CDT Day 95 (8/21/23)

Miles 2271.6 (Unmarked alternate)- 2297.6 (Red line 2642) (26 miles)

Verbatim

I didn’t go to bed early enough in the motel, so yesterday (writing from 8/22) was a tired day. It was raining and that looked really intimidating in the morning. The asphalt was wet and dark at 6:10am when I awoke. In passing showers it would rain really hard outside. I’d scheduled to shuttle with Lennon, a super sweet high schooler who is making bank on shuttling CDT hikers.

Prior to the shuttle at 10 I ate bagels and a cinnamon roll at a coffee shop. Even though I indicated I was eating in the restaurant they still served me the cinnamon roll in a plastic box! WHAT why? And why not heat it up?… It was so deflating to hear my number called and see that plastic box. It made me angry. I went up to the counter and asked if she’d take back the box. All that had been done was a stuff bun placed upon in. She said “no, I can’t take anything back, but why don’t you just take it and then throw it out when you’re done with it”. Ok lady. ok. I’ll do that. Thanks.

The bagels at the shop were good, but I went over to the grocery store and bought walnut cinnamon rolls for half the price that were honestly much better…

The walking was really cloudy. There were moments of sun. But only moments. Thankfully there was no rain. Not until camp. Walking in clouds, though, is wet/damp. So the day took on a general dreariness. Sparkled with moments of beauty, however, like when walking a tree lined road/path in a cloud, or when the clouds would lift and you could look out to see clouds below skirting the shoulders of the mountains.

On the road walk up to the Divide/red line I met and chatted with a man who was out geocaching with his two young sons. He shared a cucumber with me from the garden! A much better gift than any cinnamon roll. I felt so good after eating that cuke.

I also ran into Amelia Earhart and Jesus at a random intersection. They’d come up the wrong road, but quickly made it clear that they were rocking a more efficient low elevation route than the official CDT. They probably will have saved 8-10 miles of walking by the time they get back on the path.

I listened to a lot of Critical Role today. I don’t really want to be here and it’s showing.

There were also lots of cows.

Post Note

I remember a couple really beautiful things about this day that I didn’t mention above. I’d walked out of a row of trees and alongside a small meadow. I could barely make out the trees on the other side through the clouds, but the grassland between us was really vivid and calm in the pale grey glow. Movement was sparse and so caught your eye really clearly. I watched a Hawk hunt after a small Bird across the meadow. The Bird was nimble and evaded certain death several times, but the Hawk was faster and could gather pace on the Bird. Eventually the small one ducked into the tight boughs of a pine and was safe.

There was also a really good gully that the trail descended into. You dropped a super steep fifty or so feet only to shoot out the other side up onto an old and overgrown logging road which you joined as it rounded a rock buttress. Down in the gully it was still. It was a deeper green down there. It felt sacred, like a grotto. Like you could enter the spirit world there.

I also remember pooping. I’d dug into the desiccated corpse of a long deceased tree. Those sweet smelling crumbly bits of oranged pine move so easily. I made a really deep hole, but only the bottom few inches of it was dirt. I did my business, made my poop soup, and covered everything back up. I wondered if it would be more or less likely to be torn open by some curious animal. Certainly easier to tear open, but perhaps more difficult to find on account of the earthy pine?

At one point in the day I’d expected to get water from a stream, but it was so completely/totally overrun by cattle. That water was liquid death. But the cows didn’t care. They’ll shit and drink at the same time. Cows are sort of funny on open range. They’ll see you from a far and get really curious. They all watch you as you pass. Some might come closer thinking you have some business with them. But, upon getting closer, they can recognize the fact that they don’t recognize you. Then they shimmy away to a “safe” distance. That distance is usually only ten feet further away from you than the point at which they realized they didn’t trust you.

Then there was one point in the evening when the clouds opened up just right. I took some pictures. I even posted one to instagram. But it just isn’t the same.

I got to camp late and set up in the dark. I set up without my tarp and then it rained on me only an hour later. I did am emergency midnight ascension of my bent trekking pole tarp setup.