Month: June 2021

08 1799.5 6/22/2021 sunny and a few puffy clouds. On trail at 5:35 heading to meet up with Justin. I sent an InReach every hour with time and trail mile. I had just over 9 miles. Justin had 11 miles. I had four big climbs with the biggest first. Still not in shape. Had to “count twenty-fives” over and over. On some of the passes were snow fields to cross. Was making acceptable progress to our meetup. I was almost there when Justin messaged me that he couldn’t cross Pole Creek because it was a torrent and rapids. He checked upstream and downstream. Nada! So since I was at the meetup I would go to him. This meant going off trail for me. And up to now Justin comes to me. I’ve got it easy. Now I had to find him. Also the confusing thing is there are two Pole Creek Junctions and three trails crossings of Pole Creek. So after a few starting goofs I finally figured out where he was. Naturally getting to him included a fifth climb and a few blowdowns. So when I got there it was very clear the creek was massive. He positioned himself at the narrowest point about 25 feet away. Over the rushing water noise we could yell and hear each other. I decided to use my bear bag line, anchor it down on my side, and toss it over to him. Then he tied my three days of food in the bear bag and threw it back. It just made it over and rolled, but stopped before falling in the torrent. He wished me a happy birthday. I put my food in my pack and we split up. Him returning to the Jeep and me back to the original meetup point to continue on north tomorrow. This would included me crossing Pole Creek but must farther upstream. However it was my deepest crossing (up to my crotch) and longest (about 100 yards). I think it was 4:30-5:00 before I stopped. What a day.

See “Birthday Airmail Resupply” for Justin’s description.

07 1789.4 6/21/2021 cloudy, frost, sunny and clear. Got on trail about 5:20 with my puffy and gloves on. Frost all over the tent made it cold and heavier. The scenic beauty is outstanding. Took pictures when I could. The trail is clear as expected with only a few blowdowns that you can walk around. Had to ford 6 or more streams, and creeks. One was mid-thigh deep. Another was over 100 feet across. By the time you get to the other side they are so cold that you can’t feel your feet. Before the deeper ones I moved my phone and InReach to my shirt pockets so don’t get wet. For each I extend my poles and cross facing the current. One step at a time. Side shuffle. Don’t want to fall. Place each foot. I was hiking 25-30 minutes per mile. I had lunch at 11:30 and was nearly done. I sat on a bluff and had my food. The breeze helped keep the mosquitoes away. I was done about 30 minutes later. The mosquitoes were swarming and I had been hiking with my bug net on. I put up my wettish tent and jumped inside with my pack. But it still took me 5-10 minutes to kill the 30-40 mosquitoes that came in with me. My tent is in the sun so I opened up my umbrella inside the tent for shade and to keep cooler. The little nasty mosquitoes are all pinned against the tent’s netting wanting to get me. I took off my wet shoes, socks, and gaiters and hung them to dry. Then I laid down and had a short nap. I’m done for the day at noon so I’m just killing time. I’ll meet up with Justin tomorrow for an on-trail resupply.

06 1776.8 6/20/2021 sunny, clear, puffy monsoon clouds? In Quality Inn in Pinedale WY. Woke at 4, laid there until our agreed upon 5 am, packed up stuff into backpack, then put backpack in Jeep. In was a long one hour and 15 minute drive back to the trail. Justin is an angel for doing this. We said our goodbyes and see each other in 3 days. Got back to the CDT and knowing that the first 2-3 miles are clear I bopped along. I met two hikers coming SOBO and asked about blowdowns ahead. Then met another pair of hikers. One said it took him only 40 minutes to do the blowdowns. He was right and after a couple of messy ones the tread was clear. I sailed along and the scenery was spectacular. I feel they are better that any of the Colorado Rockies. I was making good time and mileage once the trail cleared. Oh sure there was a few more dead trees across the trail every so often, but not many. Nothing like previously. Unfortunately as I negotiated under one of the fallen tree it caught my backpack stretchy pocket and ripped a gash in it. I’ll have to repair it tonight. At lunch I sat and looked out on the majestic Wind River peaks – beautiful! I did 13 miles and it was good. The blowdown hell and the misery it caused is over for the time being. And what a different mental attitude I’ve got after taking a nearo in Pinedale.

05 1763.8 6/19/2021 sunny and some clouds. Woke at 4:45 and did my abolition’s, then went back and waited for Justin to wake at 5. I ate breakfast in my tent waiting. Then we packed up and we’re off. Overall the trail was better but we still had 4-5 bigger blowdowns. We got to the Big Sandy River and his campsite about 8:30 am. A neighbor stopped by to say hello. He mentioned the trail was ok north for three miles and then it had blowdowns. We packed up the Jeep and drove about two hours to Pinedale. We got a room and took showers to get the dirt off. All my scratches were yelling ow, ow, ow. But I felt so much better by scrubbing the dirt from the wounds. We went for lunch at a brew pub. Next door was an outfitter where I bought two pairs of pants and new hiking shoes. Oh and a pole tip. The pants were too long so we dropped them off to be altered. Justin is a great help. I couldn’t get all this done without him. Ate dinner at Pitchfork Fondue.

04 1759.9 6/18/2021 sunny, some clouds. Got up at first light, did my toilet first, came back and packed up, was on trail at 5:05. Started my climb. I was glad that I waited until the next day, because there were blowdowns. Many and dense ones. I sometimes need to climb up and balance to tightrope walk to the next one and the next before slowly getting down. I realize that I did one mile in one hour and 45 minutes. I sent an InReach message asking Justin to head my way with another days food. The InReach messages looked to be out of order or missing some. Today I lost my InReach itself when I took off my pack to crawl through a little hole of blowdowns branches. I noticed it was gone later. So I got to water, filled up and then went back. In the meantime I had gotten LTE so sent Justin some messages. I got back and found it – whew! But that would put me even later. I finally got to my stopping point and Justin messaged me that somehow he had passed me. Oh no! So I told him where I was and he had to get back to me. He did over 4 extra miles through all the awful blowdowns. OMG! He set up his tent. We ate dinner together and went over what we should do next time. First use only InReach – no cell phone. Include time and trail mileage with each message. Tomorrow is an early zero day. My pants are in tatters. I’m all scraped up especially my shins and need a shower and bandages – many, many bandages. 

See “The Blowdown Lowdown” for Justin’s description of the whole affair.

03 1755.1 6/17/2021 sunny, clear. Woke at 4:45 and was on trail at 5:20. Lots of mosquitoes buzzing my head so I ate fast. Later the mosquitoes were so bad I put my bug net on. First thing was a climb. Lots of huffing and puffing. Gotta get in shape. At the crest I began to encounter more blow downs. All day was one blowdown after another. Some were stacked six feet high. I would try to hike over but many required me to stop, climb up and descend. Bunches of blow downs looked impenetrable. I tried to go around but getting off trail is unsettling. And all I did was encounter more blowdowns. It’s exhausting. In four hours I did four miles. Embrace the brutality is the CDT. Today was brutal. I ended at 3 pm and covered about 7-8 miles. Oh and somewhere I lost my sleeping mat but still have my air mattress. And I ripped my pants on a stick and sewed them up. Tomorrow is 10 miles to Justin – OMG it might take me even longer. 

02 1746.9 6/16/2021 clear, sunny. Didn’t sleep well. I just laid there thinking. I looked at my watch and it was 12:47 am. I’m worried about snow in these mountains. I didn’t have enough to eat and I’m cold. Gotta bring a bigger dinner and my warmer sleeping bag. Looked at watch 4:10 am. Starting to get light out. Oh well sleep or no sleep I have to hike. Packed up and was on trail around 5:15. I was worried about the climbs. I should have been worried about the blow downs. One after another after another. Slowed me down. So I won’t do 15 miles today. Saw a moose about 30 feet away as it ran off. The sudden movement scared me. At about 11 am I took a break. Just sat and rested. The climbs and blowdowns were wearing me out. I ate lunch and tried to nap. I only had about 3 more miles. When I finally started again I felt better. But near the end a muscle in my right leg cramped up. That was a first. And shockingly painful. But after it relaxed I carried on for the last little bit. I got to a stream and found a camp site. So water is plentiful. 

Meetup: 01 1733.6 6/15/2021 clear, sunny. Left SLC and drove to start at mile 1722.3. Pictures, message to family, off I went at 2 pm. Justin drove ahead down the same dirt road. He got to a water crossing and it didn’t look good. So back he came. We chatted and he went off to find another better water crossing. I continued on. For the first 7 miles I climbed. I was out of breath a lot. My feet were sore too. I went from 8500 to 9200 feet. Should have been easy, but it was hard. After that it was a descent and there were many many blowdown. I kept pushing to get to Justin. I got to him at 7:30 pm. I was exhausted. A quick dinner, put up my tent, did some planning. I’ll be on my own for three days. We’ll meet up at Big Sandy trailhead.