A Walk in the Clouds

A new hut-to-hut trek winds through one of Colorado's most challenging hiking regions. Elizabeth Cantrell hits the trail.

- Elizabeth Cantrell

I WAS CROUCHING in the shelter of a boulder, 12,000 feet up in Colorado's San Juan Mountains, as wind and rain whipped around me. Two fighter jets whizzed by, the roar of their engines cutting through the sound of thunder. Pellets of ice began to fall from the sky. “Once the hail comes, it means it’s almost over,” said John Vipiana, one of my hiking companions, who was kneeling beside me. I wasn’t sure if he meant the storm, or our lives. I decided not to ask.

The two of us had walked ahead of the rest of our group of nine hikers and two guides, and were now alone. I looked up from under the hood of my rain jacket and made out the shapes of brightly colored backpacks moving down the hill toward us. John was right—in a few minutes, the hail let up, and we were reunited with everyone, laughing in disbelief at how wild the weather had turned in the first few miles of our multiday trek.

As we continued our descent, the sky turned a brilliant blue. Someone asked where we were. Our lead guide, Patrick Ormond, who had moved to the front of the pack, called out over his shoulder: “Paradise Basin.”

Thinking about the emerald lake we’d passed just before the storm, and looking out at the field of wildflowers and the grove of spruce and fir trees ahead of us, I had to agree.

THE SAN JUANS are younger than many other ranges in the Rocky Mountain system—