An account in Pitkin County, Colorado

For the past several years, my hiking partner and I have been heading out to the Crested Butte area of Colorado for a week-long backpacking trip. This year we both decided to be extremely aggressive and hike over an expanse of land we'd been eyeing on the topo map since our trip last summer. Because of the vast amount of land we would be covering in 5 days, we decided to acclimate so that altitude sickness wouldn't claim us halfway through the trip. We flew into Denver, spending a night in Boulder. The following day we drove to Breckenridge and spent a night there. Finally, we made it to Crested Butte and spent a night in town before hitting the trails. On Monday, August 21, 2000, we headed out on the trail toward our final destination, Snowmass Lake