CDT Day 67 (7/24/23)

Miles 1651.1 (Blue line 2.4)- 1664.8 (Blue line 16.1) (13.7 miles)

Verbatim

These were a surprisingly miserable fourteen miles into Dubois. The trail disappeared for a while. A fire may have come through, because I remembered this section of the trail very differently than the last time I came through. There may have been a fire? I’m not sure. I made it though, despite my frequent and tingly peeing. My arms tarted to tingle too in the heat. I think I may have been dehydrated.

I got a hitch from a guy named Steven, who said he’d gotten a divorce over his Big Horn Sheep tag. He’d waited twenty years for that tag, and once he’d gotten it he spent his whole summer training and learning the land. His wife didn’t like that, and thought he was running around on her. So, a divorce happened. He said that he’d do anything for another tag. Even get married again!

Town was good. I ate at the Cowboy Cafe three times! That place is bopping. I was able to stay at St. Thomas Episcopal Church for free with many other hikers and bikers. I made a lot of new friends. :) Pepé also caught up! He was destroying miles to catch me. I hadn’t seen him since Encampment, 350 miles ago. It doesn’t seem that long, but it has been a bit.

In the grocery store today (7/25) I saw bear spray for sale. it comes in a huge plastic container that has a ton of extra plastic in flat pieces to make a box shape and create space for advertising. It’s atrocious. I would have had to carry that if not for Matt(?) giving me his bear spray below South Pass City. So much useless plastic. I have a lot to be thankful for, despite my broken pole and accumulating trash. I am excited for an empty backpack.

I was able to get permits for Yellowstone, which was really nice. I ‘ve also got a zero coming up with Loraine and Chuck. It’s exciting to get out of Wyoming in this next stretch. The mosquitoes will be hell, but hopefully will calm down in ID/MT.

A lady was killed by a Grizzly in West Yellowstone. So, I’ll be taking the Mack’s Inn alternate to get around that area. It’s a real bummer, but continues to shave off miles from the trip. With this adjustment I think there’s less than 1000 miles left on the trip. The count down has begun.

Ok I think I’ll go read some dioramas now (I writing from the Dubois Bighorn Sheep Museum). Gotta practice before Yellowstone.

Enjoying eating enough in town is a very difficult task.

Post Note

I remember my arms tingling as I walked the dirt forestry road down to the highway outside Dubois. I think I had a headache too. I certainly felt sort of hazy by the time I reached this dirt road. I remember feeling concerned. I couldn’t change anything about the situation. I still had a few miles to walk and no random car was going to come up the road to find me. Going faster would exacerbate the feeling. Going slower or stoping would prolong the exposure. So. Whatever. This is thruhiking. I’ll know if something really bad is coming on. All I have to do is walk.

When I got to the road from which I would hitch, which was a 60+ mph two lane highway sort of road, I remember standing on the shoulder chagrined that there was no shade. I’d stood at this exact spot a year ago and hitched, but for some reason I remembered that there was shade. There wasn’t. So, I stood in the shadow of the stop sign at the end of the forestry road. From there I put my best “I’m a nice guy” smile on and waited with my thumb out.

You might think thruhikers have scrawny arms. You’d be correct. haha. We do. But, and maybe on account of how scrawny our arms have truly become, we do get an upper body workout in once ever four days or so when we’ve got to hold our arm up to hitchhike. Sometimes you have to hold your arm up and then move it down and the up again for hours! Man that can be exhausting. Especially when your arms are tingling. Here’s the thing. If you want a ride quick then you need to invest. You need to show you care. Do a dance. Wave your arm. Plead your case to cars going both directions. Sacrifice your sun protection by taking off your sunglasses, hat, and hood so drivers can actually see your face. Definitely don’t sit down to hitch; that apathetic stance will leave you stranded on the road. And, maybe the worst sacrifice for the male thruhiker trying to come home with a trophy, consider shaving your beard. I asked a lot of thruhikers, male and female, whether they thought a beard helped or hindered a hiker’s attempt at thruhiking. The jury is still out. I got 50/50 responses yes or no. I think I’m team shaving your beard helps. What do you think?

But then came Steven, my savior. He had one of those old cars with a bench seat. Windows down. Huge ultimate sniffing dog in the back. I forget what those are called. Bloodhounds! I was so thankful to sit. So thankful to have a roof. So thankful to feel the wind in my face. And he was funny. He was SO READY to talk about his Sheep tag and hunt. I was really stunned when I heard the story. I felt a sort of empathetic response. There in the passenger seat with my headache and tingly arms while leaking urine. Oh yeah. I’ve also been so invested in whatever the hell I’ve got going on that the person I loved beside me felt unseen, uncared for, and secondary to a world she didn’t understand. Damn.

But how could I have done any different? How could I have not gone on these trips. How could I have not struggled at work in the hospital. How could Steven explain that the reason he was suddenly trimming down, muscling up, and gone for four days at a time twice a week wasn’t because he was hooking up with some beauty, it was because he was walking all day? His joke was the real kicker. I didn’t hear it right the first time and had to ask him to repeat himself. Yes. He’d do it all again. I don’t want this paragraph to come off as an effort to explain myself. It’s just a voicing of the sort of exacerbating hopelessness I feel when I look at the mistakes I’ve made. How could I have been any different? I was just being me.