CDT Day 61 (7/18/23)

Miles 1490.9 (Red line 1709.7)- 1503.5 (Red line 1722.3) (12.6 miles)

Verbatim

I’m journaling from the morning of the 20th from the Roadside Inn in Lander. Toledo was happy to split a room with me, which was SUPER kind. I think I needed to spend a night off trail as well, so I’m quite happy. Yesterday I felt super stressed in the grocery store (Oh man wow I’d forgotten about that). I saw a random bench in the produce section and just had to sit down. Buying food for this next section feels stressful because of how long the section is. And, there’s less and less room in my backpack to pack it all. My bag ends up feeling very top heavy, which feels very obnoxious on my body.

Toledo, when I arrived at the room and shared this stress, described how he thought the experiment would hit a breaking point. I said I thought he was right. But what is that breaking point? I don’t know! There’s stress now, but once I’m into the next section things will make themselves clear. It’s this big section and then it’s Yellowstone. Yellowstone will be fun! The plastic really has become a hindrance though. it’s not really a “fun” experiment anymore. Now my shoulders hurt with the weight, and I’m putting off getting new shoes so as not to add to the weight.

I’m feeling more tired, being further into the trip, and wish for things to be more streamlined and more easy. And, that’s just not the way things will be. That’s ok though. All you can do is be willing to walk again each day. And, I’m willing to do that. I want to be in the Winds! Going up a forested mountain pass will change my mood. I’ll be happily slapping mosquitoes away while working hard. It will be good.

In better news, I bought a new shirt and filter yesterday. So that’s good! My last shirt was made of wool, so I got to throw it out! This one is not, so it will be with me until the end. We’ll see how different it smells. I was also able to get a new filter without an affiliated bag! So, there’s some weight saving! I ended up buying a new 1L bottle because my old one had opened pinholes due to stress. I didn’t need to do that though… I could have just used the plastic bag which came with my original filter. I didn’t think of that. Oh well.

The miles themselves yesterday were fine. I passed through South Pass city and made some friends. That was fun and energizing. It will be good to start seeing so many SOBO’s!

Post Note

Ah man. There was a real bummer I didn’t write about on this day. My friend Scrambles, who would later crush that 80+ 24 hour challenge in the desert and encounter a young man who thought she was cute, was in Lander WY the morning which I was hitching in. Getting a hitch into Lander took a long time. I had to wait until Toledo caught up and his friends came to get him. I was allowed to hop in. :) But, Scrambles and I hitched right past each other! She came back to trail just as I went in. Dang.

One of the really fun parts of thruhiking is seeing your old friends. Thruhiking is such a unique way to meet people, form relationships, and share mutual history. No one else really gets “it” like your thruhiking friends do. So, when you excitedly learn that your friends from a previous trail will be out somewhere along the same dirt ribbon you’ll be on this summer you get really excited. Sorry to have missed you Scrambles… You are awesome!

Synthetic shirts suck. Wool shirts are much better for thruhiking. They do sort of rot off your body… But that’s ok! Better than a plastic shirt which doesn’t ever rot but carries all the same microbial yuck that a wool shirt does. Synthetic materials smell different, I think they smell much worse. They breathe horribly. They feel tight and confining. And the color was worse. This new shirt was sky blue. The previous shirt was orange! I missed my old shirt. My old shirt was much better hiking style. And now I have this light blue Pataguchi shirt sitting in my closet and I’ll like NEVER use it again.

I used to keep my old thruhiking shirts. I’d heard of hikers doing that so wanted to give it a try. I actually left two of my previous shirts in L’s closet. I stuffed them in the back and thought it was funny and kind of romantic when she eventually found them. I like to play little games like that. I don’t know. I think it’s silly and fun. I also know it helped me feel close to her even when I was very far away. Like, here’s an emblem of the most important part of my life right now that I really want to anchor somewhere with you. She mailed them back to me back when I was in NM. I knew because my parents sent a photo to me of the contents. I don’t keep my shirts anymore. They simply don’t have a use and they take up space. It’s kind of interesting actually to be writing about this now. I just received a new shirt (wool) in the mail for my next hike. I washed it in the tub with a little detergent because wool (you don’t really need to ever wash it with anything but water) and now it’s hanging on my wall mirror. I can hear the water splat down on the hiking pad I laid out beneath it to keep water off the carpet.