CDT Day 49 (7/6/23)
Miles 1142.1 (Red line 1338.2)- 1158.6 (Red line 1371.6) (16.5 miles)
Verbatim
I’m in my tent with thousands of mosquitoes. Let’s count them. Quick estimate says 75 mosquitoes. All under my tarp with me. They want somewhere warm to shelter for the night I guess. We’ll see how many there are in the morning. I also had two gear malfunctions while setting up camp. I stepped on and bent my shepherd’s hook stake, and I noticed the foot box of my sleeping bag has a small rip in it. So I’m losing feathers. I’ll need to get a patch at Steamboat (Ski Haus?) and also buy some stakes. The bent stake wouldn’t be a problem except that I lost a stake somewhere last night while setting up camp.
Ok. There’s more mosquitoes now. I’m overrun. They’re starting to land on my hand while writing. I should have hiked later in the day to avoid this time in camp… But so much happened today!
Grand Pizza in Grand Lake
Pins at RMNP
Three moose during a road walk!
More Lord of the Rings
A dude gave me $10 for ice cream in Grand Lake and I bought some from Max!
Post Note
Oh man. A lot did happen this day. It started off with my taking an alternate to make it to town on what the comments claimed was better trail. It wasn’t, at least not the way I found. There was lots of bushwhacking, and it wasn’t what Pepé would have considered to be the “French way”. It was not a shortcut. I was pushing through the brushes though, and I’d see Moose later that day. So, it was pretty exciting actually in retrospect. You never know when you’re going to make a new friend.
The pizza at Grand Lake pizza was not good. It was way too heavy and thick. I packed some of it out and threw it away the next day. That’s the ultimate dismissal as far as I’m concerned. Even the experience at the store wasn’t good. They had indoor seating, which I hoped to use to charge my electronics at. So I asked to sit down and they sort of dismissively said “ok”. There were outside tables as well, but they only wanted to use those for people waiting for their to-go orders. Anyways, I was inside and in my normal town day mental fog and sat for like twenty minutes before realizing that you had to go order and pickup at the front counter. Even if you were ordering for inside seating. So I sort of sheepishly went up and ordered and then said I was to-go after all and sat outside anyways. Pepé arrived somewhere in that whole mix and it was even more confusing for a bit. I did get to make one positive comment to a family on the way out. That was nice, but not worth the discomfort of waiting inside. When I got my pizza I didn’t leave. I was just nice to people and then they wanted to do things like buy pizza and sit and talk and give us money for ice cream. Having a thruhiker out front can be good for business.
There were three Moose visible during the road walk. I didn’t go up into RMNP’s high alpine zone because the permitting was so confusing. Apparently there used to be a fire? And because there used to be a fire you could only camp at one spot if you were nice? It was unintelligible. I called the office and the person behind the phone literally was like “yeah it’s really confusing and not worth it”. So I didn’t do it. I walked five miles of road with Pepé and cut off about thirty-five miles of trail. Pepé decided to follow me, which I actually felt really bad about. I could tell he wanted to red line and walk as much as possible. This was his final trip to the United States of America. But he came along just as well. I don’t want to be responsible for someone else’s miles! Ah! So on the road walk together we saw some moose and swatted some flies and waved to some RMNP staff playing a game in a parking lot. We stopped at a ranger station and I had to look at the beautiful animal pins they have for sale there. SO PRETTY. I love beautiful pins. Glossy laminate. It’s awesome.
I did read more LOTR in the library while I charged my things. I didn’t think about it until right now but I got to talk with a father and his young daughter about trail. She was curious, and he was encouraging her to be curious. I think of the father and little girl in Lordsburg. Why do some people receive certain expressions of grace and other’s don’t? Why are some people grown through so much pain that they have to pass it on? Why do I do that too?
I did get some money for ice cream from some rich dude with a fancy car. It was really nice of him to spot me $10! I passed it right along to Max, a thruhiker from another summer, who said in the Guthook comments that he’d hook up the biggest ice cream for any thruhiker who came through. I thought $10 would go a long ways towards a big tip. But it sort of didn’t. Everything is expensive in Grand Lake.