News from the trail

Hey everyone I have made it to Frisco, Colorado! It has been a amazing past couple of days. It has also been a grueling past couple days. I have been walking about 10-12 miles everyday, which seems about right for me. My pack feels rather light now and I have been hiking at about the same pace as I do normally hiking with just a day pack on. My pack is weighing in at about 40 lbs which isn't too bad, it doesn't feel to bad now. It is very nice to wake up in the morning and know that the only thing you really have to do that day is just walk around in beautiful scenery all day and then camp in a amazing place. It seems a very simple, free of hassles existence and I enjoy it greatly. The only thing is it is freaking COLD at night. Two nights ago I camped on Georgia Pass which is the first time I got above 10000 feet. I got snowed on that night and the temperature dropped to 20 degrees. It was very uncomfortable. I was shivering in my sleeping bag, with all my clothes on, including my rain gear. It wasn't a very enjoyable night to say the least. The next day at timberline I encountered huge snowfields, they would have made a pretty good ski run, you could mostly detour around them and then pick the trail back up on the other side of them though. Descending the pass was another story though. Up in timberline the sun was able to melt the snow, in the trees on the north side the sun does not hit the snow and melt it. I battled through waist to chest deep snow all day. It took over 3 hours to walk 2 miles and that was just the worst part, there was roughly another 3 miles of snow to wade through till I got out of it all. Needless to say snowshoes would have been nice. The next day I got here to Frisco were I got a hotel room and am going to rest for today and then press on to Leadville. However the White Cloud Mountains, which is the next mountain range that I go over, have a lot more snow on them than the Kenosha Mountains that I just crossed. So I will have to determine if I can get through them. Any way I have been having a great time and taken many good pictures. I'll try to post them later. Hope every one is having a good time and I'll see you all in a month or so.
Ben