Big rock campground to Rogers pass

Here we go again. Another beautiful day on the divide. It started out with an amazing view over monarch lake. Which was perfectly still and had incredible reflections of the surrounding mountains.

After a brief climb of a couple thousand feet back up to the divide it seemed like the rest of the day was up on an exposed ridge. Normally a scary prospect in Colorado with its daily thunderstorms, but today I lucked out and it was perfectly clear. The reason it was so clear was the wind. It was a constant 25+ with gusts that had me bent over. Lots of fun when you are walking ridges all day.

Around 5 pm I had to make a decision. The next 8 miles was an exposed ridge with a 13.5k mountain at the end. The only chance for a campsite was at a pass that on paper looked completely exposed. I also noticed some thunderstorms forming and heading right for the peak. The trail went high following the divide along a ridge for 3 miles, easy before dark, or there was a road I could follow that in theory would take me up to the pass, keep me out of the wind and stay below tree line. I eventually hiked the road for a bit simply cause I missed the turn. Nice thing about the road use there was water. I didn't need it but this was supposed to be a 15+ mile dry stretch.

At 630 I stopped to cook dinner and set up my rain fly cause it looked kinda stormy. It didn't rain I did dilly dally doing that so by the time I started hiking again the sun was setting. I climbed up toward the divide to try get a good view for a picture but couldn't make it in time. At this point I was halfway up toward the trail so I kept going. Bad idea, there wasn't a trail just carins. Carins are great in the day when you can see them but at night not so much. Not that it was hard to figure out where to go since to my east was a 1000 ft cliff. That was even more fun since I was stumbling around in the dark with a crazy wind trying to blow me off the cliff and big rocks and grass clumps trying to trip me. I eventually decided I had enough and tried hiking back down to the road. Only it wasn't where the gps said it would be. There was a tree though and an almost flat spot to cowboy camp on, I wasn't sure if it would be too windy for the tent.