CDT Day 38 (6/25/23)

Miles 865.6 (Red line 1059.2)- 877.1 (Redline 1070.7) (11.5 Miles)

Verbatim

I slept cold, but woke up this morning and enjoyed the warmth of the sun as it crested the rise/saddle at 6:35. I read until 7:30, and then packed up and walked the mile to Monarch Pass. There was no reason to get to the pass any earlier than 8, since the Sunday morning traffic would be so low. I made a quick drop into the Monarch Pass store, a place which is revamped and catering a bit to thruhikers. It’s actually really nice here. I’m still chilling here and it’s 3pm (Ok I didn’t sit from 7:30 to 3pm. I'd already gone into town, which is narrated in the following, and had returned to the Monarch Pass Store. I’m lazy but not that lazy).

First car to pass me stopped to give me a hitch. As I was loading up White Spot came running across the parking lot, hoping to fit in the ride. He hoped up front, and I took the back. Emily, a real CO hippy, gave us a ride down the mountain. She was heading to Denver for the pride parade. It was her first pride! She’s a birthing doula and shared a bit about what she does. It was really beautiful.

She dropped us off in Salida at White Spot’s hotel and then I walked to get bakery, resupply, and pizza and Salida. I did get pizza! Although, it was not very good. 4/10. I got a two segmented hitch back up to the pass and now I’m here journaling.

Oh! And on the way down with Emily we had to stop for some Mountain Sheep. They were brown and had pointy horns. There were two of them. And! When I was in Salida there were some women my age who rode by on mountain bikes. The one with a long brown braid said, “Hi! How’s it going?”. I said, “GOOD”. They rode past and the girl’s friend bumped and ragged her. They laughed and then the braided girl looked back. I think they thought I was cute (Or were maybe just laughing at the shoes bouncing behind my giant pack… How they could have thought I was cute from behind is beyond me. Though I do have a nice butt, but then it had shoes bouncing off of it. So again, shoes)! That’s nice. I guess it makes up for the meh pizza. :)

I hung out at the Monarch Pass store until 4pm and then I took off. One lady chatted with me about the trip. She remarked at my old shoes and how worn out they looked. I pointed out my new shoes and she said that her own shoes looked more like my old ones. She didn’t comment at all about why they were tied to my backpack.

I did 10 miles between 4 and 7:30. Man! I had to work for those miles. Collegiate West will be fun, but it will be a lot of work. Up at 12,500ft there were signs about aboriginal people hunting with stone walls and enclosure traps. That was cool to read, see, and think about. Elk were hanging out at 12k even back then! haha. The wind up high was enormous.

I should call my cousin Paul.

Post Note

He didn’t make it into this journaling, but this was the day I met Pepé Le Pew. We met while trying to hitch back up to trail. We’ll be remembering him more later. Suffice to say for now that Pepé’s grizzled, aged, and bearded hiker appearance wasn’t doing him any favors in getting a hitch. He said he’d been standing for two hours with his thumb out, if I remember. We tag teamed it and got a hitch together. I’m cuter than Pepé, so makes sense.

Let’s talk hitch hiking! To help explain a thruhiker’s experience hitching let me elucidate the rhythms of a thruhike. Thruhiking is all about moving through beautiful spaces as comfortably as possible. To be comfortable you need enough gear, enough water, enough food but not too much gear, water, or food. It’s a sort of ascetic concern, where you’re actively thinking about having just enough for your own flourishing and noticing the way in which your flourishing might be limiting another’s. Because thruhikers travel light they can travel fast. So, it’s not unusual for a thruhiker to complete a distance of 100 miles between towns in three, four, five, or six days.

At the end of a section you generally come to a road crossing from which you need to hitch (Sometimes, but unusually, you might just walk right into town. But then you’re generally road walking on the CDT at least). It might be a heavily utilized road like Monarch Pass, where the cars fly around the rise and curve of a double lane highway at 70mph with only an 1/8th of a mile’s worth of distance to notice and decide if they’re going to give you a ride. Other times it’s a rural dirt road where you’re highly recommended to have called from the last mountain top to make pickup arrangements with the local hostel or trail angel. If you failed to do so you might sit for hours waiting desperately for one random passer-by. They might give you a ride. Maybe not.

Thruhikers develop a sort of second sense about hitching. We have strategies. First then, a couple rules to keep you safe. 1. Don’t hitch at night if you can help it. 2. Hitch together with a friend if you can’t. 3. Take a picture of the driver’s front license plate (so that the driver can see you taking a picture of their license plate) and “text it to a friend” before getting in the car. Even if you don’t have service, and won’t have it until the one or two bars you might get in town, taking the photo implies you’re actively protecting yourself. If the driver has a problem with your protecting yourself at the slight expense of sharing their license you know that’s not the ride for you. 4. Don’t hitch with drunk or high people (many thruhikers have a story or two about making this mistake). 5. Go to town. Don’t go to anywhere else. 6. Always talk about how you’ll be seeing your friends in town or on trail later that day. You are not alone and are loved and expected.

The task of staying safe, in the glorious hyper sexualized culture that is the United States of America, is inevitably more precarious for women. But safety isn’t a given for male hitch hikers either. Your gut, instincts, whatever you call it will tip you off real quick if the ride doesn’t seem safe. You never have to get in a car. Unless you already have. Or, for some other threatening reason (e.g. lack of water, sickness, heatstroke), you really do need a ride now. In that case, you still shouldn’t get in the car (unless another car might not come for hours). You should just force the next car to stop by standing in the roadway safely. Hitching is different from needing help. Hitching is a consensual arrangement without imposition. Needing help for your safety is needing help. Go get it.

I don’t mean to scare you. Really. Thousands of thruhiking hitches happen each year and very few of them get any press within the community. It’s ok to take a hitch from a random. Check FarOut’s comment section on the road icon where you’re planning to hitch. You’ll be alerted if there’s something to be known. For example a comment might read; “Don’t take a ride from Joe, 50yo caucasian male w/brown hair. He’s a regular at offering rides. FREAK. He told me he’d take me to town and then wanted to drop by his house on the way down. I said no. Thankfully he took me to town and then demanded I pay him $50. I just left”. That would be an example of a pretty close to worst case scenario.

So that’s some of the more complicated factors surrounding hitch hiking from a trail. But, generally hitching is really fun! Here are some rules to help you get to town safer, faster, and with loads of fun. 1. Smile and wave. You’ll see cars going the opposite direction turn around to take you back to the town they just came from. They’ll remark that they decided to turn around because, “You just seemed so cheerful and happy”. People want that in their life and will work to access it. 2. Hold your trekking poles. They signal to cars that you’re a hiker (generally perceived as safe) and not a hitchhiker (more likely to be perceived as unsafe). If you don’t have poles then smile extra big. 3. If you’re hiking with a female, or are a female, then put the female out front! It is what it is. People in this country are much more likely to pull over for a women than they are for a man. The male hikers can hide behind the bushes and just happen to be “going to the bathroom” when the ride pulls over. Surprise! Suddenly one hiker is three! 4. Be interested in the person who’s giving you a ride to town. This is your chance to learn about small town America you liberal coastal elites. You might never get this opportunity again. Ask questions instead of giving answers. Staying happy on trail is all about staying curious. Curious about the weather. The animals. The people. 5. When possible, when safe, take a truck hitch. Hoping in the back of a pickup is the best way to ride into town.