Thanks a lot for the support, Heath. I thought I was over my G-I bug (probably food-borne and not water-borne, though), but then it hit me again a week later as I was hiking in Wyoming. It probably didn't help that it was 96 degrees and NO available shade. Or that I'd just hiked 150 miles in five days. I'm now resting in Boulder, CO, with some friends until I feel like I can hike again. That's going to take being able to keep anything that I eat in my stomach, and drinking a lot of fluids to make up for being severely dehydrated.

Riverkilt - once you hike for a day or two at altitude you pretty much get used to it. Well, most people do. Since the trail averages at about 10,000' for southern Colorado, it's pretty easy to get used to it. Sometimes I have to take one or two deep breaths to catch my lungs up, but I've also been hiking at over 7,000' for over a month. I tend to get hit once I go over 8,000', but after hiking at that altitude for a day (and sleeping at altitude gets you used to it really quickly) I'm fine. There were a few days when I camped over 12,000', and other than being colder than down lower, it wasn't hard at all to hike. Well, it was hard to hike, but that's because I was sloshing through waist-deep snow. My record for that section was nine postholes in a row.

The Great Divide Basin definitely wasn't difficult, apart from not having very much water. The walking was easy, 99% along dirt roads and two-tracks, and I was able to hike 30 miles a day easily. Except I wasn't eating, because I was still sick, so I didn't have a lot of energy. Fun stuff.

Andrew.