Shiny Days on the CDT and PCT

I think I’m developing a bit of a morning routine. I woke up around six and heard the sounds of packing, but managed to doze until 7. Then right away, I set to repairs. A better patch job on my pump sack and another emergency glove repair from where I had ripped a finger open getting a loose seam caught in my tent zipper the night before.

I heard some packing from my neighbor as I was packing the inside of my tent. When I came out at 8, I saw he was the only one of the many people who had camped there who was left. And he was nearly packed. And so was I. In fact, I kept packing while we chatted and we left at nearly the same time.

It was a bit of a strain chatting because his English was very limited. I eventually got across the idea I wanted to know the water situation to the north, which confused him until he figured out I’m nobo. Eventually, I just asked what his native tongue was. He looked Chinese to me, but he said Japanese.

I woke up at 6, then actually managed to doze off and get that elusive eighth hour of sleep, waking up at 7 to start the day. I noticed a couple of my toe nails needed trimming once I emerged from my sleeping bag and saw my bare feet in the light. I did that, and then went to put on my socks, only to notice they both had small holes at the toe seam–which might just have aligned with those toe nails that had needed trimming. So I took out the thread and darned them right up. Socks are mission critical, and repairs to them never wait, unlike my poor ragged gloves. Of which the right one made a tearing sound as I pulled it on–I’d ripped a stitch, and a whole long repair was going to come unraveled if I didn’t act immediately. So I got the thread back out. Sometimes gloves have emergencies too. By the time I finally got to a point I could leave my tent, my back was sore from sitting up inside it.

Even with all that extra work plus filtering the water I had hung from the tree before I could make breakfast, it’s a wonder I was able to leave camp by a quarter to nine.

I woke up around 6, decided that wasn’t a full night’s sleep, and slept in another hour. Or tried to. The attempt was interrupted by both an early morning shower that was brief but intense (and not at all reflective of the day’s weather) and my 6:30 alarm. And of course the dozing was uneasy with that constant nagging feeling there’s a mosquito inside–there were certainly dozens buzzing around under the rainfly. Around 7, I called it and started packing. I hiked out before 8:30, the sun still having not yet reached my tent right up to the moment I took it down and stowed it–a row of tall shaded the whole area.

I woke up at the 6:30 alarm and decided to start the day with stitching up holes in the Frankengloves. After one repair on each glove, it was already a little after 7, so I decided the other 97 new holes and tears can wait. Buff sun gloves have high initial quality, but succumb to attrition quite rapidly. Soon they will contain more thread from my repairs than in the fabric they are made from.

Things are probably getting hectic right about now in terms of getting places and arranging things, so here’s just a little something to ensure I don’t miss a day in the kerfuffle.

Comic copyright 2021 Kendra “Skunkbear” Allenby. @kendra_allenby on insta. http://kendraallenby.com

I woke up before 6 feeling surprisingly well-rested for once. Also, there were far fewer mosquitos under my tent than the previous morning. Since my pack was already in the tent with me, I didn’t even have to unzip the tent to do most of my preparations. I got started hiking about 7:30.

I don’t want to firmly conclude that there are fewer mosquitos in Idaho, but this day’s experiences do point in that direction.

I woke up at 6 to find a mosquito in my inner tent with me. I killed it, decided six hours of sleep wasn’t going to cut it, then rolled over and passed out again until nearly 8.

That was when I noticed I had left the bottom of my tent flap unzipped. Thank goodness mosquitos are pretty stupid on the whole. There were dozens of mosquitos perched on the outside of my inner tent, on the underside of my rainfly, or buzzing around between the two, just waiting for me to unzip it again and give them a crack at me.

As I packed up, there were a couple of light sprinkles of rain that came and went quickly. They pointed to it not being the same kind of weather as the previous two days. Only two more mosquitos slipped in while I was moving things in and out of the inner tent in preparation to face the day. They both died to a single stroke. Finally, with everything clear inside and repellent smeared on, I donned my head net and crawled out into the mosquito maelstrom. I looked up… and the weather was actually beautiful. A few small hazy clouds here and there, but a good bit of blue too. I started hiking around 9:30.

It’s another beautiful day in the valleys of Southwestern Montana. Once again, blue skies all day. A summary of the trail: giving the mosquitos a pied piperesque tour of several adjacent valleys just east of the border ridge.

I wanted to wake earlier, and I did. I woke first around six, then dozed with my watch right in front of my face until it went off at 6:30, and then I got on the trail by 8. I’d be walking on less sleep, but I could shift the schedule for the whole day back to where it should better be.

I didn’t quite get my full 8 hours this time, but I got pretty close. I woke up at 7:30, taped my toes, ointmented those chafe spots on my legs, and packed. When I emerged from my tent, there was a man in a white cowboy hat standing in the trail looking at his phone. He waved, I waved back, and no words were said. I went back to packing and when I looked up again, he was gone.