I was excited to get back to an actual trail for the 0.6 mi from Wilder Gulch to Vail Pass.

Between the swamps and the rain the night before, most of my stuff was wet at this point. I stopped to dry some things in the sun while I snacked at Vail Pass. The sun was strong enough that it didn’t take long to dry out. Once I packed up, I started towards the Shrine Mountain Inn entrance.

The heat from the sun drove my decision to I take the 2.2 mi winter trail instead of the road. I immediately got soaked again, but it was refreshingly cool. It probably would’ve been faster and easier (and definitely drier) to take the road. After a stop at the bathrooms, I got on to a shaded road for a quarter mile to the cabins, Jay’s, Chuck’s, and Walter’s.

The Roosevelt administration purchased the land Shrine Mountain Inn is built on in 1904, the year the White River National Forest was formed. The 80 acres became private land in 1960 when Jay Utter purchased it. Jay’s is the oldest of the Shrine Mountain Inn cabins, built in 1987. A year later, construction for Chuck’s began. In 1997, Walter’s was added.

From the cabins, I took the Shrine Ridge Trail for a mile and a half to below Wingle Ridge. The climb up to the ridge was beautiful and well-constructed. I left the trail again expecting to get wet again, but the blue diamond route Wearyman Road was way better than I expected. It followed alternating meadows and wooded stretches along the 11,700 contour for about a mile and a half before dropping towards the road.

The second part of the blue diamond route followed a wet road cut for 0.5 mi to Resolution Mountain Road. The 2.7 miles on the road to the Fowler-Hillard Hut only gained about 700’ and stayed in the trees, but it was still hot. Fowler-Hillard was the first hut I’d gotten to that’s owned by the 10th Mountain Division Hut Association. It was constructed in the summer of 1988 and opened that winter, but burned down in September 2009. The current hut was constructed the following summer and holds 16 people over two stories.

I dropped from 11,500’ to 10,400’ over 0.8 mi in an open gully down to Resolution Creek Road off-trail. Once I hit the road, I continued down to 9700’ over two miles to Pearl Creek Jeep Rd. Clouds had rolled in and I could see showers in the vicinity. I never got rained on and was thankful it was cooler.

The jeep road was great for a little over a mile. There were a series of about a hundred blowdowns to climb over, under, and around over the next quarter mile or so. After the end of the road, the route wasn’t any different until it crossed Pearl Creek. I was back to fighting through willows for a half mile along a smaller creek. The remaining 0.7 mi to Ranch Creek Road was steeper but drier and easy to follow.

Jackal Hut was a half mile and 300’ further up the road. It has an almost identical layout as Fowler-Hillard, but is constructed of timber instead of rock. 10th Mountain Division soldiers frequented the area near the hut during their training in the 1940s.

From the hut, I took Ranch Creek Road just under 3 miles down Camp Hale. My right heel had started to get a hot spot, but I told myself that I never get blisters and ignored it. Built in 1942, it served as the training ground for the 10th Mountain Division. The War Department asked the American Ski Patrol Association to recruit from ski racing clubs, ski schools, and local ski patrols to bring in enough skiers to fill the regiments. At full operation, Camp Hale housed approximately 15,000 training for the mountain warfare unit. It was decommissioned in November 1945 and the remnants are a National Historic Site. Here is more information about the history of the 10th Mountain Division.

The point I rejoined the CDT was about 10 trail miles south of where I left it at Janet’s Cabin, but I’d hiked 26 miles to get there. My feet were drying out and the trail only gained 600’ over 2.3 miles. It was a lovely end to the day. At Jones Gulch Way I stopped to look for a place to camp but decided to go another quarter mile to Fiddler Creek. There was a nice campsite with great water from the creek but it was still only 7/10 flat. I looked at my feet and put Vaseline on them before bed and what do you know, I have a small blister on my right heel.

8/13 - Sat - Guller Creek Trail to Fiddler Creek

8/14 - Sun - Fiddler Creek to CDT

8/12 - Fri - Baker's Tank to Guller Creek Trail