Sunday, August 25th

Sunday, August 25th. Day 68

Today's miles = 10.5 Total CDT miles = 1015.3

I wanted to get up early this morning so that I could make it to the trailhead early and have all day in town. I didn't know how the hitch to town was going to be so I wanted to give myself plenty of time to get there. The 10 miles to town were bumpier than I had expected and there were SO many people on the trail. The trail to town wasn't the CDT. In this section (Wind River Range) there are no good exit points from the CDT to roads. So, I had to hike 10 miles out of the way to get to a trailhead that had a road that led to Pinedale. The Winds is about a 170 mile section of really hard and really beautiful terrain. The amount of food I would have needed to carry to make it through this section would have been absurd and almost impossible for me personally. If it were a normal section and I wasn't going over pass after pass at elevations 12,000+ I would have been able to do it. But because that wasn't the case I sucked it up and hiked the 10 miles off trail. During that 10 miles I kept leapfrogging with a weekend hiker about my age or so. We would talk a little and continue hiking. I got to the road first before him and when he got to the trail head he offered Monkey and I a ride to Pinedale. He dropped us off right in the center of town in front of the Chinese restaurant. I went in immediately! I had gotten a text from Panama and Beth saying they were in Pinedale and did we want to do lunch. I responded that we were at the Chinese place and they should join us. We all gorged ourselves on Chinese food (I had sesame tofu) and then went over to the hotel and split a room four ways. The shower was fantastic and the hotel had laundry so it wasn't too hectic to get all my town chores done. After I was all clean I resupplied at Family Dollar. There was a full service grocery store in town but it was a mile away from the hotel. I was not about to walk a mile there and back when there was a Family Dollar across the street from the Hotel. I didn't quite get the food selections I wanted but I bet I saved a bit of money.

Panama, Beth, Baboon, and I all walked down to a bar for pizza and beer for dinner. Wyoming has no idea what real pizza is either but we were all too hungry to be picky. Around 10pm or so Beth and I walked back to the room and Baboon and Panama went to the Brewpub for some more drinks. I was glad I hadn't gone when I got back to the Hotel and saw that Batman was on TV!! Score! I fell asleep to Batman and woke up only when Panama and Baboon came stumbling in a few hours later.