CDT Day 42 (6/29/23)

Miles 970.6 (Red line 1166.5)- 986.3 (Red line 1182.2) (15.7 miles)

Verbatim

Today was a pretty good day! The mosquitoes are bad again so I may not write much. I’m camped right now amidst a group! There’s Michelle, Snake, Durdin, and Sarah. They’re sort of a tramily and all quite fun. Michelle is like a personal trail angel. She’s following these three along the CDT this summer in preparation for her own thruhike of the CDT next summer. She’s 69, thinks she has only about 4000 miles left on her hips, so she has to be careful about how much walking she does. Still, she’s hiking about sixteen miles a day Durdin says! Just in eight and back out eight to the van, which she then drives to see her friends on the other side.

Snake is from England and has quite the sense of humor. I like him.

Durdin lost a sister at thirty-six and his father at sixty-seven last year. So, he’s living by hiking.

Sarah lived abroad and this is her first thruhike! She’s a wonderful and a very attentive conversationalist.

Leadville was stressful but good. I finished Blood and Fire, bought a Melly, and mailed those two along with my ice ax back home. The pizza was great. I need to wash my pot tomorrow morning.

Post Note

High Mountain Pies was the best pizza on the CDT. No competition. I was hungry. Vegetables. I ate a whole pizza which tasted good the whole time. I wasn’t hungry anymore. The experience didn’t make me feel sick. I’m a simple man. 10/10

Hey! If Michelle can hike the CDT at 70 with only 4000 miles left on her hips than so can you. Get out there!

Also. Town days are really stressful. They’re busy and full of things to do. It’s much easier to remember simple tasks like washing out a pot out on trail. You remember to wash your pot because you need to use it. In town, however, you get to eat yummy things like eggs and pizza and burritos instead of less yummy things like ramen and knorr pasta sides and oatmeal. So, it’s easy to miss the task of cleaning your pot. That is, however, until you try to shove the left over third of your second burrito which you just can’t finish into your pot to take back to trail to eat before bed. That’s when you realize that your pot, uncleaned since yesterday’s dinner or the morning’s oatmeal, has really begun to smell during the hot day in town. To stuff your burrito inside that pot now would be gross.

To be honest. I never really clean my pot when I’m out on trail. I mean, that’s not completely true. If I think about it I’ll wash it in a stream with stream bed sand and watch all the little left over oats or ramen crumbs wash away to feed the fishies. PSA: You’re not supposed to wash your pot in a stream. You’re supposed to take water something like 150 feet away and then wash and scatter your dirty water across the land. But, no one does that. At least that’s what I’d like to think. I certainly don’t follow that rule…

Sooo… The way I normally clean my pot is by not really cleaning it at all. I just, over a four day section, allow for the continual circulation of left over food to move through the pot. It’s not dangerously microbial as long you replace each previous meal’s debris with this meal’s current left overs. As I’m eating my oatmeal I make sure to use my spoon to scrub all the the ramen from last night into the oatmeal. Rinse (or not) and repeat for dinner. This strategy doesn’t work, however, if you’ve left your pot to boil like a Petri dish in town during the day.