Salida to Westcliffe

Friday, August 20
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It took me six days to walk from Salida Colorado to Westcliffe Colorado, my journey brought me up and over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains twice. There were two areas during this hike where I was very high along the crest of the mountains. This is a very high mountain range with many 14,000 foot mountains and a plethora of 13,000 foot peaks. The range has low footings on the East and the West sides giving the range an appearance of reaching into the sky.


Today I crossed my highest pass on the Four Corners Loop at 12,800 feet. I also crossed four other passes and descended over 5000 feet down to the town of Westcliffe on the East side of the range.


When I was on the west side of the range I went to Valley Vview Hot Springs. This is a lovely hot spring with a relaxed vibe, and was not super commercialized. There were nine different pools to enjoy. I really enjoyed the conversations I had with people there, but here is a word of caution if you’re thinking of going there but you have a thing against nudity do not go there everybody was nude. The hot springs management does not view anything wrong with the human body form, so it was quite fun hanging out with a bunch of people joining me on my birthday and all in their birthday suits.


When I left the hot springs there was a slight issue with some private property on the west side, but I made the best of it and I ended up climbing uphill all day on a beautiful logged out trail. I am guessing you’ve read my prior blog talking about the amazing Forest service crew logging the trees off the trail.


So this is going to be a short blog post because I’m kind of tired and need to go to sleep, but enjoy the plethora of pictures I will post on my Facebook page.


Thanks for reading,
Kevin Koski