Finished the Colorado Trail segment near Breckenridge solo

Ran into an older guy at a stream crossing who noticed I was checking my map too much and just said 'the trail tells you where to go if you stop thinking about it' - then he walked off before I could ask what he meant. Has anyone else had a random stranger say something simple like that which actually stuck?

3 comments

3 Comments

daniel_walker1mo ago

Is it just me or does that sound like something a guru in a mountain hut would say? I had a similar thing happen once on the JMT where this old dude saw me struggling with my water filter and just goes "the creek already did the work, you just gotta be patient." Then he walked away. I spent like 20 minutes trying to figure out if he meant I should just drink straight from the stream or if he was talking about something else entirely. I still don't know if he was giving life advice or just messing with me about my filter being slow. That kind of vague wisdom from strangers on the trail is always stuck in my head now though.

hannahk192mo ago

Wait did he mean like... stop overthinking the route and just go with your gut? That's kind of what I took from it but I'm still not sure if he was talking about navigation or something deeper. Like did he mean every trail is marked well enough if you just pay attention to the obvious signs, or was he hinting at trusting your instincts in general out there? I've had moments where I was so focused on my GPS I almost walked right past a cairn that was super obvious... wonder if that's what he was getting at.

emmaallen2mo ago

He wasn't saying every trail is marked well. That's a dangerous take. He meant stop second-guessing your own eyes. I've done the same thing with GPS - staring at a screen while a cairn sits right there. The deeper point was about trusting what you see over what you think you should see. Instincts get buried under too much gear and data.