Author: quintopia

Day 132: Dumont Campground

Post author By quintopia
Post date September 24, 2021
No Comments on Day 132: Dumont Campground

Got out of camp by 7:05, 15 minutes faster than my usual. It was cool, but not that cold relative to the hour, the date, and the elevation.

Speaking of elevation, right off the bat I had a steep climb up to Upper Slide Lake, and then an even steeper climb up the hill behind it. I hit 11000 feet of elevation within the first fifteen minutes of hiking, and an hour and change later, having finally climbed up to the CDT just south of the fire closure boundary and climbed yet further to the high point for the day, I had passed 11,500 feet in elevation. There was a lot of stopping to huff and puff and let my legs stop burning over those 3 miles. If it hadn’t been so steep and rocky…

But once I was up there on the divide, I was wishing I could have hiked the actual CDT through the Zirkels. There were no trees up there, and there were views for miles. I bet it went on like that for many more miles north from there, but I was headed south and predominantly downhill. I did take a nice snack break at that high point and discovered it had good cell service. I started texting some numbers I had found to see if I could get a ride into town out of Buffalo Pass that very day. It was only 9 miles ahead. But I only got “no” when I got an answer at all.

Skipping ahead, I made it to Buffalo Pass by lunchtime. It wasn’t all downhill. There were a few steep climbs. But other than the views near the beginning, there was nothing notable about that descent.

I hailed a man driving a truck who was only going a mile down. I asked about charging my phone. He sent me up the road to the other trailhead I would be going past anyway, saying there were folks up there that probably had a way. So I went up the hill to the Powerline Trailhead.

There were a couple of big tents there and a colorful assortment of bags spread out on tarps. The tent and the truck backed up to it was filled with all sorts of food. It was an aside station for an ultramarathon you see, the Run Rabbit Run 50 & 100 mile race, which lasted from that morning at 8 until the following evening at 8. The volunteers here were expecting their first runners to arrive in an hour, and they were basically already set up.

And they did gave a nice power bank I could plug into while I had my lunch. It was fun chatting with the volunteers about the event and hiking the trail. I got to dump my trash in their trash can and even fill my water bag from their tanks, a major time saver. They even gave me a piece of watermelon.

I also heard that hitching to and from that pass was usually really easy, but the only reason I wanted to go from there was to get my tent repaired at the Big Agnes store. Steamboat Springs is the headquarters for Big Agnes (it’s named for a mountain in the Zirkels just west of Mt. Zirkel itself and the second highest peak in the wilderness) and their store there does gear and tent repairs. But I was able to call the store from there, and they only repair Big Agnes tents, so I decided to keep hiking.

Then runners started coming in. I tried to stand just out of the way as they started getting to work. But I still felt like I was intruding, so I waited for my phone to hit 60% and hiked up the hill.

The trail south from there was festooned with markings and signs for the runners. It was also briefly an ATV track, and at one point I had to keep pulling over as five in a row came past. But luckily, the 1 mile climb at the start was the last steep climb of the day. It was all alternately level or downhill from there, so my pace skyrocketed.

I took one snack break at 4:40, hiked past some lakes, and then dinner at 7 in a campsite near another lake. I switched to headlamp mode, put on my down puffy jacket, and started hiking again just after 7:30.

I soon passed through the Base Camp Trailhead and saw what was surely another aid station being set up, though I don’t think any runners would be reaching it until the next day because it’s only on the 50 mile course. Maybe. I’m just guessing based on the color coding of the trail markings. I didn’t stop. I just went on down the hill listening to podcasts (which I could do now that my phone had more charge) and cruised into Dumont Lake Campground around 9:30.

I found an unused campsite and threw up my tent in it. Sure, it’s a fee campground and I didn’t pay, but they should be grateful to have the honor of my august personage occupying a 20 square foot area in their campground for 8 hours. Anyway, sleep by 11 or so.

Trail miles: 24.4 (actually hiked 27.5)

Distance to Steamboat Springs: 2 miles

CDT CO Section 1

Day 131: Slide Lake

Getting the miles in is all about time management. Sure, you have to have gather the motivation to start hiking early and keep up a good pace while you’re walking by staying fueled and hydrated. Taking breaks can even help with this pace. But whenever you’re not hiking, you ought to be getting multiple chores done at once. For example, nowadays my gravity filter has gotten so slow it takes over an hour to filter two liters. So I need to be filtering any time I’m stopped for more than a few minutes. I can blog while my meal cooks while my water filters. I can eat while Nuun tablets dissolve. I need to cut time spent not hiking down to the minimum while getting done what needs to get done.

I really felt the need to get that hiking work done as efficiently as possible. With only two full days of food in my can, snacks dwindling, mobile battery nearly empty, and out half a charge on my phone, I wanted to get into town ASAP. On top of that, if I couldn’t get into town before noon on Saturday to get my package at the post office, I’d have to zero or bounce it again. And who knew if I would end up needing that extra ice traction it contained before I could catch up to it again?

I woke up thinking I had overslept, but despite the light, it wasn’t even midnight yet. I thought maybe my headlamp had turned on in the night, but the light was just the moon getting low enough to peek under my tent flap and give everything a blue electronic glow.

After a couple of hours, I passed a lone cow who that bolted deep into the woods before descending to the edge of a meadow containing the rest of the herd. At this point, the ATV track doglegged back up the hill while the Grizzly-Helena Trail turned off into the meadow and became a single-track horse-and-footpath. It was a much more comfortable walk.

I woke up again at the usual time and hiked out again at the usual time. The trail was similar to how it had been for a few miles: rocky ATV trail, frequent water crossings, lots of ups and downs (only occasionally steep), passing little lily pad duck ponds along the way. At one point on one of the climbs, I stood and slammed the crown of my head into a blowdown that crossed the trail at exactly head height where I couldn’t see it through the brim of my hat. It’s either risk your neck occasionally hurting all day from such an impact or have a face constantly peeling from sun exposure.

Later in the morning, I came to a creek crossing and took a long break. I didn’t want it to be a long break, but I had things to do that couldn’t be ignored. The whole time, though, water was filtering. I took a liter of the filtered water and made a vitamin drink with it before I hiked on and dumped the unfiltered water on the ground. There was a surfeit of water all over the trail, so never any need to take any unfiltered water when I was ready to hike out again.

I stopped again after hiking down into the majestic Red Canyon, finding a spot in the shade of a steep rock wall right next to the Roaring Fork. I ate lunch while filtering more water, again dumping the unfiltered remainder before hiking out.

Although I had initially calculated that I could make it to the junction with the Rainbow Lakes trail by 5, then after lunch modified that to 5:30, the trail ended up taking a very disregarded route than was on the old map I was using (and not for the first time since I left the CDT). I pulled some water out of the creek just before climbing the last hill to the ridge where it was and arrived around 6pm. I stopped and made dinner, filtering water as I did. I dumped the unfiltered water, put on my headlamp, and started hiking speedily up the ridge toward the divide as the sun disappeared. I figured I could reach Upper Slide Lake some five miles away by 10pm if I pushed.

I had climbed all the way up to Rainbow Lake by 8:30. I think it would’ve been cool to see in the day. It was Big enough it took over 15 minutes to hike from one end to the other at full speed. I expect it looked similar to lower Green River Lake.

At the top end of the lake, I began climbing the steep hill next to the falls on the creek (Norris Creek) that fed the lake. I also would like to have seen those cascades in the sun, but they were quite nice to hear and peaceful in the moonlight. Before climbing that steep hill, I pulled some more water out of the creek, but that was a mistake. It turned out I would cross that same creek an hour later, and I wouldn’t have had to lug that weight up the hill if I’d waited.

The third and final hour of hiking after dinner was the hardest. That super energy was gone and there were a lot of steep, rocky climbs. I had to pause frequently to let my legs recover. Also, I had made it up to well above 10.5k feet in elevation. When I found a nice field to camp in with a relatively flat and rock-free spot, it was 10pm and I was maybe a quarter mile shy of Upper Slide Lake. The elevation was about 10,740 feet.

After setting up my tent and climbing in to get a few winks, I discovered there was a rock bulging out of the ground directly beneath my tailbone. It was too late to move the tent and impossible to move the rock, so I put a few more bags into my mattress and dealt with it. I slept pretty well.

Trail miles: 5.1 (actually hiked 21.5)

Distance to Steamboat Springs: 28 miles

CDT CO Section 1

Day 130: Grizzly-Helena Trail east of Blue Lake

Post author By quintopia
Post date September 22, 2021
2 Comments on Day 130: Grizzly-Helena Trail east of Blue Lake

My morning went basically the same as the previous. Up and out of camp by 7:20 or so. Another sunny clear day.

The trail down from Seven Lakes was much clearer of blowdowns than the pervious section. It got steep and rocky in places, but it also admitted several nice views. I also passed the Big Creek Falls, which weren’t beautiful, but it’s been a while since I passed a waterfall.

When I finally got to Upper Big Creek Lake, the trail kind of evaporated among blowdowns again. I ended up hiking through a wet meadow, briefly finding the trail again, taking a snack break, then joining a wrong trail, crossing the creek that connects the lakes, taking a turn down a clear, maintained trail that just dead-ended at the upper lake, backtracking to find that the trail on the map was lost in a field overgrown by bushes, wending my way through a wet meadow again, following critter tracks between the bushes, finding a trail again, climbing a steep hill to the foundation of a collapsed house overlooking the lower lake, finding a trail that got eaten by blowdowns again, walking along the rocky shore of the lake past a few cabins that seemed to be well-used until that was blocked, then finding the overgrown blowdown-covered trail again until it cleared up somewhat and eventually reached a road. It was a bit of a mess. It took a while.

But just up the road was Big Creek Campground, and that had toilets and dumpsters, so I was able to lighten my load and lighten my load. It also had picnic tables of which one I commandeered to make and eat lunch. Finally, I grabbed some water from the outlet river and hiked south on the road.

After a few miles on the road it ended, and the Grizzly-Helena ATV track began. I was feeling a bit lightheaded by the time I started down the freshly built boardwalk bridge. As soon as I got back into some trees again, I stopped for a snack and filtered some water to immediately drink a liter.

The track was frequently swamped with water. Deep fords are no problem for the bow hunters riding in on ATVs and fat tire bikes. One such hunter even offered me a ride across when I stopped him to ask which way to go at a fork in the road (except that I had already crossed and wasn’t going that way). Those frequent fords would be ankle-deep for me if I didn’t find a way around. Fortunately, even the widest ones had been bridged nearby by logs or strategically placed trees. Also, because the wilderness boundary was drawn to be just slightly west of the road (so that the road would be outside the wilderness and motor vehicles could use it), there was no issue with regular maintenance of the road via chainsaw. As such, I never had to worry about blowdowns.

A few miles later, I stopped for supper and filtered the rest of the water. I was passed several times by traffic on the road, including a whole troop of hunters on fat tire bikes. Just beyond where I stopped, the trail snaked between a number of lily pad ponds as it climbed into the hills. I found the bicycle troop prepping in front of a gorgeous sunset view.

I kept hiking up and up and up as the sun disappeared and even into the night. Every time I came close to a creek, I found a hunting camp. Several tents and an ATV parked nearby. One was even running a generator. Some of these hunters were practically glamping.

I climbed higher and higher onto the slopes leading up to the Fryingpan Basin below Mt. Zirkel. The occasional hilltop would reveal distant city lights beyond the hills in the valley below (and their attendant strong cell service I took advantage of to nab some missing map tiles and new podcasts). Eventually, late into the 8 o’clock hour, I found a broad, flat campsite that was somehow completely unoccupied. So I took it. Close to 9 seemed like a good time to stop hiking from here forward as I never seemed to be able to wake up before 5 these days, and the days were not particularly hot anymore. Sleep came shortly after 10.

Trail miles: 14.8 (but actually hiked 16.9)

Distance to Steamboat Springs: ~54 miles

CDT CO Section 1

Day 129: Seven Lakes

I woke up a little before five and was on the trail a little after seven, which is shortly after sunrise. When I emerged from my tent, a couple of does were passing through, apparently spooked at first but otherwise not too bothered by my presence.

The first 8+ miles of trail was an ATV track that followed the Continental Divide exactly. It was dirt and big rocks and steep hills up and down and being not infrequently passed by hunters on ATVs or passing parked ATVs. One was parked with a Tupperware full of lunch just sitting out on the front seat for any passing critter to nab if it wanted.

It was just about lunchtime when I reached the Manzanares Cutoff, where I left the CDT for the east side of the Zirkels, a wilderness area no longer affected by the Morgan Creek Fire closure. My aim was to reach the Big Creek campground near the Big Creek lakes. But I stopped halfway down the hill to the valley to eat lunch.

Resuming, at the bottom of the hill, I had to go cross-country a bit to cut across to the trail I wanted where the cutoff had been overgrown. But I eventually connected back up with a clear trail following a tributary of the West Fork. Then the trail disappeared, but I followed where it was supposed to be until it appeared again. Then it was easy to follow all the way down to the Main Fork trail.

It was during this last climb down that the deadfalls over the trail started to get denser. A few started requiring significant workarounds.

Other than a brief confusion involving which direction I needed to turn onto the West Fork trail, it was a lot clearer and the blowdowns were not too dense and easy to avoid. It was just follow the stream up the hill to the lake it flowed out of and then up the hill beyond that to climb over into the valley of the Main Fork to join the Main Fork trail.

This one was even easier to follow than the last, and I could basically zone out for the mile or so I was on it. There were a couple of crossings of the river, but nothing that mandated getting my feet. After my afternoon snack break and the second crossing, I turned off onto the Big Creek Trail.

This was a bit of a nightmare. Right off the bat, I was climbing a steep hill with blowdowns over the trail extremely frequently, some of them requiring long detours or some gymnastics to avoid. Then, about a mile in, the clear trail just disappeared among a hillside of blowdowns. I tried to follow the route on the GPS, but the trail that had been there could not be seen. So, I just started working my way across the blowdowns and climbing higher as I did to try to stay near where the trail was supposed to be. An hour later, I hadn’t even gotten a mile and it was time to stop for dinner. It was clear that Big Creek campground was not going to happen at this point.

I stopped for supper at a random point on the hillside where there was a huge boulder with a rivulet of water running around it. This particular hill was just covered up with springs for some reason, and there were an overabundance of these little streams. In fact, I passed one just after dinner with such good flow I decided to collect from it, having used the last of my water for dinner.

At this point, I saw the light (of the half moon rising, probably) and decided to stop trying to follow the official trail route. I just got as high as I could, up toward the rocky, boulder-strewn cliffs where fewer trees grew and so there were fewer blowdowns. This greatly speeded my progress and I had rejoined the actual trail within a half-hour. It had been climbing too, had caught up to my altitude, and continued climbing. There were still blowdowns across it, but now I was moving quickly and it was getting dark, so I guess I started getting reckless. As always happens on these blowdown-heavy days, I finally scraped and bloodied my knee stepping over a log, but of course it happened at the very end after I’d gotten through all the hard stuff unscathed.

It was only a few more minutes before I arrived at Seven Lakes with not even enough twilight to pitch a tent by. I did it by headlamp light. And I was not the only one there. I saw m more headlamps at another camp a hundred yards away. I heard their voices as I went to bed. I assumed they were hunters as I definitely heard elk bellows in the area. It seemed like a nice place for elk to hang out.

Anyway, the point is that I went almost 7 miles less than I wanted to, partly because I set an unrealistic goal and partly because of all the blowdowns I didn’t realize would get so bad so late in the day. I had enough lunches and dinners for five more days, roughly, but maybe snacks for four at most. I needed the rest of the alternate route to be a much easier time. I didn’t regret going the way I did. It was beautiful and fun. But time and speed would always be important factors.

Trail miles: 14.7 (17.3 actual miles hiked)

Distance to Steamboat Springs: ~71 miles

CDT CO Section 1 CDT WY Section 6

Day 128: Near the CO/WY Border

Post author By quintopia
Post date September 20, 2021
No Comments on Day 128: Near the CO/WY Border

When I woke up at 3:50am, I could see the flashing of distant lightning and eventually the sound of distant thunder. It was clear a storm would arrive by the time I could get packed up, so I decided to sleep in until it had passed.

It took most of an hour for the rain to start, and I got in a little more uncomfortable sleep. But little did I know that that first storm would be followed by 5 more in sequence, with never more than a half-hour respite in the rain or hail between them. I did as much packing and prep as I could do from under cover of my rainfly, including wiping up all the water that had gotten inside during the storms. Then I just watched some videos I had downloaded to pass the time.

Finally, during the 9 o’clock hour, there was a long enough cessation of rain to get the tent down and everything packed without getting soaked. No sooner had I gotten my rain gear on and started hiking, a little after 10, than it started hailing again. With the cold wind blowing over those rocky hilltops, I very quickly lost feeling in my fingers and had to pull them into my Packa sleeves. It barely helped.

A mile down the trail, the hail had stopped, the rain lightened. I passed Cliff and Lost sitting beside the trail looking a little bit soaked and muddy. They indicated they were planning to do the road walk detour to Steamboat Springs to try and get to Mt. Elbert (some 365 miles sobo from there) before the snows came. I wouldn’t be seeing them in the Zirkels. At my pace, I don’t have much hope that Elbert will be safe to climb by the time I would pass it.

Anyway, they must have chased me over the rocky hilltops with indistinct trail for the next couple of miles as the sun finally came out and warmed up the day enough that I could feel my fingers again because as soon as I stopped to take my Packa off and put my hat on, they passed me never to be seen again. I wasn’t even trying to catch them. As I had lost most of the morning to waiting out the endless rain, I had given up hope of doing much more than getting into Colorado this day.

I took a nice break on a rock shaped like a chair a mile or so later. A couple of hours after that, I took my normal lunch break on top of a hill scattered with uncountable blowdowns. After losing the trail for a quarter mile following a missed turn and backtracking, I took my regular dinner two hours after that on the edge of a very boggy meadow.

I carried some water out of a nice stream there and climbed up to another meadow, where I scared off a dozen elk at very close range when I popped around a corner and they spotted me last second. They disappeared into the forest at light speed, but looked very elegant doing it. A while later, a half hour after sunset, I crossed the border into Colorado. There are five states on the CDT, and I had now hiked it in all of them. Bingo!

A third of a mile down the hill from there, I finally found a levelish spot with few enough rocks and tufts of high grass to pitch a tent on, and did just that in the dark. Shortly after getting everything that needed to be dry under the tent, the last rain of the day came through, a very light and pleasant affair accompanied by some strong, cold winds.

Colorado would seem to be a place with a lot of trees, a lot of blowdowns, high elevation (as I hadn’t been below 9000 feet all day just getting into it), cold winds, and temperamental weather. But the forecast for the next day indicated it would be sunny, clear, and ideal for making a few more miles.

Trail miles: 13.4

Distance to Steamboat Springs: ~88 miles

CDT WY Section 6 Uncategorized

Day 127: South of Green Mountain

Post author By quintopia
Post date September 19, 2021
No Comments on Day 127: South of Green Mountain

With all the sound and light and the slightly canted tentsite, it was easy to wake up when everyone around was getting ready to leave. Sunday morning in an RV park: guaranteed mass exodus.

But I had been up until midnight. I didn’t want to get up yet. I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I ended up lying about in the tent chatting online for a couple of hours. Just long enough for the grocery store next door to open.

When I did finally leave the tent, I took my phone to the laundry to charge and then hit up the grocery for breakfast. Coffee, energy drink, choccy milk, Gatorade, two breakfast sandwiches and a burrito. I carried it all back to the laundry and ate it all (except the Gatorade which I saved for a couple of hours and slowly sipped for a few hours) while watching three consecutive episodes of Craig of the Creek on the TV in there. You have to pack all the pleasures of civilization in while you have the chance.

After a morning bathroom break, I spent an hour or so in my tent sewing up rips in my shirt and shorts (including that hole in my pocket I’ve been putting off fixing for several weeks since I acquired a replacement needle). Then it was time to pack up. Most of the campground had emptied out already. So I took my pack over to the one nearby picnic table that had direct sunlight to dry. That became my central packing point. I rolled out my mattress on it. Everything got moved there. And by the time I was packed up, everything was mostly dry just in time for the trees to steal the sunlight.

I finished packing shortly after the Bear Trap Cafe opened again. Time for one more big meal before hitting the trail. And their good wifi helped me get all my posts uploaded shortly after I finished my meal (of fish tacos, a Cuban sandwich, and tots).

As soon as I left, I walked to the end of the road to the highway and started walking toward Encampment sticking my thumb out at each passing truck. The highway went two miles through Encampment before heading up the 12 miles back to Battle Pass, and I preferred not having to walk all the way to the other side of town to get a hitch. I got pretty lucky despite the sparse traffic. A truck came up to me just as I had crossed the Encampment city limits. Lauren said she would give me a lift to the pass as soon as she went to pick up a bed for her friend’s disabled child. So I just offered to help her move and load the bed and she agreed.

So here’s all the details: I’m the second person this woman (who is my age) has ever given a lift to, she’s not going anywhere near the pass otherwise, her husband’s far away jumping fires, and she’s taken out this old former fire truck and never drives that gets horrible gas mileage just to move this bed for her friend’s child, and decides based entirely on my hat and mustache that she is willing to drive this truck miles out of her way for me. Honestly, helping her with the bed was the least I could do. So we find the house with the bed frame ready to go, and the brother of the guy who is giving it away helps us too by fetching out the box spring and mattress and wrangling an overly excited dog into the house. We Tetris all the bed parts into the bed of the truck and run a chain across it. And then, with all that in the back, she drives me to the pass. It’s like 2:30 pm when she leaves me.

At this point, I remember that I didn’t download any maps for the alternate trails around the Morgan Creek Fire closure. The trailhead has excellent 4G service (much better internet than anywhere in Riverside by far), so I end up hanging around for another hour at the trailhead just downloading what I need to continue. Luckily, I was able to multipurpose the wait thanks to the privy in the middle of the parking area, saving some time down the trail.

It was a little after 4 when I finally started hiking. The trail was similar to what it had been in the last hours of the previous day, rocky road into rocky trail through forest. Eventually, it become more of a dirt and mud and grass trail through boggy meadows crossed by multiple muddy streams. I crossed some on logs where I could tell the mud would be up to my ankle if they weren’t there.

After a mile of this, I found a nice rock in the shade to stop for supper. There was a nonstop cold wind that cooled my pot too quickly and made the pasta in my rice a little too gummy. It also made me shiver a bit. I was happy to get back on the trail.

No sooner had I than I spotted two hikers behind me. I assumed Jennifer and Deluxe. I used them as motivation to keep moving even when the trail got rocky, steep, and passed through blowdowns. The trail came over a series of rocky hilltops where it was easy to lose as the sun was setting, and then joined a ridgeline with a long view. It was dark enough I was ready to stop, and I found a perfect flat spot just off the trail. No sooner had I started unpacking than the pair came up behind me and passed. It was actually Cliff Richards and Lost Keys, finally caught up.

I had no idea what the other sobos around me had planned with regard to the closure, which started only a day’s walk from here. If they went a different way, they were likely to beat me to Steamboat, and then who knows who I would be hiking with. That’s motivation to get an early start right there.

Trail miles: 7.5

Distance to Steamboat Springs: ~93 miles

CDT WY Section 5

Day 126: Riverside

At 2am, I was lying awake and it started to rain. I pulled everything further under the vestibule, but it was a light rain and hardly even wet the ground.

I intentionally slept through the 4am alarm and started getting up and packing up with the 5am. I noticed right off that the top of my pack was wet and that I had left it on top of the water hose with the valve open. Since I had already put into my Nalgene a lot of the water from the creek I had carried up and filtered the previous night while blog writing, I decided to go ahead and make my breakfast shake before getting out of the tent, but when I went to top off the water, I noticed my water bag was a lot less full. So yeah, I had filtered all that water before bed and then just let most of it leak onto the ground overnight. So part of packing up included finding my way down to the creek in the dark and collecting some more water, this much more full of sediment than what I’d had the night before.

I got on the trail by 6:30, and there was a lot of hill climbing. The morning breeze felt really nice as the sun rose, but I felt my energy rapidly wane. I was struggling to pull myself up hill after hill for the last 30 minutes to my first snack break. I filtered another liter of the dirty water to drink immediately and tossed the rest of the dirty water on the ground on purpose. The next few miles felt a lot better without that extra water weight.

After coming over another hill, I spotted Jennifer and Deluxe coming onto the trail a half mile ahead of me. They had shortcutted around me, taking a road as they were oft wont to do. So I picked up the pace to try to catch them, and they must have really been moving out, because what followed was mostly uphill, beginning the steep climb up to Sierra Madre from the Deep Jack trailhead. I didn’t even see them again until I came to the next water source. I wanted an easy, clear collection from the next major source, so I passed them by. To keep up the momentum I’d had while chasing those two, I tossed the water in my bag and kept hiking another half hour up the hill.

Later, I took my second break to snack and filter water on a log beside the road the trail had joined. The duo passed me there a half hour later. I started climbing after them ten minutes after that, but it was a very steep bit of trail again, and I didn’t see them again until I caught them having lunch at the top of a big climb.

I passed them again and kept walking until my lunchtime, going up an alternate road to the top of a hill and finding a rock with some trees around to provide some protection from the intense wind coming over the hill. Halfway through my meal break, I saw Jennifer pass by on the same alternate. I didn’t catch either of them on the trail again that day.

A mile from that point, I came up to the summit of Bridger Peak, a windy pile of rocks with a radio tower that just barely exceeds 11000 feet in elevation, marking the first time in more than two weeks I had reached such heights.

From there it was mostly downhill and mostly uninteresting to the highway, which I reached about 4pm. By 4:45, the fifth or so vehicle gave me a ride in, driven by Dave with passenger Deryl. Deryl wasn’t shy, but Dave wanted to do most of the talking, and he had plenty to say about the area we drove through. They dropped me off in Riverside at the Lazy Acres RV Park.

I got myself a 12 dollar tent site, but left my pack on the porch of the office because it was about to rain and I didn’t want to set up in the rain. I went to the grocery store to get a few things. It was pouring rain the whole time I was in there. I dashed across the street, running between the raindrops to stay dry, and eventually found myself in the Bear Trap Cafe. Jennifer and Deluxe were there too so I joined them and ordered some pizza and beer. Very spicy pizza.

Those two hadn’t decided their lodging arrangements but they had zero interest in tenting while in town. So when we left, they were headed into Encampment leaving me alone in Riverside. I went back to the RV Park to set up my tent and start my laundry. My pack was completely soaked from the storm and some of the things inside were wet. I guess I should have taken it inside instead of trusting the porch roof.

Anyway, I set up my tent, ran back to the cafe for quarters, and started doing laundry. There was no 4G cell service in Riverside and the campground wifi was not strong enough to upload photos, so once I had my second load in the dryer, I went back to the cafe, which was still barely open for the last few straggling drinkers at the bar. I had started suffering from hiccups while laying out my bedding in my tent earlier and was very sleepy, so I ordered a root beer. And then another. And then they just brought me a pitcher. When I finished the whole thing, the last straggler was gone, making me the last, so I cashed out and left too. But I did get two posts uploaded.

When I got back, my second load was done drying, and it was the warm clothes, so I changed into it and went to bed. I kept working on blog until videos had finished uploading over slow campground wifi, basically midnight, then went to sleep.

Trail miles: 18.8

CDT WY Section 5

Day 125: Northernmost Fork Hatch Creek

Post author By quintopia
Post date September 17, 2021
No Comments on Day 125: Northernmost Fork Hatch Creek

I did not sleep in, as promised. I woke with the 6am alarm and was on the trail by 7:30.

Around 9, I had to take a break, but luckily there was a row of nice tall bushes just off the road. I took a break of an hour or so there in the shade with a very comfortable cool breeze. It was hard to motivate myself to get back in the sun and keep walking.

After a brief (0.2mi) detour missing an unmarked turn after going through a gate, I was off and on my way down some overgrown 2-tracks. I was starving and struggling for energy when it finally brought me to the bridge over North Fork Savery Creek. I plunked myself down in the shade of a bush and pulled some beautifully clear water out of the creek to start filtering.

I sat there in the shade with a nice breeze for an hour just eating and drinking and watching the chipmunks run back and forth across the bridge in a neverending game of tag. I made another drink and started another water bag filtering and laid down in the grass for a few minutes. I could totally have gone for a nap. I could totally have taken a dip in the deep pool just below the bridge.

Except that I had set a goal for myself to get out of the desert by day’s end. So when the podcast I was listening to ended, I stopped the second bag midfilter and started packing.

Just as I was about ready to go, Jennifer arrived and Deluxe right after, very excited about the water. As excited as I had been and still was. While they went down to the creek to dip bottles and bags, I went to dip my Buff and get water all over my shirt and head. Not as much water as taking a dip would have achieved, but I needed to get going to achieve my goal.

What followed was a steep climb straight out of the river canyon, walks along some barbed wire fences, passing through many gates, including two more than the trail went through, and eventual arrival at the very same highway I had left Rawlins on. The trail went down the side of this paved road for two miles or so, but it wasn’t so bad. Only five trucks went by in the hour or so it took to get to the next dirt road.

A couple of miles up that dirt road and the edge of the desert was in sight. Large patches of trees in the distance! Entering public lands again, the trail immediately left the road and climbed straight up a ridge. I could see tons of trees growing at the top of the hill. Trees that could give me shade to cook supper.

It was a brutal mile straight up the hill to the ridgeline and along it to where the trees were. I was feeling that it’s-been-too-long-since-lunch dragging sensation. But I dragged myself up there and found a nice rock in the shade of a patch of tall trees. And I spent a very nice hour cooking and eating supper with a nice breeze swirling. Ominous clouds came rolling through, but dissipated as I got packed up to hike out, putting the setting sun behind me as I continued up to the climax of the day.

Literal and figurative climax. It was a peak with 360 degree views letting me look back all the way over the basin, the rolling desert hills I had just hiked out of.

I walked along the ridge until it ended at what must have been one of those twisted bristlecone pines that’s been looking over that same landscape for thousands of years. Down I went to cross the road into the forest. Trees growing thickly around me for the first time in a week and a half. There was a clear trail through it climbing steeply up into the forested hills.

Then it opened up onto a hilltop, and I passed a bow hunter leaving the forest. The first elk hunter I’ve seen this year. The season has begun!

The forest got thicker and I had to turn on my headlamp to continue. It was nearly 8 when I spotted another headlamp attached to Jennifer’s voice. They had just set up camp up the hill from the creek. So I stopped and set up with them. They hadn’t passed me because they had taken the roadwalk alternate skipping the 360 degree peak.

The next day, we would all arrive in Encampment together.

Trail miles: 19.7

Distance to Encampment: 18.8 miles, mostly uphill

CDT WY Section 5

Day 124: Piped Spring

I slept in again after waking up because of how late I had gotten to bed. I was packing up in the 9 o’clock hour this time. I found the pond I had camped near and pulled a bag of water out of it. It wasn’t much and there was nowhere to hang it to filter, so I hiked out after 10 with an empty water bladder, a 3/4 full dirty reservoir, and a Nalgene full of breakfast smoothie.

It was all road walking for the first couple of hours, and mostly uphill to cross the divide at Bridger Pass. This was the strangest “pass” I’ve ever gone over, as it was more like the top of a hill in the middle of a wide valley than a low point in a ridgeline. I took a midday break just after this when I passed a row of tall bushes just off the road. I had a nice little break in the shade and could filter the water I had carried out of camp hanging it from a bush.

More roadwalking ensued. I reached the first bridge over Muddy Creek around 3, which was a good time for lunch given my late start. I kicked the cows out from under the bridge and took over. Firstly, I had already drank all the water from the morning, so I needed that creek water. In spite of the name, the creek was more silty than muddy, and it filtered clear without clogging my filter. An hour later, I was procrastinating getting started again when a couple of hikers came over the bridge above me yelling about how the water looked good. I decided to catch them up and find out if I knew them.

I packed up and chased them for nearly 2 miles, catching them when they stopped for a break at the next bridge over the creek. They were Jennifer and Deluxe. I had not met them before as they had been hiking behind me. I told them about my immediate shortcut plans and passed them by.

In another couple of miles, I crossed the last Muddy Creek bridge, then took a hard left off the trail and onto a well-worn cow track. This was straight-up trespass, but it was an opportunity to cut 3 miles off of the trail while also getting out of a boring roadwalk with lots of hill climbs.

The first little bit was tricky. Once I got around the hill the road had opted to climb, I had to jump across the river in its ravine, step over a cow fence at the one spot (in the river ravine) where it wasn’t barbed, jump back over the river to be able to easily follow it upstream to where I needed to leave it, jump back over it (the hardest trick because its ravine was some 7 feet deep here, so I needed to find a spot where I could climb down, jump over, and climb back out again all without getting my feet wet), then finally set out overland toward the draw I wanted to climb and the stream that flowed out of it.

The stream was easily spotted by a dense patch of tall bushes it ran beside. I saw them and decided it was supper time. I didn’t think it likely I’d find as shady a spot for some time. I was only half right about that. I took an hour on the ground hidden in the bushes to get through dinner, then hiked up the draw filtering the stream.

This was an easy cross-country jaunt. I could walk right next to the stream when the sagebrush got too thick, or I could take a direct route straight over the flatter, clearer sections. Sometimes, I could just follow cow tracks and not think. One place, the stream got shallow and wide enough to dunk my sleeves in. It was nearly 7, but it was still pretty warm out.

Eventually, I reached a bridge and another fence. This one had a metal gate. It was chained and locked shut, but I could pull it open enough to squeeze through and step over the chain.

And now I was on a nice, clear two-track road and would be until I had climbed out of the draw and crossed to the road the CDT followed again. It was easy, smooth sailing. Without it, I still would have saved some time over taking the official road, but with it, I could save a lot of time. And this road went through some of the best looking areas I’d seen in the basin. There were a couple of actual trees and a number of excellent camp sites if I had the gall to camp overnight on private land.

I should mention that every little bit of this detour involved cows. Constant cow encounters. But this last little bit was the only part with cows that actually came up behind me and got closer as I passed. Not stalking close, but maybe standing guard close? Every earlier and later encounter, they just scattered at my approach.

Anyway, it was pretty dark by the time I reached the main road and the CDT, about 8:20, so I stopped to put on my headlamp. I had another half mile to go to the piped spring, which I reached about 8:40. But not before meeting a late night porcupine up close.

I dropped my pack in a nice sheltered campsite and took my water bag into the spring enclosure to collect some of the best water anywhere in the basin. It could filter while I set up camp and while I slept. It wasn’t a cold night, so I left it hanging from the bush all night. I was in bed by 9:30 and off to sleep an hour later. No excuse for sleeping in until 8 the next morning.

Trail miles: 20.1 (only about 17 walked)

Distance to Encampment: 38.5 miles

Jennifer and Deluxe, hiking partners since Glacier

CDT WY Section 5

Day 123: Emigrant Creek

I woke up far earlier than I wanted to. I tried to sleep in some even after the sun rose, even crawling out of my sleeping bag to try to get another hour’s nap on top of it, but the rising sun eventually made even that unbearably warm, so I gave up and started packing.

I noticed the outside of my tent had ants crawling on it, and so did my pack and everything. A lot of the packing up process was about brushing ants off of things. I had no idea I had set up so near an ant colony. It’s not one of those things you can tell in the dark.

I started hiking somewhere around 8:45. I encountered a big rattler a little after 11 climbing up to the edge of the rim. The road dropped steeply down the side of the rim into a lower valley, arriving at a very popular picnic pavilion. It was occupied by two fellow sobos, Side Quest and Safety Inspector, and a bikepacker I didn’t meet because I headed straight for the privy and spent an hour there and he was gone when I returned.

My sleepiness meant I wasn’t super motivated to hike, but neither were the other hikers. They intended to nap under the pavilion until late afternoon, then do big miles under cover of dark instead. Given how hot the days and cool the nights, it did seem likely big miles were far more likely at night, though they were hinting at doing something like 50 miles to finish out the basin all at one shot. I had much more modest goals, but I did sit under there with them chatting for a couple of hours over lunch. I hiked out again around 2.

After a bit more roadwalk, the trail joined a mostly unsigned cross-country section. I managed to stay the course for a mile or so, and then I dropped off the trail into a deep ravine for a break. The high wall of the ravine provided some afternoon shade. When I left the ravine, I found it hard to continue overland, so I dropped back into the ravine to cross the plain. I kept trying to set a course by comparing the landscape to the topo map, but I got confused between some landmarks and wound up near the highway instead. I gave up on staying in the easement and just walked down the highway a couple of miles until I reached the road that the trail joined after the cross-country section.

A few miles down this road, I came to a big pond full of wildlife. I needed the water, so I decided to have dinner there while it filtered. In addition to the cows, ducks, and beavers, I encountered a number of mosquitos. I stopped carrying DEET because I thought the season was over, but I got bit by a few of the late season stragglers while pulling water out of the pond.

It was just after sunset when I set off down the road again, intending to reach the next pond. The whole time I was walking into the setting sliver of moon until it set too, leaving me walking into the cold wind with the milky way shining on my left and the big dipper on my right. It was a few more hours, 6 miles, to the last good pond along the road, and I found a nice flat, dirt spot around 10, in bed by 11.

Trail miles: 19.1

Distance to Encampment: 58.6 miles